The Animal Us

THE ANIMAL US

How do we know that we don’t have fur just underneath our smooth skin? I mean the fur of a black bear, smeared with berries and the blood of fish. Oh, the x-rays won’t spot it. It is rougher than coarse stone, finer than air: this animal body in our bodies, this connection to a miraculous creation.

Part of our brains are on a brilliant kind of autopilot… just brilliant, inventing a million ways to keep insanity going in the world. I mean the oh so familiar dysfunctional disconnection that someone soaked us in, an incessant washing of the brain with the milk of discontent. And so the familiar conditioning says, don’t look too deep into the most of you, you might find too much trouble there, while the symbol making, music loving, heart-beated, drum thumped, danced crazed and wild heart of us goes on whistling dream songs beyond the reach of us, luring us through luminous looks and moments of confusing clarity.

There are birds in our blood, the trees are kissing us with every breath. Great beings watch over us from realms where a thousand earth years are one very interesting day. Some of us are kings in these worlds, some queens, some wizards, some prophets, all adventurers, who signed up to be diminished into flesh, squeezed into this world of forgetfulness, this place where we learn the hard lessons of willfully destroying the web of light through every little discourtesy, with each lie, continually shattering the wonder-child’s trust with this twisted insecurity that drives our greed.

It is closing time now: the night has fallen and we don’t even miss the hidden sun. World makers beat the dead horse and shout, it is bound to get up any minute now. But it is over. The whole system is collapsing. Time to wake up. Time to turn it all around, get down on our knees, look into our children’s questioning eyes, refind the deep soul of us, nuzzle earth. Time to let sharp claws tear our skin open from the inside. And in the dark eyes of the animal us a smile will appear, reflected in each eye, lighting up the distant horizons, spattering golden beauty all over the world.

RECREATING THE SACREDNESS OF THE NATURAL

There is a spiritual pathway that is just the opposite of our current economic/social patterns of ever increasing wealth generated by ever increasing consumption. It is a pathway into a profound simplicity of life for the sake of lightness and freedom; an increasing clarity of mind through realizations of the Real; an expanding Love of heart through a growing state of sensitivity to the beauty of all that is natural and good. This way opens to us through an astonishing discovery that we love what we love in life just because in some way it gives us a taste of the essence of what we all most truly are: through that song, or that gadget, or that place, or that person, we sense the freedom, beauty and joy that is the very pure nectar of Existence.

These times of collapse and uncertainty have thrust upon us the imperative of a massive change of perception much greater than politics or current religious paradigms can give. Let’s get with it now!

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A New Way of Thinking

Einstein wrote, "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our way of thinking. Thus we are drifting toward a catastrophe beyond comparison. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive."

Can we hear Einstein with the sobriety and seriousness these words should evoke? A new way of thinking requires a recovery of the truths and values written inside us by the fingers of Nature, or Hand of God. We must let Life start thinking in us. What I mean is there is an inherent wisdom in all Creation. This wisdom does not think in human symbols — but it can! We can allow the Language of Life to harmonize our bodies and brains.

All Life is singing the glory of its existence and the wisdom of its delicate relationships. It is an unbroken field of interrelating energies. All, except for us. We must now clearly see ourselves as broken off from this web through 300 years of excessively left brained thinking and the paradigms of life we have developed that are inherently self-destructive.

It is the nature of the left brain to distinguish differences, to analyze, to break down into parts, to structure in new order. But without the inspired, insightful, creative, mystically related right brain the order it creates is too inclusive and limited. We create independent systems without regard for their relationship to the whole. We are now experiencing the catastrophic potential of such imbalanced and partial thinking. We must, must, must shift to new patterns based on universal values expressed in new ways.

Thomas Berry eloquently echoes this. "The New Prosperity requires a new language. This new language is primarily the language of the earth, a language of living relationships that extend throughout the universe."

New thinking demands a new usage of language. The two are inseparable. If I think differently I will express myself differently. If I am growing more attuned to the rhythms of the stars, the energetic shifts of seasons, the balances or imbalances of our food producing soils, the quality of water, the greater good of humanity and all wild creatures, I will speak of stars, weather, earth, fire, water, birds, deer and bear, the laughter of children.

We have journeyed away from nature for 300 years now and learned much. We are in a tremendous place where we can take the best of our insights, tools and technology and the ones that shall yet be invented in order to create a new world of harmony and peace, where people love nature in a way they never have before: seeing it as both motherly provider and source of inspiration, beauty maker, marvel and delight.

We are on the cusp of a new era. Those who cling to the dying age will resist the changes with all the strength born of their fear or greedy lust for power. Those who let go and embrace the challenges and changes are in for a very inspiring ride through the death of life based on consumption into life based on quality of relationships, simplicity, creative freedom, harmonizing with the whole, sanity and peace.