Evolutionary Life

Voices of the Emerging Movement for Conscious Evolution

June 2007


====  Poetry ====

The Unfolding Journey by William Herbert Carruth

Cyberspace is Sacred Space by Hazel Henderson

The Last Rites of the Bokononist Faith by Kurt Vonnegut

 

The Unfolding Journey

by William Herbert Carruth (1859-1924)


A fire-mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty
And a face turned from the clod --
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.

Excerpted from "Each in his own tongue".
* "Fire-mist" may be the primordial particles and energies that became our solar system. "Saurian" is "dinosaur".


Cyberspace is Sacredspace

by Hazel Henderson

Earthbound humans
Soaring at last,
In cyberspace.
A leap in their long
And painful journey
Upward: from Olduvai,
Altimira’s caves
Catal Huyuk,
Sumer, with waves
Of patient migration
To cover all the lands
On the bosom
Of Mother Earth.

Cyberspace:
Entrance to the Mind
Of God.
Sacredspace,
Full of promises
Sung by all our sages
From Nomad Gatherer – Hunters
To Agriculture: Gift
Of all our Mothers.
To Industrialization,
Materialism, Consumerism,
Onward to the vaunted
Information Age.

Triumph of Technique
Yet mindlessly playing
Earlier childhood games:
Clicking on trades
In the Global Casino,
Dungeons and dragons.
Escapism from the Sacred Duties
Of Earthbound Life.

More ancient win-lose games,
Netizens crowing
Over Citizens,
Celebrating freedom,
Rights without Responsibilities.

Will we reach
The Age of Knowledge,
Learning at last,
To understand
The mysterious glories
Of Mother Earth
Teeming with Life
Symbiotic with our own?

Will we move on
To the Age of Wisdom
Seeing all Life
As inseparable
On our planetary journey?
Will we use our tools
Of Communication
To reach Community,
And a new Communion
With the Cosmos?

Cyberspace is Sacredspace.


A memorial for Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922 - 2007)


The Last Rites of the Bokononist Faith

by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.


God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."

And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.

I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud
that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!

Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.

Excerpted from Cat's Cradle.