wandering

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon, within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty. “Eagle Poem” by Joy Harjo, from In Mad Love and War.

And we: spectators, always, everywhere, looking at everything, and never from! Who’s turned us around like this, so that whatever we do, we always have the look of someone going away? Just as a person on the last hill showing him or her the whole valley one last time, turns, and stops, and lingers - so we live, and are forever leaving. Rainer Maria Rilke

…We are never real historians, but always near poets, and our evolution is perhaps nothing but an expression of poetry that was lost. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space.

How I wanted to graze with my hand the armored hides of sturgeons aslosh in their shallow tanks I did not tell you, nor did I think to say how the garfish, sentry-like in their dull brown orbits, with their pen-shaped snouts skimming food, were named by someone who knew that gar meant spear in Old English. I forgot my place in the story I idly told you, as we rose in the elevator, as your hands found in my neck a knot your fingers could untie with ease. Love, you know that language failed me early with you: in my mouth you found a hidden stammer. In all the days since, what have I said that was right? So little. But know: when we stood on one side of thick glass to watch a world of water ignore our entire lives, I kissed your fingers and each one in that light was blue. “Water” by Paul Guest

What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There’s no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told-and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their ‘beliefs.’ The reason is that beliefs guide behavior which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question. Michael Chricton 

(Source: abimopector)