Last night, I attended Brian Swimme’s presentation at OISE.  “Wow!” barely expresses it.  He’s a mathematical cosmologist who’s totally in love with the universe.  Swimme is vibrant, intelligent, witty, and engaging.  “Inspiring” barely expresses it. 

The opening chant — “Come, come, come, unity” — was simple and set the tone for the evening.  Brian Swimme said that one of the reasons we humans exist is to fall in love with the universe, then he asked, “What does it take to fall in love?”, and proposed a two-step process (we chuckled):

1. Identify and remove the obstacles, all of which are human-created.  The biggest of these is thinking of the world as resource or as “stuff”.
2. Spend time with your beloved, in this case Gaia in all her manifestations.  Learn about that One which gave birth to us, spawned us.  Move from resource to source, or from resource to relative.

He says that we’re not just in the Milky Way galaxy, but rather we have been invoked into life by it.  This is creativity without hands.  Powerful!  The miracles of earth far outshine the miracles in any religious text.  Lava becoming red monkey is far more miraculous than walking on water.  The sun is always transforming itself into light.  It’s on a course of irreversible giveaway, a cosmic generosity that inspires our own generosity.  The role of the human is to have care and compassion beyond our own species.  We are the universe in awe of itself.

Brian enhanced his talk with delicious images projected large onto the wall behind him.  One of the most beautiful sights from my front-row vantage point was of Brian on stage, arms outstretched, haloed by an immense spiral galaxy.  Wow!

The whole event awoke a sense of wonder in me.  In the words of poet Drew Dellinger, “I want to write a love letter to the Milky Way”.  As Carol Kilby of the Gaia Centre said, “Brian is an awe-freer.”  Blessed be, sister! 

Here’s a short tarot reading inspired by the evening:

1. What obstacle prevents me from falling fully in love with the universe?     STAR, reversed.     My greed.  My desire to be the recipient of good things no matter what.  My inner belief that “it’s all mine”.
2. How can I remove that obstacle?     PAGE OF PENTACLES, upright.     Dare to be out on the earth more often.  Recommit to the body and to the soil and all its inhabitants.  Dive into what’s physical and real.
3. How can I best spend time with our beloved universe?     4 OF CUPS, reversed.     Act as if it’s a deep, intimate love relationship.  Act on dreams and intuitive promptings that the universe floats to me.  Be Spirit made manifest on earth.