Earthling Love

Living Planet, Wise Planet, Compassionate Planet

Somewhere in the unimaginable vastness of the cosmos lives a beautiful spiral galaxy. Even with billions of galaxies, there is one that some say is exquisitely special. Some know her as “Milky Way.” The wide embracing arms of the galaxy sweep majestically in the same direction around the blinding black hole at its center. Even while rotating like a colossal pinwheel, the galaxy as a whole moves through vast space.

Among billions of stars in the galaxy, in the outskirts of one of its sweeping arms, there lives a star that some say is exquisitely special. Some know him as “Sun.”

As this star circles around the galaxy along with its brother stars in its spiral arm, and as the galaxy itself moves through vast space, a family of planets encircles this star. Each in its own orbit, the planets swing around the star, all in the same direction, although on different planes and at different distances from the blazing source of light and heat at their common center. Some say that one of these planets is exquisitely special. Some call her “Earth” or “Gaia.” (Image above is by Banksy.)

As this planet itself rotates on an imaginary axis, encircling its star, which swings around the galaxy, which moves through vast space, after two billion years there emerge from the dance of light, water, gravity, air, and heat exquisitely special phenomena. Some call these phenomena “living beings.”

After another two billion years (and only two hundred thousand years from today), and after the emergence, transformation, and passing away of unimaginable numbers of living beings, there appeared an exquisitely special creature. Some call them “human beings” or “people.”

These creatures woke up, stood up, looked around, and named everything they saw or could think of. They named themselves “human beings,” and they named other creatures “living beings,” “Earth,” “Sun,” “Milky Way,” and “cosmos.” And in so doing, the human beings shook with awe and experienced fear and fascination with all things that were indeed exquisitely special.

And they named the mysterious power that is in the midst of and behind all things and that brings all things into being and takes all things out of being—“God,” “Goddess,” “Great Spirit,” “Allah,” “Buddha-nature,” “Son of God,” “Holy Spirit,” “Shiva,” and many other wonderful names.

And thus, the exquisitely special work of these humans is to cherish every other human and every other creature, whether big or small, whether near or far; every planet, star, and galaxy; and the vast cosmos itself as holy and filled with awe and light and warmth and worthy of being exquisitely special.

The End

The Beginning

The above is an excerpt from my book A Compassionate Civilization. Below are two poems from my book Earthling Love: Living Poems. May you be a happy Earthling.

EARTHLING VOWS

Earth, our only home

Precious beyond priceless

Gift of the universe

Our mother who gives us life

Earth, our only home

We cherish you and vow

To keep you safe from harm

We swoon at the stunning beauty

Of your land

Earth, our only home

We give you thanks for air and water

We delight in your plants and animals

We celebrate each of your humans

Earth, our only home

We vow to let go of violence and greed

And create a new civilization of

Compassion and understanding

Earth, our only home

WE ARE A HUMAN BEING FIRST

We are human beings first,

and then we are a sex, a gender, an age, a race,

an ethnicity, a religious conviction, a nationality,

a political persuasion, a sexual orientation,

an economic class, an educational level.

No, actually we aren’t a human being first.

First we are part of this mysterious Cosmos,

then we are part of the Milky Way,

then the solar system,

then the living Earth,

then we are an animal,

a mammal,

then we are hominids,

and THEN we are human beings.

We do have a lot in common with all of our

sisters and brothers, yes?

And what is this family resemblance?

Each of us emerged from what had come before

We each change continually

We are interdependent in co-origination

We are empty of a separate self

We each grow old and pass away

And thus we shout out:

Solidarity!

Love!

Mystery!