THE DAY THE EARTH MOVED

A Spiritually Meditative Tale by Robert Egby

The Pastor's voice came over loud and clear like an angel carrying God's message: “Experience Mother Earth. Connect to Her. Feel Her Pulse. By doing so, you will experience yourself. You will reconnect to yourself. You will feel your own pulse.”

“Wow!” she’s talking my language, I told myself thankfully. I could just see myself in a flimsy vest and old hippy pants and bare feet lying flat on my stomach embracing Mother Earth. Ecstasy! Union with the Creator! My Consciousness merged with Eternal Wisdom of the Universe! What a deal.

With mad abandon I threw myself onto our lush green lawn, totally forgetting in my wild enthusiasm that it was the gardener’s day to mow the lawn. He din’t see me until the blades were ready to clip my hair. I almost fainted in terror.

So much for home meditation on the lawn. A voice from somewhere suggested the patch of grass at the side of the Church, so I zipped barefoot across the road and threw myself down on the sacred grass.

Two minutes later my reverie with Infinite Intelligence was shattered by a hand tapping my head. “Are you all right, sir?” I thought it was God but it turned out to be a young fireman thinking he might get a promotion for finding a dying man on the church lawn.

“I am meditating,” I growled in my stupor. “Don’t you meditate?”

“I’m a Union mediator. Is that close enough?”

The man flew away when the fire house sirens howled through the morning sunshine. I returned to my rendezvous with Mother Earth.

Three minutes later the back of my head started feeling funny. Distinctly wet in fact. A warm unpleasant wetness. I jerked back into the real world and spotted a big black dog trotting away.

“Sorry about that,” said the priest. “He pees on anything dead. I’ll have the sister clean you up. A nun carrying a bucket and a mop appeared and dowsed my head with suds. The towel was like old sandpaper, but at least I felt dry afterwards.

At this point I was convinced that I had to find a patch of grass far from civilization. The town park possessed a wide expanse of beautiful trees, bushes and grassland and hardly anyone was there on a weekday. I gazed at a patch that seemed right. It was about 100 feet from the park fence and an old dark house that appeared dead stood on the other side. This would do. It was quiet and no one would disturb my bliss. So I threw myself face down onto the ground.

The meditation was wonderful. Idyllic! Couldn’t have been better. I felt the earth energies swimming through my body. My head purred with delight. Then I felt the earth move! Slowly at first. I really considered this was the power of the meditation. I was as the Pastor said feeling the Earth’s pulse. My mind zipped back to Ernest Hemingway’s description of ecstasy – the earth moved! It was moving! “You are so right, Ernie.”

Somehow I felt I was slipping on the grass, going down head first. Hands grabbed my ankles and pulled me back. I struggled to sit up.

“What’s going on?” It was a uniformed cop silhouetted in the morning sunshine. For a moment I thought it was an angel..

“I was only meditating,” I stammered. “Anything wrong with that?”

“You’re in a sink hole area,” snapped the lawman. “There are notices everywhere.”

“I don’t read when I meditate,” I protested.

Several other people came running up. “Get back,” snarled the cop. “Can’t you people read either?”

“Just then the sink hole expanded and the widening orifice gobbled up the park fence and with it the old dark house started to crumble. The timbers creaked in protest and groaned. “My God,” cried the cop. “Everyone evacuate. Everyone back.”

We all moved away to safe ground and watched as the old dark house slid down the gaping hole into oblivion. A cloud of dust mushroomed over the hole like a mini-atomic bomb blast. Someone with a camera cried: “I’ve got it. I’ll put it on Youtube.”

An elderly lady who resembled the evil witch from the Wizard of Oz and flourishing a lethal-looking silver nobbed cane came hobbling up,. “What happened officer? What happened?”

The cop stared at the woman. “I haven’t a clue lady. This man said he was meditating on the grass….”

The woman flung her hands into the air and screamed. “That’s my house at the bottom of the hole. Who gave you permission to meditate?”

“It was only an Earth meditation,” I said weakly.

Upon reflection that was the wrong thing to say. I vaguely recall a silver nob flying through the air towards me before I blacked out. When I woke up in hospital it was like a community meeting. They were all there. The fireman who resuscitated me, the priest who wanted to give me the Last Rites, the nun who said I could come to tea, the cop who was at a loss to assign blame, and the witch who said she was going to sue me for the loss of her house.

Just then, the mayor came by and asked: “I’m getting complaints there’s a sink hole on the park caused by some earth-loving jerk.” He stared at me, and added: “Who is this?”

“The earth-loving jerk,” said the cop quickly.

“The Public Works Department has a vacancy. Want a job?”

When I finally reached home the woman was planting marigolds. “I’m getting the feeling of being close to Mother Earth.” Then she stared at the bruise on my head. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing much. I did a meditation and the earth moved.”

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