ACORN

In Hindu tradition there is another trinity I subscribe to.  Brahma creates the Universe. Vishnu sustains it. Shiva destroys it so that it can be recreated anew. In my current practice my mantra is “arise, abide, subside.” The circle is complete. Our time comes to an end. The works of man sink gracefully into the sand. My body ages like the fallen trunk of a giant oak, merging softly & slowly with the green moss. My memories…  the vast reefs of my accumulated knowledge have already begun to blink off like galaxies  in a cooling Universe. Can I accept this? I do accept this. The acorn rests in the breezy grasp of the great Mother. She sees me. She narrows her gaze ever so slightly. & so it begins once again.

LITTLE RED

The earth itself is alive. There is no separation.  The smallest grain of sand mirrors & sustains the crests of Annapurna. The mustard seed enfolds the full Amazon river basin. The red squirrel scolding my presence in his northern spruce grove embodies the fine filaments of living light that thread through the mycelia webbing the entire surface of this cerulean sphere from the single bacteria to the great blue whale in the deep black sea. The wind knows. The waters breathe. The magma below sways & throbs. Light sparkles & cracks through the impossibly intricate networks of my human body. I am not separate from nature. I am of the natural order… no more,  no less. My mind is the sky above. You & I & the Red Squirrel. We know. We know. There is no separation. The earth itself is alive.

Kuan Yin and the Little Red Squirrel (or "Acorn")

Kuan Yin & Francis of Assissi. One from the East & one from the West. They both spoke to the animals & the animals gathered to listen. Who told us two-leggeds we somehow have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, over the cattle, & over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth? One sentence in a dusty  old Hebrew text just does not cut it for me anymore. Alive in the Anthropocene age- the last great extinction underway- my true allegiance is not with my fellow man but with all the  myriad creatures in this the living Creation. The right to live of a little red squirrel on a jack pine in northern Saskatchewan is equal- exactly equal- to my right to breathe the blue air of the vast abiding sky. All sentient beings- each and every one of them- will enter into the Kingdom, not just blind, self-absorbed, greed-filled Man. I listened with the snails & the wrens & the elephants  to St. Francis & to Kuan Yin. I have ears to hear. I hear.