Standing in the warm ocean waves last week, my daughter asked me (again):
Why am I alive?
It gives me great joy to take such questions seriously, even if most of the time she has totally moved on by the time I’ve gathered my wits enough to answer.
While I have a few different answers that feel “right” to me to this kind of question, I don’t find any of them definitive, and I hope you don’t either. But I do find them all inspiring.
The one that came to mind today, after finishing Richard Power’s Playground and staring into the night sky, was about devotion.
At every moment of my life, I am graced to witness the incredibly majesty of this planet. Earth. Ocean. Pachamama. The Mother.
Everything that happens here is amazing. “Even” breathing is amazing.
But being up in the mountains, or out on a pristine lake, or being deafened by the pounding surf, is Really Amazing. It jars me. It knocks me out of the shell of the ego into the “Holy Shit” jaw-dropping reality.
To me, that jaw-drop is a kind of devotion.
It’s like being transfixed by a beautiful face walking by, or unable to stop staring at a work of art, or shedding tears when hearing Sigur Ros in concert.
We’re here to meet the unparalleled beauty of our home with devotion. And that devotion can be expressed in all kinds of ways. For me it looks like hiking and backcountry skiing and spending hours walking silently through the forest.
I imagine our engagement with beauty as the missing ingredient The Artist has been waiting for. A fulfillment of The Grand Work. Like it’s not complete until it’s appreciated — which is why our devotion is fundamental to the whole project.
Ancient gods demanded praise and sacrifice from their pathetic human followers. The modern Earth/Ocean mother is much gentler, but with the same underlying need for her beauty and performance to be applauded.
How we could we shower her in so much gratitude that she blushes?
Ankur Shah Delight: Community and Conflict 