One of my many favorite poems is the Desiderata by Max Ehrmann. Here's what he says, and it has always been a comfort:
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
Where we have gone wrong, I think, is that we have made ourselves significant unto ourselves at the expense of everything else. I'm currently reading a book by a Potawatomie woman who is a Ph.D. botanist. Her name is Kimmerer and the book is called "Braiding Sweetgrass."
It is quite profound, because instead of the 'rugged individualist who can have everything we want if only we are willing to work harder' mentality that has been so carefully fostered in our (American) culture, she speaks about 'humans with nature' instead of 'humans against nature.'
So the illusory lust for power and wealth that so plagues us, becomes a consciousness of gifts from nature to us, from us to nature, all a great web of life on this mother earth.
What would it mean in the scope of Divine creation, I wonder, if we elevated our consciousness in this way? Oh, we'd still be tiny in the great scope of things, I know, but I expect we would be happier in our own tiny little realm. Too many suffer each day.
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