Poem
THE PHYSICAL IS NOT THE OPPOSITE OF THE SACRED
I think we have been taught
a strange division.
That spirit is one thing
and matter another.
That the soul belongs to heaven
while money belongs to earth.
That love is sacred,
but wanting a beautiful home
is somehow less so.
That awakening means
wanting less from this world.
But what if the division
was never there?
What if the tree
is not less sacred
because you can touch its bark?
What if bread
is not less miraculous
because you can eat it?
What if your body
is not something your spirit
has been temporarily trapped inside—
but one of the ways
Spirit has chosen
to become visible?
Maybe we are not here
to transcend the physical.
Maybe we are here
to enter it completely.
To taste the peach.
To feel the warm body
of someone we love beside us.
To build the house.
To make the money.
To wear the beautiful thing.
To stand barefoot in the grass.
To want.
To create.
To receive.
Perhaps desire itself
is sometimes life
leaning toward more life.
And perhaps abundance
does not pull us away
from what is sacred.
Perhaps the sacred
has been hiding in plain sight—
as wood and skin,
food and rain,
work and pleasure,
money and morning light.
We are not spirits
trying to escape matter.
We are consciousness
having the astonishing experience
of becomingthis.
Hands.
Breath.
Desire.
A body standing
for a little while
on this beautiful earth.
And maybe the invitation
is not to become
more spiritual.
Maybe it is to become
more completely here.