Missa Gaia

For the Earth forever turning
For the skies, for every sea
For our lives, for all we cherish,
Sing we our joyful song of peace

For the world we raise our voices,
For the home that gives us birth;
In our song of joy returning
Home to the blue-green hills of earth

I don’t know where I first heard that this song was inspired by a science fiction story by Robert Heinlein but each time I hear it I am reminded in the haunting last line of the iconic image of the “earth rise” taken by one of the Apollo astronauts. Wikipedia provides a bit of background. Heinlein tells a story about a radiation-blinded spaceship engineer crisscrossing the solar system humming poetic lyrics about “home” as if the spaceship and crew were a contemporary tramp steamer.

Wikipedia adds that the song was echoed on Paul Winter's 1982 album Missa Gaia/Earth Mass, in which Susan Osborn sang the lead on The Blue Green Hills of Earth. The connection was suggested to him by astronaut Rusty Schweickart who described his view of Earth from orbit.
It is not hard to imagine the longing for home that space travelers will feel. Even now returning to Vancouver from Seattle the North Shore Mountains rise blue-green in the distance as one waits in lineups at the border. Mars rovers have shown us spectacular visions of the Martian deserts and craters but it is a dead world where seas have vanished and the skies are rusty red.
Ours is the first generation that cannot take this “home” for granted. The small oasis in this solar system is a fragile jewel. Future generations may return singing joyful songs of homecoming but we are here now with the responsibility to preserve the “mountains, hills and pastures in their silent majesty.” Whenever the Missa Gaia is performed we can join in singing, “For our lives, for all creation, sing we our joyful praise to Thee.”

Comments

[Ann Jarnet]

I have just returned to my barren land from Montreal and drove with an eagerness I haven't felt for a long time. Spring came late to this area and I observed lilacs long-spent in Montreal, less-spent in Québec, almost fading in the Charlevoix region and in full bloom about 240 km from here, where they haven't shown off yet. I have something to look forward to, perhaps the last place for this hardy jewel to flower. I haven't seen the local irises along side the road; it's no use picking them, they don't want to be in a vase where they fade and die within hours.

The leaves have finally emerged from the branches and the green colour resembles the palest of the background on this website. There's a wonderful place 10 km from here where purple flowers are invading the forest; it's the first time I've seen them since 2003 when I moved here. I must find a way to gather info about them and their leap-year qualities (0k, it's not leap-year...).

The only blue-green thing around here is the black spruce and the silver mound. The names give no indication of what they are. I know it differs from your magnificent Pacific Northwest, Bob, but I'm trying to connect. I feel connected.

Ann

[Poetry]

Of Fly Catchers and hidden lakes.

Of sleeping lizards and morning dew.

It is of birdsong and misty dawns

and fleeced clouds floating in a still pool.

The waters ripple awake in the gathering morn.

The first water birds head out for the far shore.