When I Was the Forest
When I was a stream
When I was the forest
When I was still the field
When I was every hoof, foot, fin and wing
When I was the sky itself,
No one ever asked me did I have a purpose,
No one ever wondered was there anything I might need,
For there was nothing I could not love,
It was when I left all that we once were that the agony began,
The fear and questions came
And I wept, and I wept, and tears I had never known before.
So I returned to the river
I returned to the mountains,
I asked for their hand in marriage again, I begged –
I begged to wed every object and creature,
And when they accepted, God was ever present in my arms,
And he did not say, “Where have you been?”
For then I knew my soul
Every Soul has always held Him
– by Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) Christian Mystic