Gaia

Mother Earth, I know you're getting older. Maturing. You've been around a long time. You're still a fine looking planet, though, if I do say so myself. But it's obvious you're not as young as you used to be.


Although every planet's mother cautions her daughter to maintain good posture, sometimes it's hard to remember those lessons, and hard to keep that backbone straight - each delicate vertebra.

Sometimes things get out of alignment. When you sigh, your breast heaves and shifts - and sometimes you slump down into the soft chaise of rest. The green and textured fabric that clothes you roils and pleats and creases as you settle, and sometimes - because you haven't been watching your weight - it splits at the seams.

So much fertility and richness - the contours of your body - hips and thighs and shoulders - burgeon and bulge voluptuously.

It's almost TOO intimate. But after all, that's what you're all about.

There's heaviness, fruitfulness. You bear and bear and bear and then go fallow for a time.

Yet when the springtime courses in your veins, you arise again.

When you're 4.6 billion years old, there are sometimes twinges. Bug bites. Scrapes. Scabs and scars and those lumps and dark freckles of age that appear in the grain of your skin - but never fear; sometimes all it takes is a volcanic eruption to help pumice away the roughness.

Still, you haven't lost your allure. You are Mother Earth. There's nothing a trip to a spa, a fasting diet, or a seaside vacation won't cure.

Have a makeover, brush on the mascara. You'll perk up, and with a little gloss and rouge, be good as new again.

For a planet your age, you're remarkably attractive - vigorous, fertile still, vivid and lush.

Spring still gets your blood stirring, puts a blush in your cheek.

And it's always a thrill when the new grandchildren come to visit.