The essay "The Meadow Beyond the Stream" is the third chapter of Thomas Berry's book The Great Work - Our Way into the Future, whose Czech edition is titled Great work – our journey into the future Currently being prepared by Malvern Publishing House. Translated by Jiří Zemánek and David Sanetrník.
“We need to understand the universe primarily as a celebration. … man can be identified as that being in whom the universe celebrates itself and its numinous origin in a special mode of conscious self-awareness … We can think of the viable future of the planet more as the result of our participation in the symphony or as our renewed participation in the numinous presence, manifesting in the wondrous world around us, than as the realization of some scientific understanding or socio-economic arrangement.”
Thomas Berry / The Great Work
I was a little boy then, perhaps twelve years old. My family had moved from the densely populated southern part of the city to the outskirts, where a new house was being built; it stood unfinished on a small slope, with a small stream running below it, and beyond it was a meadow. It was on an early May afternoon that I first looked down upon the scenery.
The meadow was covered with lilies, their white flowers peeking out above the thick grass. It was a magical moment—the experience gave my life something that seems to explain my thinking on a deeper level than almost any other experience I can recall today. But it wasn't just the lilies, it was also the crickets singing and the forest landscape in the distance and the clouds against the clear sky. What happened then was nothing conscious. My life went on as it does for any young person.
Perhaps it was not just this moment that made such a profound impression on me. Perhaps it was also the sensitivity that developed in my childhood. Even after many years, this moment keeps coming back to me. Whenever I think about my basic attitude in life, the overall focus of my mind, and the things to which I have devoted my efforts, I see this moment coming back and I feel the impact it had on my understanding of what is real and worthy of respect in life.
This early experience has become for me a determining factor in the whole range of my thinking. Whatever preserves and enhances the quality of this meadow in the natural cycles of its changes is good; whatever contradicts or denies it is not good. My life orientation is thus simple, and it applies everywhere: in economics and politics, as well as in education and religion.
In economics, what is good is what supports the natural processes of this meadow. What is bad is what diminishes the meadow's ability to renew itself each spring and provide a habitat for crickets to sing and birds to forage. Such meadows, I later learned, are themselves in constant flux. These evolving biosystems deserve to be themselves and to express their intrinsic qualities. In economics, science, law, and politics, what is good is what recognizes the rights of this meadow and this stream and the forests beyond to exist and flourish in their ever-renewing seasonal manifestations, while larger processes shape the bioregion in the wake of its transformations.
It seems to me that religion too has its origin in the deep mystery of this scene. The more one contemplates the infinite number of mutual activities that take place in the meadow, the more mysterious the scene becomes. The more significance we find in the blooming lilies of May, the more we can be awed by the simple sight of this little patch of meadowland. It was not the majesty of the Appalachians or the Western Mountains, nor the vastness and power of the ocean, nor the rugged majesty of the desert landscape. Yet the grandeur of life as a celebration was revealed in this little meadow in a way that was as profound and impressive as it was in no other place that I have known in many of those years.
It seems to me that before we embarked on the industrial journey of life, many people had such experiences. The universe, as a manifestation of a certain primordial grandeur, was recognized as the ultimate plane of relation for all of our human understanding of the beautiful yet terrifying world around us. Every being achieved its full identity through its union with the universe itself. The indigenous people of the North American continent related each of their ceremonial activities first to the six directions of the universe: to the four cardinal points and to the sky above and the earth below. Only then could any human activity become fully valuable.
In these early times, the universe was a world of meaning, a fundamental plane of reference from which people derived their social order, economic survival, and healing of disease. In this vast space dwelt the muses, from which came poetic, artistic, and musical inspiration. The drum, the heartbeat of the universe itself, established the rhythm of the dance by which people entered into the wondrous activity of the natural world. The numinous dimension of the universe itself acted upon the human mind through the immensity of the sky and through the forces manifested in thunder and lightning, as well as through the springtime of renewal of life, coming after the bleakness of winter. Also, the general helplessness of man before the threat to life, with all its worries about survival, revealed his intimate dependence on the integral functioning of things. That man had such an intimate relationship with the universe was possible only because the universe itself had an intimate relationship with man as the maternal source from which men arose and by which they are sustained in their existence.
