Should a greater ecological awareness begin to shape our thinking, new symbols would arise that could bind the scientific and the spiritual and would reinfuse all life with the essence of the sacred. We would be increasingly capable of envisioning the "blue, true dream" that is the living Earth luminous in the darkness of the surrounding sky.
is not that I survived the war
or that I write poetry
or that I am African,
but that I live in this world
just like you.
That I wake up every morning
to get the children ready for school,
that I comb my hair
and worry about its gray,
that I love my strong coffee
in the morning...
That I listen to music
and laugh out loud
when the mood is right,
that I cry when I read the news...
What you need to know about me
is not what country I am from
or how many languages I speak
or how I pronounce my name,
but that I believe
we are connected
by the simplest thread—
the need to be seen,
to be held,
to be heard.