Living in a Sacred World

Nature is magnificent.

Daily, we have sunsets and sunrises, trees and birds and all sorts of magnificent creatures. Frequently, we have new-burgeoning crescent Moons or full Moons or waning, deep-into-the-night Moons, casting their silver magic across the land.

Rarely, we have sundogs and auroras and eclipses and comets.

Experientially, we have mountaintops and forest walks. We have riversong. We have ocean waves and orgasms and the soft, warm glow of a hallucinogen coming on. We have the sweat of exertion and the exultation of dance, the thrill of skin on skin.

We have seasonal rituals and rich, alive moments of intimacy.

We have love and connection and deep conversation, and all the complicated joys they can bring us.

And of course, we have the works of humanity: art, culture, architecture, song, poetry.

We live in a Sacred world.

This is such a simple thing. And yet the overculture, obsessed with an imaginary World Beyond, completely misses this simple, essential point. We have not learned to embrace it. We have not learned to take the time to savor what it means simply to be alive.

We are blessed with the gift of Life on this beautiful, exquisite planet. We must respond with cherishing of all that it offers.

As Atheopagans, we walk the Earth with appreciation and caring. We know ourselves both as stewards and stewarded, both offspring and caretaker. We know we are magic, rich with our individual gifts and talents.

And we see that magic in one another. We know that other people are full of extraordinary and unique gifts. That even some of the most damaged and suffering people have beauty inside them.

Re-sacralizing the world can be challenging. Cities are sacred, too: they are often the least environmentally damaging way to accommodate millions of people. And they are hotbeds of culture, innovation, art and science.

We must learn to look at our world through a lens of love. A lens that only sees the profane when it sees cruelty, injustice, and unwarranted violence.

We pray to no listener, pray for ourselves to hear:

Praise to the wide spinning World. Praise to Space, and Time, and to all the wonders of the Cosmos. May all be honored, all be sung, all be loved.

So be it!