Love all creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand within it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. ~ Staretz Zosima; The Brothers Karamazov – by Fyodor Dostoevsky
All created things are marked with the seal of the Trinity... The contemplation of nature has two correlative aspects. First, it means appreciating the “thusness” or “thisness” of particular things, persons and moments. We are to see each stone, each leaf, each blade of grass, each frog, each human face, for what it truly is, in all the distinctness and intensity of its specific being. As the prophet Zechariah warns us, we are not to “despise the day of small things” (4:10). “True mysticism”, says Olivier Clément, “is to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.” ~ Metropolitan Kallistos Ware; The Orthodox Way
I accidentally discovered my first moss forest, probably around the age of 6, after attempting an over-exuberant cartwheel. Landing nose-first into a shady patch of “grass” I realized it wasn’t grass at all, but a puffy emerald pillow of velvety moss… With thousands… perhaps millions of tiny “trees” (spore stalks)! This stretch of forest seemed like a microscopic jungle, and if one were an actual fairy tale giant, this would be (no doubt) how they would see the world from far above.
When walking through nature, I marvel at the many layers of forests. There are forests within forests. I may be in a forest, but, there on the nursing log laying beside the trail, is another kind of forest! Moss is an ancient organism, and has many uses. It’s amazing.
Truly, the so-called little things in life, when noticed, are actually Huge. Cosmic.
St. John Chrysostom says, “Nature is our best teacher.”
Indeed.
God’s Gift of Creation is intricately and mysteriously connected.
Let us open the noetic eyes of our heart to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.
The world is more than we know.
