Every time I come to Prairiewoods, I stroll along the Cosmic Walk path that marks key moments in the birth and evolution of our universe and our planet home Earth. Every time I am struck by how far I walk, across the creek, up the hill, through the woods, across the ridge—through billions of years of astounding creations—before humans emerge on the scene. We show up less than a footstep away from the end of the path, a blip in an almost unfathomable journey of time … 15 billion years.
The Cosmic Walk is a physical representation of the beloved Universe Story written by Brian Swimme. In this mind-bending narrative, I find perspectives and understandings that are essential for us as we navigate these challenging times of climate chaos and global unrest. The Universe Story reminds us about who we really are and about how quickly we can change our world.
According to this story, we truly are star dust. All the basic elements of life, including carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, calcium and magnesium, were birthed in the initial Flaring Forth. Over billions of years, these elements formed stars, planets, galaxies, our Earth and all life that has ever lived on our planet. The elements that make up all forms of Earthly life are beyond ancient, and yet they have been continously recombining and reenergizing to remake themselves into new lifeforms for more than four billion years. Every element in our bodies has lived millions of lifetimes in all kinds of creatures, from single-celled amoebas to colossal blue whales. We have carbon and calcium of mighty dinosaurs and breathe in oxygen from plants long extinct.
We are star dust. And so is every rock, every tree, every bird, every animal, every human. Literally everything we know is made up of the same primordial elements. And this fact alone is proof that we are interconnected to all life on Earth and to the Earth herself. We are not separate; we are one.
Imagine how different life would be if we made choices that were rooted in our interconnectedness—if we saw all life as a reflection of ourselves, if we linked our wellbeing with the wellbeing of all life. This awareness is essential if we wish to co-create a world that is regenerative, just, peaceful and flourishing.
The Universe Story reminds us that we humans arrived here such a short time ago, and yet we’ve managed to so alter our world that our actions are threatening all life on the planet. We don’t have billions of years to figure out how to reverse climate change or to heal the generational traumas that perpetuate oppression, cruelty and wars. But we do have billions of years of energy and evolutionary experience living within each of us and a deep knowing of our belonging and interconnection to Earth and all her inhabitants. Fueled by this awareness, I’d like to believe that we can bring about a healing transformation in as little time as it took us to cause such great harm. The Universe Story calls us to make changes now that will bring us back into alignment with our cosmological truth for the wellbeing of all.
—Kathleen Rude, an excerpt of this was published in Prairiewoods’ July/August 2024 Newsletter