In a World Where Everything is Sacred

In a World Where Everything is Sacred
 
“There are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places. My belief is that the world and our life in it are conditional gifts.”
~ Wendell Berry


Why do we continue to imagine
we can mess with nature?
Somehow out-think
her millennial depths
of flat out oceanic smarts?*
 
You know the list already:
            plastic filled oceans
            petrol poisoned air
            chemically poisoned soil
            commercially poisoned dwellings
            corporately poisoned hearts.
 
We can only start from where we are
and that list is where we are.
 
So from the stillness of contemplation
and the urgency of converging crises
we can start to notice
the street lamp in front of our home
we can sit with it
honour the light is shines on our darkness
feel the pain it feels from its journey
from mineral in stone, from oils in holes
to a static end-game of majesty
standing temporarily before its demise in a dump
when we can grieve its passing
honour it for its loveliness and utility.
 
Then we can call into our sacred circle
the asphalt, the mailboxes, the fences,
the sidewalks, lonely street trees and the cars.
 
Imagine when we honour each bus shelter and storefront
and help them re-establish their holy places
in the midst of the mystery and the earth.
 
Notice what happens to the hearts
of parking meters and bridges
when they learn to love again.
 
Pretty soon all the spaces between things and the walls at the edges
are no longer distances and barriers that separate us
they’re what we have in common
what connects us
what we all honour
and we notice that we are starting to think like nature
acting from our stillness
and holding it all reverently.
 
* with inspiration from Wax Leader by Hannah Berry
 
 

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