-10  59% 23%  0mph  WSW bar30.36  steep rise windchill-12  Winter

              Waxing Gibbous Winter Moon

How low will it go?  Pretty low.  These are the days for staying inside, watching movies, drinking hot chocolate, reading and studying.  I’ll do all these tomorrow.

Driving into the MIA this week, on Monday and then again today, I saw sundogs.  A sundog creates a rainbow like lens, in this case pointing toward the west.  As I understand the presence of a sundog indicates ice crystals in the air which act as a prism.   Just checked, that’s right.  Also, it says they always form at 22 degrees on either side of the sun. 

Both days an earth centered faith was on my mind, as it often is these days, in fact, these last few years.  It is not, perhaps, most accurate to say earth centered, since the  sundog itself is a good reminder that any faith which grounds itself in the material reality of this world also relies, for life itself, on the heat and energy received from the sun.  So, I don’t know, perhaps a solar system centered faith.  The earth’s orbit around the sun orchestrates the seasons and the moon pulses the oceans through bays and onto beaches with tidal flows.  Even a rudimentary understanding of the creation of the solar system acknowledges the intimate nature of our relationship to other planets that share Sol.  So, there’s a puzzle here in terms of where to focus, but I don’t think the parameters are much wider than the solar system, although there is the whole star formation, interstellar dust cloud thing which makes us part of the ongoing galactic reality. Even so, those relationship are distant both in distance and in terms of direct affect, if any on our daily lives, where Sol makes our life possible and its planets are our neighbors.

Anyhow, more thoughts on the notion of Ge-ology.  What I might write, rather than a Ge-ology, is a gospel for these heavens and this earth, a faith focused on the intricate and delicate and complex interdependence between and among life and the inanimate yet critical context in which it exists; a celebration of the wonderful and the awesome we experience each day.  Our heart beats.  The winds blow.  A lover or a child smiles.  The sun warms our face.  We recall times that seem long ago; we think and imagine.  The stars shine.  Snow falls.  These are miracles which do not require walking on water, a Pure Land or a night ride to Jerusalem.  No exodus or burning bush. 

Gospel means good news.  I see this faith as good news for all humankind and for all living creatures on our planet.  It means we can turn our face toward each other and our hands toward the earth in love, not lust. 

As I see it, this is the ur-faith, the one prior to all the others.  It came naturally to indigenous communities through faith traditions like Taoism, Shintoism, Native American faiths, the faith of those who painted Lascaux and who erected Stonehenge.  Are all these the same, no, of course not; are they all similar in their insistence on loving attention to the reality within which we dwell and move and have our being? Yes.  This is the ur-faith because it was one we all know in our deep heart; it is not exclusive, if you want to follow the path of this ancient faith and the way of Jesus or Buddha or Shiva or Mohammad, there is no conflict.