Page 78 - ECOlogic Book

as, when an infant develops the power of seeing we do not say, “the eye of
the infant sees,” just so, when the universe developed the ability to reflect
on existence, we do not say, “the human reflects,” but rather, “the universe
reflects on itself.” As far as we know, ours is the first species to express this
new ability for the universe. We bear the universe in our being just as
surely as we are borne in the being of the universe. “The self is an
expression of this deeper Earth self and even deeper Universe self. There
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are no separations . . . the Earth literally is our body.”

This new story of wholeness is dawning in our consciousness just at the
moment when we may lose it all. Perhaps that threat is what is needed for
us to recognize our common story, the one we can all tell each other. It’s a
story of the numinous inner radiance and spontaneity that resides in all
matter, as well as one of grand emergence through a continuing process of
self transcendence, experienced by all beings throughout creation, from the
largest galaxy down to the smallest electron; one where we know the
interconnectedness of “all our relations;” a spiritual as well as a material
process.

Lewis Thomas noted that “our most powerful story, equivalent in its way to a
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universal myth is evolution.” This is our story, the one we now listen to
and learn and tell one another and our children. It is a story that leaves
nothing out, incorporating all other stories, and each one of us carries a
piece of it. The story is not complete unless we each tell our part of it. It is
a story told ‘round the globe, and one on which all tribes can agree.

This is the story we well as we gather around the fire, watching the glowing
embers fly up into the black sky and ducking the billows of smoke that come
our way. It unites us as no other story can, and it’s a story we do not know
until we’ve told it. In the telling of it, our story comes alive, warms us as
the fire does, and gives beautiful strands for a new fabric that might be
woven into our ivies and the life of the planet.

This is the story we now tell, as we gather ‘round the fire for a winter tale.

96 McGillis, Miriam, “Living the New Sory,” In Context, No. 24.

97 O. Cit. Feinstein/Krippner

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