How do we listen to the always present kinship between children and the earth during playground relations?

Shared by Jaye Johnson Thiel

How do we listen to the always present kinship between children and the earth during playground relations? Perhaps, like this:

            Puddle-water ricochets in my direction, hitting my arm and leg as I crouch towards the ground to pick up a stick. 

            “Sorry,” echoes a young smirking voice.

            The smirk isn’t one of vengeance. The apology is sincere. Rather the smirk says, “Huh! That is what happens when I jump off the swing midflight into puddles.”

            I laugh, simultaneously feeling something press into my right arm. I look down and it is a child who speaks mostly Spanish drawing tiny red-dirt hearts on my arm directly below my shoulder. The child looks at me and smiles.

            I smile back, giving into the baptism of the mud, the puddles, the joy found in the sacraments of the rain; reacquainting myself with the rhythms of an always present kinship to the earth.

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