We observe this experience even today among indigenous people. They live in the universe, in the cosmological order, while we, the people of the industrial world, no longer live in the universe. We live in the political world, in the nation, in the world of business, in the world of economic order, in the tradition of culture, in the dream world of Disneyland. We live in cities, in a world of concrete and metal, of wheels and wires, in a world of commerce and work. We no longer see stars or planets or the moon at night. We no longer experience the sun in any immediately meaningful way during the day. Inside a shopping mall, summer and winter are no different. Our world is a world of highways, parking lots, shopping malls. We read books written in a strangely invented alphabet. We have long since stopped reading the book of nature.
Although we have the most scientific knowledge of the universe that humans have ever had, it is not a knowledge that brings us into an intimate presence within a meaningful cosmos. The diverse and colorful phenomena of nature no longer represent spiritual beings to us. We have abundant contact with nature through photographs and television presentations, but as Saint Augustine once noted, the image of food cannot satisfy us. Our world of human meaning is no longer aligned with the meaning of our surroundings. We have disengaged ourselves from the deep interaction with our environment that is inherent in our nature. Our children are no longer taught how to read the great book of nature from their own direct experience or how to interact creatively with the seasonal changes of the planet. We are rarely taught today where water comes from or where it goes. We no longer align our human celebrations with the great liturgy of heaven.
Because we are so out of touch with the planet that brought us into being, we have become truly strange beings. We devote our enormous abilities, knowledge, and research to developing our own human order that is disconnected from the resources from which we emerged and on which we depend at every moment of our existence—and even destroying those resources. We are inducting our children into an economic order that is based on the exploitation of the planet’s living natural systems. In order for them to achieve this perspective, we must first desensitize them to the natural world. This disconnection occurs quite simply because we ourselves have become desensitized to the natural world and are no longer aware of what we are doing. And yet, when we watch our children closely in their early childhood, we see how they are instinctively drawn to deeply experience the nature around them. We also observe their additional stress, emotional disturbances, and learning disabilities, which seem to stem from the toxic environment and preservative-laden foods we provide them.
The primary concern of the people of this continent must be to rediscover an integral relationship with the universe, with planet Earth, and with North America. Although a new unification of our government, our institutions, and our professions with the continent in its deep structure and functioning cannot be achieved immediately, our educational programs can be the path to it. This new development is possible especially at the lower levels of elementary school. In the third decade of the last century, for example, the pedagogical thinking of Maria Montessori moved in this direction. In her book To Educate the Human Potential1Maria Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential. Clio Press, Oxford (England) 1948. Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was a prominent Italian physician, educator and anthropologist; she was the first woman in history to receive a university degree in medicine. Her alternative concept of child upbringing and education, which is based on the immediate needs of the child and is focused on the development of his or her inner potential, brought a revolutionary change to children's pedagogy. Maria Montessori is considered one of the most important women of the first half of the 20th century and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times. From the author's books published in Czech: From childhood to adolescence (Triton, Prague 2012); Discovering the child(Portal, Prague 2017). Maria states, that the education of six-year-olds really begins when the child is able to identify his own center with the center of the universe. Because the universe, she says, “is a magnificent reality.” It represents “the answer to all questions.” “We will walk this path of life together, because all things are part of the universe and connect with each other and form one whole.” This comprehensive context allows “the child’s mind to become focused and to stop the aimless search for knowledge.” Maria goes on to mention how this experience of the universe awakens in the child a sense of wonder and wonder and how it allows him to unify his thinking. In this way, the child learns how all things are related to each other and that these relationships are so close “that whether we are dealing with anything, an atom or a cell, we cannot explain it without knowing the vast universe.”
