Welcome to Tuesday and our feature on nature as a window into the divine with a reflection based on the writing of Carl Safina, this time from Beyond Words: How Animals Think and Feel.

Note: for those new to our weekly Blue Ocean nature-themed meditation series, new episodes are published every 2–3 weeks, and only the new ones will appear on the Tuesday, nature-themed feed. Episodes of the Blue Ocean Daily Prayer series publish every day (Mon-Sat), and include repeats. 

God be in my head—and in my understanding

Ps 19: 1–6

The heavens are telling the glory of God;

Carl Safina’s writings including two central themes: First, that we can recognize traces of ourselves in other living creatures…or better sad, we can recognize traces of other living creatures in ourselves. In Beyond Words: How Animals Think and Feel, Safina says it time to move beyond the older orthodoxy of biology that said we can’t infer consciousness or emotion in non-human animals. That, it was thought, is the scientific crime of anthropomorphism—seeing human-like form in non-humans. But Safina says Darwin taught us differently. In Safina’s words, “Each newer thing is a slight tweak on something older. Everything humans do or possess came from somewhere. Before humans could be assembled, evolution needed to have most of the parts in stock, and those parts were developed for earlier models. We inherited them.” Elsewhere he writes that birds, dogs, whales, and many other creatures have all the hormones and neurotransmitters that we have to convey the experience of joy or love. We’re not the only species capable of these things, or of appreciating beauty for that matter.

So there are traces of other creatures in ourselves. That’s the first theme. And second is like unto it: The bounds of our compassion are limited by the horizons of our vision of unity. Safina offers an expansive vision of unity: “the greatest story,” he writes, “is that all life is one.” This calls for expanding what he calls the circle of compassion—to include the entire human family, but also to encompass the other creatures who are with us on this experimental planet throbbing with life.

Safina is echoing the mystics of every major spiritual tradition. In the Christian tradition, it’s the mystics who get into trouble with the church authorities for wanting, always, to expand the horizon of unity in order to extend the circle of compassion.

The songwriters of Israel had no problem with anthropomorphism. So we have this picture of the rising sun in Psalm 19, imagined as though it were a bridegroom waking up in the bridal chamber in the morning, leaping out of bed, with an extra spring in his step (we can only imagine why) and racing from one end of the sky to the other, before returning to sleep with his beloved. Classic anthropomorphism…and yet, science tells us we are profoundly connected to the sun; we are literally composed stardust—of carbon and other elements that came from exploding stars.

The storytellers of Genesis tell us that many other creatures than ourselves share “the breath of life” and evoke the delight of God and God’s blessing.

So, as we listen to the sounds of the rainforest over the next minute, try to feel the web of connections going on. The trees of the forest breathe in carbon dioxide and powered by the energy of the sun, breathe out oxygen, while the birds and the creatures of the forest that we hear, take in the oxygen thus released, and breathe out carbon dioxide. It’s a divine dance that surrounds us every moment of every day, a dance that we too participate in.

Fire of the Spirit, life of the lives of creatures,

—Hildegard of Bingen, 12th century nun, writer, composer, mystic, visionary, polymath, regarded by many as a founder of scientific natural history in Europe.

Over the next minute simply name your loved ones, calling each to mind in love, lifting each in the embrace of remembered love, to the God who is the source of all being.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

So have a blessed day, go in peace, wash your hands, love your neighbor: you are not alone.