The entire universe, the cosmos, manifests the mystery of the fiery, ever-living Light of Love that shines forth in and through matter, in and through human beings in their specific historical setting. God, as the mystery of Love, is like the horizon that surrounds the human spirit, wooing it into creative tension between body and soul, mind and emotion, individual and community, heaven and earth. Willingness to live in the tension of these poles is the womb that nourishes and protects those discerning actions that will mirror the fiery, life-giving love that is God.
We are all bound by a covenant of reciprocity: plant breath for animal breath, winter and summer, predator and prey, grass and fire, night and day, living and
dying. Water knows this, clouds know this. Soil and rocks know they are dancing in a continuous giveaway of making, unmaking, and making again the earth.
Our elders say that ceremony is the way we can
remember to remember. In the dance of the giveaway, remember that the earth is a gift that we must pass on, just as it came to us. When we forget, the dances we'll need will be for mourning. For the passing of polar bears, the silence of cranes, for the death of rivers and the memory of snow.