janos
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Posts: 62
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 Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:08 pm Post subject: Introduction |
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| Quote: | ...We belong to this community of Earth and share in its spectacular self-expression. This is the setting that seems to be implicit in the movements toward ecological integrity in this late twentieth century. It is also the ideal that we find articulated in the earliest efforts of the various tribal cultures as well as in the earliest efforts toward the more complex cultures. While the human situation is definitively changed from this earlier period we remain genetically coded toward a mutually enhancing presence to the life community that surrounds us.
The universe we might consider as a single, multiform, sequential, celebratory event, as is implied in the designation of a flock of larks as an exaltation of larks, a title with implications of flight and song expressing delight in existence. For even the afflictions endured cannot diminish the songs that resonate throughout the natural world.
So the universe as a community of diverse components rings with a certain exultation and joy in being, while experiencing the sacrificial dimension of a natural world that tears at every leaf on a tree, that enables only a few seeds to mature out of millions cast abroad. The emergent universe can be considered as a continued elaboration of this sequence of existence and extinction, the pressing toward expanded modes of being and ever more intimate presence of things to each other. Everything about us seems to be absorbed into a vast celebratory experience. Whatever be the more practical purposes of existence it appears that celebration is omnipresent, not simply in the individual modes of its expression but in the grandeur of the entire cosmic process. This larger perspective is often referred to as the cosmic liturgy insofar as it expresses the awesome qualities of phenomenal existence.
This awesome aspect of the universe is found in qualitatively different modes of expression throughout the entire cosmic order but especially on the planet Earth. There is no being that does not participate in this experience and mirror it forth in some way unique to itself and yet in a bonded relationship with the more comprehensive unity of the universe itself. Within this context of celebration we find ourselves, the human component of this celebratory community. Our own special role is to enable this entire community to reflect on and to celebrate itself and its deepest mystery in a special mode of conscious self-awareness.
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From the Epilogue (emphasis added). |
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