Short Wisdom on a Long Planet

Our ecological problems are evidence of a deeper, spiritual problem whereby we, feeling incomplete, feed off the Whole; whereby we, feeling empty, use everything up in an attempt to fill ourselves; whereby we, feeling insignificant, scar the earth in order to feel significant.

Short Wisdom on a Long Planet

We keep turning one thing into another and calling it progress. We keep machining the beauty off of things as they are, using tools to create more tools, as if that will let us live longer. We keep burrowing into everything but ourselves: churning trees into lumber, animals into meat, wind into electricity, vegetables into remedies, silence into noise; turning the Earth, continent by continent, into one giant ant hill. We keep eating our way through the arms of the Universe, desperate for something large and quiet to hold us.

A Question to Walk With: Walk somewhere outdoors and with a friend or loved one, discuss your relationship with the Earth.

For more poetry for the soul, click here.

For more by Mark Nepo, click here.