The Savings Account for Beauty and Mystery
"Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul." - Henry Ward Beecher
By Mandy Henderson, Volunteer Coordinator
When people are inspired by a good idea, it illuminates their hearts, and shines through all their deeds. A good idea can make what seems impossible… possible. Good ideas unite what seems fractured. They heal what is broken. A good idea in action is truly a living thing -- it evolves over time. It’s signature? It solves a shockingly large number of problems all at once. I think most of the work that has ever been done here at the Arc has been done by people inspired by such an idea.
We call it: restoring wilderness to the Eastern Forest and saving native biodiversity. And we’re doing it.
But, in practice and in experience, we all know the idea means ever so much more than these simple words. It is this bigger deeper Idea that gets all of us out there pulling garlic mustard in drizzly weather, packing lunches at the Wildflower Pilgrimage at 6 am in the morning, and donating money when perhaps we could be prudently paying off our credit card bills. These are nothing short than acts of love.
A very solid case can be made for the reasons why we act with compassion and love, but we can’t seem to express the ultimate reason why we do so. What is the reason for compassion, for love? What is the reason the sun shines? At the end of the day, whether we know the reason or not -- the sun goes down, and comes up again the next. Compassion and love radiate from our higher selves just as light and heat radiate from the sun. They can be seen in our eyes and heard in our voices. They come from a place which is our true home, but that none of us can ever fully express.
Why is a tree so beautiful? We don’t exactly know. It just is. Why do we love our children? There is no why. Why do we save money in a savings accounts? For reasons we don’t yet know. When our deeds are illuminated by love, we are tireless, and the reasons behind our deeds seem self-evident. We inspire others and serendipity follows us, because everything that rises must converge. All living things co-arise out of each other, creating each other. Not “because of”, but just because. That’s evolution, and I think you’ll agree it’s a pretty big idea. Not even 6 am sandwich-making can stomp out that idea!
But what place is there for this idea in our one-way culture of cause and effect? In our common parlance, even evolution is seen as each organism’s independent linear progression toward an ultimate ideal, instead of being seen as millions of organisms co-creating a multiplicity of solutions, adapting to changing conditions over time. Today it seems as if everything must have a use; a price; be known and understood, and be either this political party or that, divided into this polarity or the other. Otherwise, it simply has no valid existence at all. Things move in one linear direction: out of the earth, fractured, sold, and into the landfill. It seems the default is that everything and everyone is part of a giant, one-way checking account that only gets spent. Most people don’t even have personal savings accounts. So where in our common lives is the savings account for beauty and mystery?
The Arc is about giving sanctuary to a distinctly different, and refreshing way of perceiving the world, and acting in it.
We can use the term restoring the “temperate forest wilderness” as a place marker for the Arc's savings account for supportive inter-relationships. Like branching mycelium beneath the forest floor, connecting tree to tree, many things happen for inscrutable reasons that we may never physically see, or intellectually know. But they happen.
At the heart of this mystery, here at the Arc we make a space for other living beings to share with us their fullest expressions. We create and recreate one another through our relationships, because evolution works best when there is a diversity of players. Each of our individual experiences are both similar and intimately different, like our fingerprints. That is why every one of us might have a different idea of the Arc, and that is why this diversity of "ideas" is such a great idea. Your unique gifts contribute immeasurably to the resiliency and strength of the Arc, as the "Ark" floats into its future around the next bend...
Thank you for paddling with us. Thank you for all of your hard work, love and support. We look forward to many more years of co-evolving with you and the forest. We wish you a life of Wings.