AfterThe difficulty is that with the rise of modern science we have come to think of the universe as a collection of objects rather than as a community of subjects. We often associate the loss of the inner spiritual world of the human mind and human emotions with the rise of modern mechanistic science. But even more serious is the realization that we have lost the universe itself. While we have achieved extensive control over the mechanical and even biological functions of the natural world, this control has not always brought about beneficial consequences. Often the opposite has been the case. Not only have we mastered much of the functioning of the planet, but we have also largely fromdestroying life systems themselves. We have also silenced many of the beautiful voices of the universe that once spoke to us about the great mysteries of existence.
We no longer hear the voices of rivers, the voices of mountains, or the voices of the sea. Trees and meadows no longer represent for us intimate modes of spiritual presence. The world around us has become more of an “it” than a “you,” as the eminent archaeologist Henri Frankfort noted in his book Before Philosophy2Henri Frankfort etc., Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. Penguine, Baltimore 1949, p. 26.. We continue to compose music, write poetry, and create paintings, sculptures, and architecture, but these activities easily become merely the aesthetic expression of man, losing the intimate, dazzling, and terrifying qualities of the universe itself. In the universe as it is understood today, we have little opportunity to participate in the mysteries that were celebrated in earlier literary, artistic, and religious modes of expression. Therefore, we are no longer able to live in the universe in which these celebrations took place. We can only look at it as something unreal.
And yet the universe is so bound up with aesthetic experience, with poetry, music, art, and dance, that we are unable to completely avoid this hidden dimension of the natural world, even when we understand art as “representational,” “impressionistic,” “expressionistic,” or as our purely “personal statement.” However we think of our art or literature, their power lies in the wonder most directly communicated by a meadow or a mountain, the sea, or the stars in the night sky.
Of particular importance is our capacity for celebration, which inevitably leads us to rituals that ensure the coordination of human affairs with the great liturgy of the universe. Our national holidays, political events, heroic human deeds, all are worthy of celebration. But unless these ceremonial acts are truly connected to some more complex level of meaning, they ultimately amount to mere artificial, emotional, and ephemeral expression. Yet within the political and legal order, as we can see, we have never been able to give up invoking the more sublime dimensions of the universe to attest to the truth of what we say. We can observe this in the oaths we take in inauguration ceremonies, in official documents, and in court proceedings. We still feel an instinctive awe, awe, and even a certain fear of that larger world that always remains beyond our human control.
Although we recognize a spiritual world outside of man, we relate everything to man as the ultimate source of meaning and value, even though this way of thinking has led us, like so many other beings, to disaster. Yet in recent times we have begun to realize that in the phenomenal order of the world, the universe represents the only self-referential mode of being. All other modes of being, including man, are always related to the universe in their existence and functioning. This relationship with the universe has been recognized for centuries in the rituals of various traditions.
Since the Paleolithic era, people have coordinated their ritual celebrations with moments of transformation in the natural world. The universe, in all its vastness in space and in the sequence of its transformations in time, has been perceived in its essence as one multifaceted celebratory manifestation. It seems that no other explanation is possible for the world we see around us. Birds fly and sing, build their nests and raise their young. Flowers bloom. Rains nourish every living thing. The tide follows the tide. The seasons follow each other in a beautiful sequence. Every event in the natural world is a poem, an image, a drama, a celebration. Sunrise and sunset represent mystical moments in the daily cycle of the day, moments when the numinous dimension of the universe reveals itself with special intimacy. They are moments when we can experience the profound meaning of being, both individually and in our relationships with others. These moments are celebrated in special rituals, whether in gatherings of indigenous people in their tribal settings or in more elaborate temples, cathedrals and spiritual centers across the country. Similarly, in the cycle of the year, spring is celebrated as a time of renewal for man in proper connection with the cosmic order of things.
