Opening To Greater Life

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

We are grateful to Rupali Bhuva for offering this hand-made painting for this reading.

Tell the [future generations] that something new is happening, a new vision, a new energy, a new sacred story is coming into being in the transition from one era to another.

Tell them in the darkness of this time, a vast transformation is occurring in the depths of human consciousness, which is leading to the recovery of the soul, the earth, the universe and a sense of the sacred …

Tell them that they must develop the inner vision that we need if we are to make the adjustments required for a viable future. Our existential questions must now be: How do we relate to the earth and to the universe? Our most basic issue is how we bond with the earth.

And tell them they will meet great companions along the way, including those that burrow in the soil, fly in the air and swim in the sea…

Tell them to seek their own role in the larger evolutionary process: tell them that humans are always in the process of becoming, always “opening to greater life,” if they can learn to see it. Tell them the greatest need is to develop a sensitivity to recognize the inner promptings that emerge from the depths of one’s own being where the sacred reality resides…

Above all, tell them to practice an intimate presence to the beauty and wonder of the natural world through their intuitive awareness that recognizes the oneness of all life; tell them to stop and enlarge moments throughout their days to become aware of the mysteries and miracles of creation all around them – the movement of a squirrel, the sound of a bird, the pattern of a leaf, changing patterns of light, the sun, the rain, the stars, dawn and sunset. Tell them we are not ourselves without everything and everyone else.

Tell them to remember the great seasons and cycles of life. In moments of intimacy with the natural world they will recover the lost sense of the sacred in the human-earth relationship. And they will be participating in the evolution of a new consciousness on earth that can overcome the mental fixations of our times expressed in radical division between humans and the natural world. A mutually enhancing relationship will then become possible as the communion of all things is understood.

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Before his passing, when Thomas Berry was asked for words for future generations, above was his response. Quoted in Carolyn Toben's Recovering a Sense of the Sacred.