In Saturday’s DM, we meditated on the relationship of ecstasy and politics, that an experience of God or the Sacred can occur in people joining together to replace lies with truth, neglect with caring, and injustice with laws that work for the common good.
Today, I invite you to mediate on other everyday ecstasies besides those that hard work in the political arena can achieve. Awe has something to do with ecstasy. Ekstasis in Greek means to stand outside oneself, one might say outside one’s ego. It is about tasting something bigger than ourselves.
An everyday ecstasy available to all these days, is the awe triggered by new exposure to the wonders of the cosmos. The Whee! of learning our universe is two trillion galaxies large and has been unfolding for 13.8 billion years and has given birth to this amazing planet, so beautiful and wondrous and also endangered. The new religion must begin with creation—just as old religions began before the modern era which belittled creation.
Thus, Descartes: “I think therefore I am.” And John Locke: “Land left wholly to nature is called waste.” And Francis Bacon said the point of science is to regain dominion over nature which man lost in the Fall. In a recent public dialogue, cosmologist Brian Swimme called Locke an “idiot” for his statement above.
The first archetype I propose for buttressing healthy masculinity is “Father Sky.” Author Scott Russell Sanders in his book, Hunting for Hope: A Father’s Journeys, talks about climbing out of his car on a dark night to listen to the sky. The sky hushed me. From the black bowl of space countless fiery lights shone down, each one a sun or a swirl of suns the whole brilliant host of them enough to strike me dumb.
What did he learn? We must “bring our lives into direct contact with the elemental life of the cosmos” which delivers to us “a dark sort of joy.”
Human work “will never satisfy this hunger. Only direct experience of Creation will do.”
When we “open ourselves to the world we have not made,” we find faith. “Faith in what? In our capacity for decent and loving work, in the healing energy of wildness, in the holiness of Creation.” He cites Thoreau, “Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity, so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.”
Sanders continues: That the universe exists at all, that it obeys laws, that those laws have brought forth galaxies and stars and planets and—on our planet, at least—life, and out of life, consciousness, and out of consciousness these words, this breath, is a chain of wonders. I dangle from that chain and hold on tight.” Yes, the sacredness of Father Sky is with us always.
Human art is another font of sacredness. I enclose a video of the Korean group, BTS whose gift to the world is song, poetry and dance. As an older man, I appreciate the joy, beauty and at-oneness with the body they celebrate with all, young and old. They are athletes as well as artists, and watching this video is an ecstatic experience for me. It honors our sacred bodies and all the choices we can make daily to love life.
BTS is just one group in today’s world, but I hold a special place in my heart for the Korean people who invited me to speak there several years ago and who have translated about ten of my books. They embody a creation spirituality.
When it comes to ecstasies, let us not forget friendship including—as in the video below—the friendship between humans and animals. Ecstasy abounds.
The world is filled with ecstasies. It is our job to find them and share them and built a civilization around them. And give thanks.
Scott Russell Sanders. Hunting for Hope: A Father’s Journeys. Beacon Press, 1999.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner Image: Promotional image from Smithsonian Starstruck: An Immersive Experience, now playing at the Fever Hub in Washington DC through the end of 2026.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you stop regularly to explore the chain of wonders of the universe and Father Sky, and dangle from that chain and hold on tight? If not, why not? Do you find art, dance, music and poetry another avenue to the Sacred and the taste of Whee!? And friendships including friendships with animals?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 13f.
Whee! We, wee All the Way Home: Toward a Sensual, Prophetic, Spirituality.
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint For Our Times.
Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times.
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality.
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation.
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1 thought on “Further Everyday Ecstasies Where We Taste the Divine”
Yes! The Sacred Is Present within and among Us in All of ongoing Co-Creation, Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Her living creatures/Her graceful abundance, Our evolving multidimensional/multiverse Cosmos, and All spiritual beings of Light, including Humanity, in Our Loving Diverse Oneness in the Sacred Process of the Eternal Present Moment….