In the beginning there were the simple things; Air, Earth, and Water, air from the cosmos the breath of life, earth from cosmic dust, water for the breath of life.
Out of that simple trinity comes life, as we know it on our planet the Earth.
We saw that fountain of perpetual and eternal youth today, that virgin birth when it all begins.
There is a lovely little valley in the nearby mountains whose slopes are
covered with deciduous hardwood trees and whose bottom is silver-threaded with a bright
and sparkling, pure mountain stream. Near the foot of the ridge, on its sunny southern
side, the sun shines like a beacon on a thick carpet of last year's milk-chocolate leaf
cover, nestled snuggly in a womb-like depression on the forest floor. In the center of
this maternal scene, birth is taking place as pristine as the Earth's very first born. A
virgin spring surges out of the ground, fringed in a light tan leafy brown gown. Its
nourishing nectar erupts with such an enthusiasm; our hearts leap up with it for the joy
in the new life that it brings. It no more than exists from the ground that it moves on as
a little booklet, which flows quickly downward to enter the heart of the valley. A
bounding brook carries it ever onward to join with others to become a stream that flows
into lakes and rivers and oceans.
It is true, of course, that this is all a part of a miraculous cycle that continues upward into the skies from which we all ultimately come. Snows and rains are formed there once again and fall to the Earth where their moistures seep into the soil percolating into its soul. A gradual coalescence happens out of the many little subterranean pools that join together at the surface once more as a mountain spring.
When it comes to the magic of our life for living on the good Earth, it is here in this place, and from this spring where it all begins.
Copyright © 1988-2000 Barbara A. Smith and John G. Hipps. All rights reserved.
This essay was first published April 12, 1989 in the Free-Press Courier, Westfield, Pennsylvania.