The Universe Is Our Holy Book (Jack D. Forbes)

The Universe is our Holy Book
The Earth our Genesis
The Sky our sacred scroll
The Animals our teachers
The Mountains our prophets
The Winds our equations
The Birds our prayers
The Flowers our miracle
The Sun our source
The Moon our messenger
The Waters our testaments
The World our study
The Great Mystery our Grandfather and
Grandmother, indeed
Our Beginning and our End.

And it is said that
our Garden of Eden is
Elami hakimik
which is the entire world
and we have never
been expelled from it
for,
in the magic garden
of the Creator
we are living still
with all of our relatives
as the Old Ones say,
the four-leggeds
the winged ones of the air
and the creatures of the waters.

The philosopher-teachers of this Native
America,
The American philosophers,
tell us,
above all, they say,
we must be relative-like
with the Universe
and with all…