A Devotion to Small Systems

notes toward an earthbound faith

If the point of religion is to worship then I have certainly knelt at every altar that lies beneath us. Between us. I have lifted my face to weather. I have bowed to fruit ripening in its own time. I have placed faith in fire poppies that only open after ash, in lodgepole pine cones sealed until heat frees them, and in redwoods drinking fog;

because if life can rise from burn and survive on mist, then so can I.

I believe in eucalyptus that sheds and returns, in roots that trust ash more than untouched soil. I believe in the patience of things that do not bloom until the world finally makes room.

I do not kneel toward heaven. I kneel toward what survives.

I do not believe in man appointed by God. I believe in dew arriving without spectacle. In moisture that gathers while we sleep. I believe in destruction that is not the end. I believe in growth that does not rush and survival that does not announce itself.

I have prayed without words to the bodies that carry us, fail us, heal anyway.

I have knelt without knowing I was kneeling, in fields, in kitchens, in the pause before a breath releases itself.

If there is something watching over us, it is the work itself, the long, unseen labor of continuation. Ash becoming soil. Fog becoming forest. A world that keeps making room. And me, learning how to live inside it.