It seems that the effective restoration of a viable mode of human presence on the planet will not occur until such an intimate relationship of man with the earthly community and with the entire functioning of the universe is restored on a large scale. Until this happens, the alienation of man will continue despite our heroic efforts to arrive at a more favorable mode of our human activity in relation to the Earth. The present is not a time for despair, but for hopeful action. We find it in the unyielding reassertion of traditional thought and traditional rituals that we can observe among the indigenous peoples of this continent. We find it in the teachings of the Black Elk3Heháka Sápa (Black Moose, 1863–1950), holy man, heyoka, and teacher of the Oglala Sioux tribe. He was a cousin of the war leader Crazy Horse, with whom he fought at the Battle of the Little Bighorn; he survived the Wounded Knee Massacre. He converted to the Catholic faith. Book by John G. Neihardt Black Elk Speaks (1932) – in Czech: Black Deer Speaks (Volvox Globator 2014) – became an important inspiration for the American Indian movement in the 1970s. and in the revival of the Crow Indians' Sun Dance ritual. In Scott Momaday's books4Navarre Scott Momaday (born 1934) is a Kiowa Indian novelist, essayist, and poet. His novel House Made of Dawn won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969 and is considered the first major work of the Native American cultural renaissance., inspired by The Lame Deer5John (Fire) Lame Deer, Richard Erdoes, The Lame Deer – A Sioux Medicine Man's Tale (Paseka, Prague – Litomyšl 2004)., under the advice and guidance of Oren Lyons6Oren R. Lyons (1930), a member of the Seneca tribe, is a recognized advocate for Native American rights., in the poetry of Joy Harjo7Joy Harjo (born Joy Foster, 1951) is a poet, musician, and writer. She is an important figure in the second wave of the Native American cultural renaissance. She became the first Native American artist ever to receive the United States Poetry Prize., in essays by Linda Hogan8Linda K. Hogan (born 1947), a member of the Chickasaw Indian tribe, is a poet, storyteller, novelist, short story writer, and playwright. She is the recipient of the Lannan Prize for Poetry. even in the insights of Vina Deloria9Vine Victor Deloria (1933-2005) was a Native American writer, theologian, historian, and activist. He became widely known for his book Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (1969), which helped draw attention to the problems of Native Americans. we find a renewal of indigenous thought as well as a critical response to the traditional religious and scientific modes of our Western thinking. These authors have a profound understanding of the nature of our human relationships to the larger order of the universe; in each of them we find an expression of the intimate rapprochement of the human adventure with the great cosmic liturgy of the natural world.
In line with indigenous ways of thinking as we know them from around the world, it is possible to place some emphasis on the need to understand the universe primarily as a celebration. While the universe celebrates itself in every way of being, man can be identified as the being in whom the universe celebrates itself and its numinous origin in a special mode of conscious self-awareness. Spontaneous forms of various community rituals have already been developed – such as the Council of All Beings, initiated by John Seed, the ritual programs of Joana Macy10See John Seed, Joanna Macy, Pat Flemming, Arne Naess, Thinking Like a Mountain / The Gathering of All Beings (ABIES / Green Hope Foundation, Prešov 1992). See also: Joanna Macy, Chris Johnstone, Active Hope (Alferia, Prague 2020)., Paul Winter's solstice celebrations, or the seasonal feasts and festivals at Genesis Farm (Theresa Miriam MacGillis) – to provide hope for the future. To offer the understanding, the strength, the aesthetic grandeur, and the emotional tension needed to heal the damage that has been done to the planet. To help create a viable future, a future with the enchanting qualities necessary to overcome the difficulties we will face and to awaken the creativity we need.
I would like to point out that the work that lies ahead is not our task alone, but the task of the entire planet and all its individual members. Although the damage that has occurred is the direct work of humans, the healing cannot be the work of humans alone, just as the disease of a bodily organ cannot be cured by the efforts of that one organ alone. Every organ of the body must participate in the healing process. So today the entire universe is participating in the healing of the damaged Earth in the light and warmth of the Sun.
And since the Earth, in the wondrous presence of its diverse, interconnected elements, is in a sense a magical planet, this movement too will have to somehow embark on future journeys that the human mind cannot grasp. We can think of the planet's viable future more as the result of our participation in a symphony, or as our renewed participation in the numinous presence manifesting in the wondrous world around us, than as the realization of some scientific understanding or socio-economic arrangement. This insight was perhaps what I vaguely sensed when I first looked at the lilies blooming in the meadow beyond the stream.