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The Child says:

Who am I?

Do I belong?

Why am I born?

The Mother says:

You are my child and so you belong.

You are my child and so you are loved.

Child of Earth, to which you are born.

I’m glad you’ve come to join the dance

Accepting your inheritance

Of love, nature, wander and joy.

The Earth says:

Mother and Child,

A pair in perfection,

Welcome.

The Child says:

What shall I do?

Can I love too?

Show me how--

I want to!

The Mother says:

It’s easy, Child,

And then it’s hard.

First, unclose your eyes to feel the light;

Attune you ears to follow the song;

Open your heart to touch the world;

Stand and spread your arms and sing!

This is the way to welcome all things

And see what the sound of your own voice brings.

The Earth says:

Each seed deserves the time and place

To nutrify and grow its shoot

And then to root and show its face

In nascent bloom and sun’s embrace.

The Child says:

I am grateful, Mother, for what you provide.

You teach me how to swim the tides;

Some people are giving, and some people not;

Some people are loving, and others not.

I know who to seek and find;

For I choose those who are kind of my kind!

The Earth says:

The Child learns well as

As a mollusk of the sea observes

the contours of its nautilus shell

with equanimity .

The Mother says:

My Child, you grow in complexity!

You reach, expand and come to be.

You potentiate your possibilities.

Now remember, I said two things of love:

It’s easy, then it’s hard.

For when your heart is open

For all the world to see,

You show your strength of character

in your vulnerability.

And when your heart is open

It opens to everything;

So while you sow the fruits of love

you also bear their sting.

For a heart that loves

Is a heart that gives

Is a heart that takes

Is a heart that breaks.

It’s strange that love can bring one pain

But that is the risk of loving.

Yet after loss and after hurt,

And (yet) healing comes and then a calm,

A knowing of vicissitudes

that spurs us on

to gain the strength to love again.

The Child says:

Mother, you are wise.

And with your wisdom I arise

To take the measure of each day .

The Earth says:

The spring of motherhood ever flows,

Ever guides, ever knows.

Things move in currents

And tides eternal come and go

Yet all is recognizable

In the rhythms of life’ s ebb and flow.

The Mother says:

Now one last thing, my Child

As you are of the age

Where you can find kind of your kind

You must go from me, and I from you

So you can make your own way through

Without my fuss and bother.

And know my saying I love you

Affirms to us that we are two:

I am I, and you are you;

this makes all the difference.

Go in peace, and I the same

and may you find your own TRUE NAME!

The Child says:

Goodbye my Mother! It is time

to walk the earth in my own rhyme

And grow my fruit in my own clime

And be the gardener of my vine.

*The emboldened text has been set to music.