How did humanity arrive at this place? Almost overnight, viral war torn, scarred, skeptical, frazzled, frightened, lonely isolation, madly missing the joy of life.
Humanity’s vitality slowly but surely leaking away, drained by a lurking thieving, deceitful beast, gluttonous gorger swallowing whole all who yield.
But the wheel of fortune ever turns, the black jar of Pandora’s woes morphs to womb of fathomless mother goddess of a Golden Age, a new humanity.
It’s time to birth transformation from destruction; swimming upwards to shimmering light, gulping great drafts of rarefied air, reclaiming life and eager to live it.
Are we a fully civilized society? We assume because we have advanced forward in linear time that it is naturally a given we are also more progressed in terms of our knowledge, wisdom, and sophistication. But are we?
How sophisticated is it to indulge in the kind of behavior we witness in society at the moment? As our buildings get taller and our computers become faster, we are forgetting the fundamental human skills needed to build a truly great civilization. In short, we are losing touch with our humanness, our decency, our respect for the Earth that serves us.
There are societies we label as primitive that have or had a much greater grasp of the ethics and integrity of a respectful and fulfilling society. I suggest that it is time to put our inflated egos aside and learn from them, in order that we may incorporate some of their higher principles back into our modern life.
The haiku is from my HartHaiku archives, a slightly different version was first posted February 8, 2019.
Nature presents to us constantly the reminder of our roots, our organic selves, our place in the natural and creative world. It also brings us back to what is real and sensible. In short, we are able to retrieve our commons sense and sanity in what is increasingly an insane society.
Today I’m bringing you some of my favorite quotes from American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau:
“We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
“Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.”
“I have a room all to myself; it is nature.”
“He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.”
“Every blade in the field – Every leaf in the forest – lays down its life in its season as beautifully as it was taken up.”
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
“Wildness is the preservation of the World.”
How would you like the future of our children and grandchildren to look? A world dominated by computers, machines, and robots, or one where we are connected to the heart of Nature? The question is important, because we need to make intentional choices for our future now.
Have a beautiful weekend. I hope you enjoy at least a little part of Nature to feed your soul. We all need that sort of nourishment and healing right now.
Susan L Hart / Author 