Culture and the Universe

Two nights ago in the canyon darkness, only the half-moon and stars, only mere men. Prayer, faith, love, existence. We are measured by vastness beyond ourselves. Dark is light. Stone is rising. I don’t know if humankind understands culture: the act of being human is not easy knowledge. With painted wooden sticks and feathers, we journey into the canyon toward stone, a massive presence in midwinter. We stop. Lean into me. The universe sings in quiet meditation. We are wordless: I am in you. Without knowing why culture needs our knowledge, we are one self in the canyon. And the stone wall I lean upon spins me wordless and silent to the reach of stars and to the heavens within. It’s not humankind after all nor is it culture that limits us. It is the vastness we do not enter. It is the stars we do not let own us.