Consider the dinosaurs of the field, how they not only neither toil nor spin: they no longer not exist. At all. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nil.
Homo sapiens struts—king of the hill—with pride in his dominion over the earth and its creatures. If our best thinking and doing reveals anything of value it is that this vaunted dominion is limited, temporary, and illusory.

1.
However great our cruelty to animals and plants, however far our exploitation of them exceeds what we need to survive comfortably, they continue. They continue, oblivious of our supposed dominion and even of our cruelty.
They continue on their own paths of mystery at least as vast as our own.
For the efficient, profitable production of food, we imprison the animals in unconscionable conditions. For the efficient, profitable production of wood, we imprison the trees in military matrices, barren grids that stretch from horizon to horizon. But outside these prisons and drear forced marches to maturity, the animals and the trees keep on keeping on.
Great and destructive is our dominion, but neither as great as our leaders claim, nor as destructive as our poets fear.

2.
Where is Jonathan Swift when we need him?
Strutting, scything, shooting, slaughtering, strafing, we progress through the world like so many insane ants blinded by greed, wanting more more more than any proper anthill could possibly need or use.
This we have been doing, apparently, for around 5,000 years. 10,000 max.
Forget for now the ten trillion galaxies. Consider only the Grand Canyon with its tiny snapshot of a billion years of Earth.
Please.
Against that massive record, where in us is the humility to match the minuscule but rampant stupidity and greed that shape and control our lives, our countries, our civilizations?
Who in his right might can strut and prate belligerently against the other ants when faced with the simple reality of our wee place in the larger perspective of all things?
Oh, we write books, unashamedly self-serving books, that praise us—or this or that group of us—as the crown of creation.
Where in the billion-year scroll of the Grand Canyon is the least hint that we are that? Where in the knowledge of animals, the wisdom of trees, the hidden wealth of our own human bodies is any indication that we who are here for less than the blink of an eye are that?
Here today. Gone tomorrow.

3.
"All dualities arise from ignorant inference."
All is not one because the existence of one necessarily implies two.
Therefore, not one, not two, but also not not one, and not not two.
Surely the screams of the dying—trees, animals, us—echo and echo and echo. Which tormenter cares, says, "Hush!"?
Which great leader cares, says, "Stop. Not that way. This way"? so that we can learn to listen and then to hear. Not all the time (our games can be delightful), but merely enough of the time to see, feel, and know our place.
Kings of the carrion hill? Oh, how we secretly glory in our awfulness.
Shepherds of the earth? How to find beauty in such goodness?

4.
"Every day’s another dawning. Give the morning winds a chance." Which of the ten thousand things is truly yours, and which is only yours to temporarily treasure? Which of the ones you so zealously hoarded and protected will be with you after your last breath?
The only thing over which we have true control is what we pay attention to.
Therefore: laudate, laudate, laudate.
Look and praise.
Look and praise.
Look and praise.

END

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