Ainu leader Ryoko Foose told us that in their language, the name given to Mother Earth reflected the relationship between her and humans. If true relationship to the sacred in all things was consistently recognized, how might the talks at Copenhagen be going differently? Would Wal-mart even be in business, were there not a flood of inexpensive (cheap in labor cost, but high in cost to humans and environment) and highly disposable goods available?
I look around at my rented home filled with stuff. Most of it consists of books and hand-made art, things that are pleasing to my soul. Yet I also acknowledge that if I had fewer of these beautiful objects, my relationships to each might feel more intimate. I might come to know them better.
They are all the Buddha's flesh. They, and we, are all God Herself.
I pray that each day, we try to remember the sacred, and to come into closer and more healthy relationship with everything: animate or inanimate, animal, vegetable, mineral, water, fire, soil, or flesh, paint, ceramic, petroleum, or plastic, chemical or quark.
Blessed be.