Spirituality of the Earth

Emanation II, oil on canvas, 12 x 12 inches, © 2009 Diane McGregor

I love this quote by Thomas Berry, who died June 1, age 94. This is an excerpt from his article "The Spirituality of the Earth" (1990):

We need a spirituality that emerges out of a reality deeper than ourselves, even deeper than life, a spirituality that is as deep as the earth process itself, a spirituality born out of the solar system and even out of the heavens beyond the solar system. There in the stars is where the primordial elements take shape in both their physical and psychic aspects. There is a certain triviality in any spiritual discipline that does not experience itself as supported by the spiritual as well as the physical dynamics of the entire cosmic-earth process. A spirituality is a mode of being in which not only the divine and the human commune with each other, but we discover ourselves in the universe and the universe discovers itself in us.

This painting is part of a series I'm doing about memories of growing up near a lovely lake in Connecticut. We had the quintessential babbling brook flowing through our one-acre property. It flowed under a bridge into Canoe Brook Lake, which was across the street. I spent hours at the lake, by the brook, in the forests, with American Indian artifacts and burial mounds. I don't know how many years I lived there, but it was magical.