Activist

     

What is an “activist”? You can be an activist planting Winter squash, walking in a fern forest, listening to your children, or smiling from your heart at someone who is lonely.

True activism means, to gently immerse your whole astonished body in the river of Presence. To be moved by the breath of beauty like a golden leaf, falling right where you are. To drown in the mystery of communion with whoever stands before you, and serve them by Being. Out of Being, doing arises. This is love. And whatever action happens in that moment is your politics. The politics of compassion has no party, and no platform. It is groundless.

A disheveled crow, a boy in the rain with his shining basketball, a spider web catching the moon, a crone at the grocery store marveling at all the soup. These are your tribe. This is your native country. It is all a sacred homeland.

Now crush a late-summer blackberry on your tongue. Is this not why you are here? Earth is not transfigured by how much you do, but how wantonly, how nakedly you plunge into the ocean of this perishing moment.

Image: Northwest fern forest, flickr