I wrote this poem to illustrate the kind of work I am doing with my guided journals, and to comment on the trajectory of human history. It contains my viewpoint on the collective problems we are facing as a species, and on the bright future ahead of us.
Our story began beneath ancient skies
Rumbling with thunder and teeming with rain
We huddled under thatched roofs
We crowded around bonfires
And imagined that the gods were angry
We built altars and statues of these gods
Expressions of our fearful imagination
We bowed down to worship them
We sacrificed our grain, our livestock
We sacrificed our women and children
In the hopes that these gods would be appeased
We believed we were insignificant
And we were afraid
Then tribal fires became the candles of empires
And our ancient stories became holy scriptures
We became servants to kings and popes
Who ruled by divine right
They told us the gods were still angry
That we were sinful by nature
And that redemption required obedience
We built new altars and statues
While the kings and popes lived off the fruit of our labor
And gave very little in return
We died in their wars
We sacrificed our witches and healers
We still believed we were insignificant
And we were still afraid
Then empires became nations
And our holy scriptures became constitutions
We built new statues and new monuments
We chose our rulers
Or at least believed we did
But our rulers still lived off the fruit of our labor
And we still died in their wars
We sacrificed our visionaries and reformers
We still believed we were insignificant
And we were still afraid
We invented machines to serve us
But we became enslaved to our own creations
Working tirelessly to keep pace with the engines
We abandoned our farms and moved to cities
We abandoned our childhoods and went to school
Where we were taught to be citizens and workers
Our teachers told us that the gods were dead
That the old stories were just myths
And that we were finally free
Holy scriptures were replaced by philosophies
By sophisticated ideologies
Expressions of our modern imagination
Our teachers assured us that life has no meaning
That the universe has no purpose
That all the things of the earth and sky
Have resources to be exploited
Even ourselves
We were told this was progress
But we still believed we were insignificant
And we were still afraid
We were given food and drink
We were entertained with sports and moving pictures
Distractions upon distractions
To numb a pain we could not name
And were afraid to admit existed
But in the world’s most crowded streets
But in the midst of our struggle and strife
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of our hearts which beat
So wild, so deep within us
To finally know
Where we came from and where we will go
We have built tools and machines
We have developed constitutions and philosophies
We have discovered the hidden laws of the universe
But the human heart is unfinished
Our consciousness is incomplete
So we must now discover ourselves
And realize that we are not insignificant
And realize that we do not have to be afraid
But transcendence sounds like a whisper
A half-remembered dream
Nobility sounds like a fantasy
A childish belief in the impossible
Because we have always believed we were insignificant
We have always been afraid
Yet we are not broken creatures
We are merely unfinished
And now that we have mastered the Earth
And harnessed the power of the sun
And walked on the moon
All that remains is for us to perfect ourselves
To become fully conscious
To claim the birthright that we have denied ourselves
To accept the responsibility of wisdom
And the burden of dignity
With new eyes we will see the universe
We will discover the origin of all poems
We will discover the good of the earth and sun
There are millions of suns left
We will no longer take things at second or third hand
Nor look through the eyes of the dead
Nor feed on the spectres in books
We will see all sides
And filter them for ourselves
Then we will rebuild the ancient ruins
And restore the places long devastated
We will renew our shattered cities
Our shame will become a double portion
And our disgrace will become joy
We will crown ourselves with the jewels of Creation
And wrap ourselves in robes of righteousness
We will be slaves no longer
And then we will dance
Celebrating the gift of consciousness
Until the stars grow cold and weary
And our thoughts turn again to the beginning