Mark Green's Atheopaganism Blog

As I begin this blog post, I am sitting in bed, sipping coffee. It is early morning.

A series of waves of Canada geese are going overhead. I can’t see them, but I can hear them crying into the sky as they make their way onward.

I think of Mary Oliver, of course, and remember that I do not have to be good. That here on Earth, there is a place for me in the family of things.

As that youthful sage (and paragon of white privilege, to be honest), Ferris Bueller, would tell us: life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.

So take a moment today. It doesn’t have to be long.

Sit where the sun (or the rain, or the snow) can touch your skin, and feel it. Close your eyes, and listen for the birds, for the little sounds of Life going about its industrious unfolding.

Then open them and look at the great bowl of the sky, at the trees, if you can see any, bare though they may be. See how the branches tremble even in the softest breeze, quivering with anticipation of another cycle of leafing out and blooming and seeding.

Watch the grasses and weeds, persevering through sidewalks or perhaps notable by their absence in the cold. They will return.

They always do.

Know that yours, too, is a part of this dance. Breathe in, knowing you are made of all of this, and offer your share to the great wheel of growth and change and time: we are born, we live, we die. It’s that precious middle part you are doing now; feel it to your toes and fingertips, cold though they may be.

Know that you are a unique expression of the mighty Universe, and go forward with kindness towards all things.

Look for the beauty: it’s there. Find it.