The breathing in and out of the earth's atmosphere by the body is a symbol of the eternal rhythm of the Self-I and Thou, in and out, up and down, forward and back, systole and diastole in their final unity. The conscious realization and incarnation of this rhythm, balance, unity, in the unique, individual pattern of one's life would lead — so I feel — to the breathing out of one's last breath into death into that air of eternity, which is the breath of life when the body is left behind.
~ from SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON by Helen Luke
On this bright still silent November day, we walk through bare thickets toward the lake like a silver mirror; so calm, so glassy, it holds on its wide surface all the patterns of light and air above. Its silence silences us. Its stillness stops us in our tracks. As I bend to touch a stone, I hear a voice say, "Love the earth". I cock my ear and hear the echo, faint yet unmistakable as ocean sounding in a shell. When I try to summon it once more, only my words come. A great and terrible tenderness breaks over me. Each pebble, each shell, is filled with beauty; each, in this moment, articulate, a word spoken, and I imagine beyond the grasp of hearing the great murmuring of creation beneath my feet. I feel these patient stones lie like an eternal sacrifice, offering me the ground of their existence on which to grind and crunch the pathways of my life ... I haven't begun to love the earth. Does it take the awareness of our death to wake us up to life?
