I recently came across this quote on The Oatmeal in regards to religion:
Does [your religion] help you cope with the fact that you are a bag of meat sitting on a rock in outer space and that someday you will DIE and you are completely powerless, helpless, and insignificant in the wake of this beautiful cosmic shitstorm we call existence?
Me: No! Because I don’t have a religion! (You will not hear me speak much of religion; in short I am open-minded, but believe in logic and reason first.)
AND YET…
Bizarrely, I did take solace in the fact that I AM only a bag of meat on a rock in the vast expanse of all known universes here, now, and ever, and that one day I will return to the earth as nothing more than dirt in the wind, or a miniscule grain of sand.
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fiber your blood.Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
Incidentally, here is what sand looks like under 250x magnification.
That makes all of our problems seem insignificant too, doesn’t it? If all my life and experiences– the good and the bad, the love and the loathing, the pleasures, the worries, the joys and the pains– will all one day fit a hundred times over into the crevice of somebody’s left shoe, or in the space between their toes, why should I let any one pea-sized, fleeting problem command any semblance of significance over me?
So I am lost and lacking direction. Only until I find my way.
I’m not yet published. But I will be.
Today my body aches. Tomorrow it shall be mended.
I have no cherished love. But I shall love again.
This, that, and all the bricks I bear on my back are heavy. But soon they shall be gone.
Everything in life is for now, for now, for now; tomorrow, we are gone.
Julie Israel 
I came looking for you because I missed your posts … and I found this … b e a u t i f u l!!
Take Care,
Daniela
Thank you very much, Daniela 🙂
I Have Killed the Deer
~Taos Pueblo Song
I have killed the deer.
I have crushed the grasshopper
And the plants he feeds upon.
I have cut through the heart.
Of trees growing old and straight.
I have taken fish from water
And birds from the sky.
In my life I have needed death
So that my life can be.
When I die I must give life
To what has nourished me.
The earth receives my body
And gives it to the plants
And to the caterpillars
To the birds
And to the coyotes
Each in its own turn so that
The circle of life is never broken.
Your post made me think of this poem so I thought I’d post it here.
I love this, Anna (omg, I almost called you “Anika”– the protagonist of my novel! You know you’ve been editing WHEN…). The Taos Pueblo song in turn made me think of these lines from classic American poet Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”:
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fiber your blood.