Have You Noticed?

Early one morning I was having morning coffee in an RV as I looked out onto the high desert landscape of northern New Mexico. We were camped out at Chaco Canyon, one of my favorite pilgrimage sites. That morning I gave a first talk about a topic which I have returned to many times in the last thirty years. My point was simple, as least it was for me. I suggested that the ‘sacred’ is important to us and we are important to the ‘sacred.’ In other words, we and the ‘sacred’ are in relationship.

At this moment of pandemic, our collective fear and anxiety impacts each of us, our children and our pets and our collective fear also impacts the natural world. Have you noticed that trees, birds, creatures of all sorts feel our fear and shrink from us.  Nature is defending itself from us because we are frightening in our collective fear. Nature, a visible manifestation of the sacred, is now less available to us as we are less available to nature. Have you noticed?