BY COSMIC DESIGN, I CONFESS

by John P. Cock ©

By Cosmic Design?*

On the way forward from our past,

this cosmological age

highlights awesome seasons

   that birth rituals

and daily sunrises and sunsets

   that spiritize existence,

sanctifying early mornings

   with meditation

and late evenings

   with reverie:

  parents reading to and

  cuddling with their children,

  answering big questions,

  rubbing backs and humming

  as the little ones slip into

  Earth’s dark, sacred night.  

Are we not spiritual

              by cosmic design

              and for cosmic reason?

______

*John P. Cock, April 2001, from Our Universal Spirit Journey: Reflection and Verse for Creation’s Sake; later published in By Cosmic Design: Spirit Poems (1974-2006).

Prescript

We could go out of being as a people

the same way we came in –

by an asteroid crisis.

We could go out of being

by a military-nuclear crisis,

a global warming crisis,

a potable water crisis.

Yet, we’d rather live here than not.

I confess it’s a sacred place –

the only one we know.

Grace, love, beauty, meaning, and care

are in this place. Why look for another?

Let us cherish and honor this place

as the good place it is.

How do we know it to be a sacred place?

Consciousness over thousands of years

has testified to it,

beholding the sacredness

of a blade of grass,

a sensual touch,

and the good journey.

With given consciousness

we intercommune with creation

and commune with its heart.

With given consciousness

and with sacred inclination

we come to see and know

and bow to all as thou.

I confess that by cosmic design

mysterious, awesome, transparent,

numinous, eternal, universal, transforming,

gracious power is always present;

and we – past, present, and evolving –

perceive and experience sacred

power at the center of this place.

Our microcosmic reason for being here,

our bounden duty as subjects?

To sense the meaning of the sacred

and serve its power

in the cosmos forever –

or till we are no more

in this wondrous place.

The Teaching

Mircea Eliade, as the prophet, reminded us that our aboriginal ancestors had a

sense of the sacred that we do not share, and if we do not recover their depth understanding, and more, there may be no human future – especially if we, to use Eliade’s word, “desacralize” life in this world by rejecting the cosmic dimension that gives meaning.

One of his favorite illustrations of the manifestation of the sacred is Moses taking off his shoes in awe before the burning bush. His holy-ground experience is a paradigm for our journeys. As such happens to us, we too bow and declare any place as sacred. Like Moses, we experience awe: through viewing the rising or setting sun; seeing the universe through a microscope or a telescope; feeling intimacy with a special one; assisting in the birth of a child; being at the graveside of one we love; appraising our earth community’s future; suffering the tragedy of 9/11; watching Katrina. Such events bear out the profound power in the cosmos.

Such power comes as blessing or terror. Through either, we experience the sacred and sometimes even transformation, unity, and centeredness. Mysterium tremendum that trembles, thrills, and alters our being is the power that winks at modern attempts to reduce truth to scientific and historical fact. These facts are immensely helpful, but they hardly guide our journey as does primal, cosmic power. Sacred moments of transparent consciousness beckon us to see through to and bow to the power from the heart of the cosmos.

Consciousness is our cosmic antenna. We become aware of what is happening to us by consciously reacting to, reflecting on, and taking a relationship to what was and is really going on. Summing-up this total event of consciousness, Kierkegaard wrote that we perceive and experience the power that posits or constitutes us as free beings who can choose to embrace our journeys fully. Meaning is the result.

Meaning that comes from cosmic eventfulness through given consciousness and intentional choice nurtures us. Stored up wisdom of the goodness of life deeply sustains us. Through reflection, we come to understand that sacred meaning is always at hand in abundance. We not only perceive and experience meaning, but we also create, express, and engage in meaning – through operating images, worldview, myths, stories, symbols, rituals, art, and language. As meaning-reliant mammals in the cosmos, we come to see that experiencing meaning, creating meaning, and sharing meaning are what we are about as self-conscious beings.

The Confession

I confess cosmic procreation from the initial flaring forth, to stardust, to

self-conscious beings who have most recently joined the cosmic journey.

I confess I am a born and bred micro-cosm, as is everyone and everything else.

I confess I trust the cosmos that has been working well to sustain all in being

for umpteen billions of years.

I confess I am fulfilled in the cosmos as I realize my place in it, relate to it, and

       create with it.

I confess that I am one with the heart of the cosmos amidst the cosmic swirl

that was, is, and is becoming.

Postscript

From the cosmic center

we don the style that heals

divisions in our profane relations.

This stance during Earthly crises

keeps our species from going extinct.

'Tis the sacred way

to live in our sacred

________

Note: Also printed in The Ecozoic, Number 1 (2008), pp. 14-15

publication of the Center for Ecozoic Studies

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