What Being Alive Is

    The Romantic writers were there, at the cusp of the transition from a life lived in Nature to one turned industrial, in cities.  They shouted in protest and rebelled against it, warned against it, and cried for the future, but no one listened.  And so now here we are - detached, transforming the entire planet into a city.  And no one looks at the new leaves of a Spring tree and feels peace anymore because they're too busy at their jobs, distracted from what's real as they deal with abstracts and ledgers, making enough money to buy a house they'll never really own instead of just making one like every other creature has the capacity to do.  Ignoring our weakness as we claim to be superior.  
    The bird rests in the leaves of the tree, the bright green surrounding the varying shades of brown upon its wings as he feels the rainwater refresh his beak.  The mother duck walks her youngsters across the parking lot, making sure the cars don't get in their way as they speed by, and her babies stay near as they wade and splash in a small puddle created in the concrete.  We've lost our way, it's scary.  Why doesn't the sound of the birds chirping deliver solace anymore, as it must for all the others living amongst the giant rings of wood?  Why can't we sit under the branches as they cut the light, and simply be?  
    We speak of economies, we speak of poverty, we speak of justice, and we speak of currency exchange.  We speak of artificial intelligence, we speak of surveillance, and we speak of war.  But never do we speak of the beauty of the most simple things that make us alive.  Life is not supposed to be this complicated or this hard.  Life is looking at that plant and feeling its energy, knowing it's alive and it's listening to the music given to us by our Mother by way of the birds in the skies.  It's feeling an ultimate and everlasting connection to everything else that's alive, because then you realize that you are just as much alive.  And so you live along with them, not against them, not using them.  That's life - breathing in the energy of a soul that never dies, the soul of the Earth and how magnificent it is that everything just fits so perfectly together, if only we can go back to how it was meant to be. 

-Lisa Selvaggio

(Originally Posted on 5/7/09)