Worshipping The Ten Thousand Gods

Worshipping The Ten Thousand Gods

“The Tao begot one.
One begot two. Two begot three.
And three begot the ten thousand things.”
~ Tao Te Ching

So why bother with the ten thousand things?
Are they not but surface disturbances on the ineffable Tao?
Mere veil of Maya, of distraction from what is important?

But what then of Mary Oliver’s grasshopper?
The one who’s gazing at her with “enormous and complicated eyes?”
That one who is eating sugar, for all eternity, from her hand?

I want to live in a world populated by ten thousand gods.
I want to witness Mystery. Magic. Medicine. Now.
Manifest. Tangible. Real.

I want to worship the god of the froth on my cappuccino.
The one who has just performed the delicate alchemy
of blending air and water and fat, in just the right proportions.

I want to worship the god-worm,
who lies dead at the rotten core of my apple.
I want to ask him about his trip on that delivery truck from Georgia.

I do not want an incomprehensible divinity. Distant. Aloof.
A God who is too engrossed
in the enormous responsibility of making an universe move.

Come to think of it,
I do not want an universe at all.
That one indivisible whole, revolving around a single hub.

Instead, I want to worship all the gods of the cosmos.
Each god, hurling themselves into the lake of life,
leaving behind a ripple of cause and effect.

I want to worship all. As gods. Not as mere manifestations of the One God.
The ant, the river, the candy wrapper flapping in the breeze.
And especially that lone little weed, poking her flower-crowned head from the sidewalk crack.