My Identity is Stronger than Politics.

Exasperated, I turn off the news, “that’s not who I am!” When friends tell me the daily news is wearing them down, I’m thankful for a daily practice, the Dance of Identity. Thomas Berry believed that if we’re to know who we are in the world, we must return to our cosmic beginning. I open the door, stand at its threshold, and one at a time step out and back from the identities bestowed on me by the history that’s led to the crisis.

Observer, no, I’m not powerless. Consumer, I’m trying not to be. Mere Mechanics in a mechanical universe? Colonizer? Canadian? Female? Dualist? The worldview of separateness has fueled the sixth extinction. Superior Species? Homo Sapiens? Creature? A human-centric culture, the news testifies, is collapsing. How we once knew ourselves is disappearing.   

If there is to be a sustainable future, our identity in these times must be bigger. I turn to begin the journey back to the open door that is this day.

 In the beginning, I am Universe, an ever-changing arrangement of energy and matter. I step into my new story . . .

I am an exploding fireball, I am Stardust! Gases and particles enveloping a planet, I am Environment. Emerging, I am Earthling, Species, Storyteller. Communicating events, I am Wisdom Keeper; as dependent on plant, animal, and soil as they are on me, I am Relation.

I stand at the threshold. The news is the same; I am not. My practice teaches, there is no eternal form of what I am; it grounds me in a story of dancing, incarnate cosmic and holy power. Energized, I face the world; I am the new news. The Dance of Identity is my form of political activism.

Join me in the Dance of Identity, Thursday, June 5, 1 pm ET, World Environment Day. Register before hand at this link.