What hearkens to us in these disillusioned days following a bitterly divided election, when the aches and hollow places left by familial relationships and friendships torn asunder leave us desolate and perplexed? Is there a balm in Gilead for what ails us?
A voyage into the imaginal realm, where mythic storytelling, music, art, dance and poetry soar, may be just what the doctor ordered. What we need is an opportunity for God’s Holy Spirit to “pour out on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17).
How can we dream a new Earth unless we stoke our imagination and midwife a new communal consciousness?
New Consciousness
Decades of discourse
led by people like me
lawyers, scientists, economists,
and we are stuck.They can’t do what must be done:
reach the human heart.
The deep problems are
avarice, arrogance and apathy,
dominant values badly astray.What we need is not more analysis
but a spiritual awakening to a new consciousness.
So let’s bring on the preachers and prophets!
the poets and philosophers!
the psychologists and psychiatrists!
Let’s bring on the writers, musicians, actors, artists!Call them to strike the chords of our shared humanity,
of our close kin to wild things!—Gus Speth, “It’s Already Tomorrow,” The Coming Transformation: Values to Sustain Human and Natural Communities, p. 24 (Manchester Center, VT: Shires Press, 2020)
—Laura Weber, Prairiewoods associate director and retreats coordinator