You can't even treat a thing as a thing, because there's no such thing as a thing.
So what we often think of as things,
in our society we sometimes even think of animals as things.
When we look at the history of slavery and segregation and
oppression and exploitation,
there are workers around the world who are being treated as things right now.
So we have had the tendency in our society to thingify sacred realities.
We thingify other people, we thingify nature.
Barry is saying there is no such thing as a thing.
Even a rock is a sacred mystical reality
because the Earth was completely rock four billion years ago and
yet through that process rock has transformed it's self into oceans, clouds,
music, poetry, human beings, the Buddha, the great spiritual teachers
of the world all emerge from this process that is the unfolding earth itself.
So nothing is a thing.
Everything is a sacred reality with infinite preciousness,
with immense potential to unfold.
So the idea of reverence and respect is something that connects
our ecological thinking and our social justice thinking.
The entire universe is composed of sacred beings, precious sacred realities.
And we're here to commune with them, not to exploit them.
>> Poetry becomes essential, doesn't it?
As deep mode of knowing this being-ness of the universe and
the special presence of things to each other.
This is not dead matter.
So that's been your art, that's been your great contribution.
To help us to see through metaphor and poetry this universe in new way,
can you tell us about your road into poetry?
>> Sure.
I think poetry is absolutely critical to understanding life and reality.
I think reason and rational thinking is, of course, an important mode of knowing.
But we need the artistic, we need the spiritual, we need the mystical and
we need the poetic.
And Teilhard de Chardin talked about the within of things.
He said science is great at describing the without of things, the surface of things,
but we really need something like poetry to have a feel for the within of things.
Poetry and the arts awaken us to the essence of reality,
and there's a deep wisdom that is more powerful than rational thought.
Doesn't mean that rational thought is unimportant,
means that needs to be complemented with a fuller and richer mode of understanding.
And I think that's what poetry does.
>> Tell us what kind of poetry really speaks to you, and in which you write and
express yourself.
>> Well I come from what could be called the hip-hop generation,
so I grew up listening to rappers and hip-hop.
And I was always impressed by the creativity of their word play,
by their ability to talk about significant issues.
One of the characteristics of hip-hop is it sometimes it's a challenge
to the powers that be.
There's a level of critique that you find in hip hop that also can be present in
rock and roll at times, can be present in folk music, can be present in the blues.
But there is a way to provide a message and
a way of critiquing a society in some of the injustices in that society.
And so it's a way to share the messages about justice,
about ecology But do it in a way that's enticing.
No one likes to be preached at.
Speechifying and textbooks will only take us so far.
The arts have been critical to human education,
to human inspiration throughout history.
Thomas used to say, celebration is the key to human energies.
Celebration is the key to human energies.
The arts are all about celebration.
Thomas would say, you can't have energy if you don't celebrate.
So the arts and poetry are critical to the type of energy that we need to move into
a positive future.
>> Great.
And they're healing, right?
And they're hopeful.
And you say, over and over again, energizing.
And just to push this a little further with the hip hop and the rhythm,
everybody loves the rhythm that it holds us to and grounds us with.
And we come alive.
There's a beat.
Can you give us a feel for
why that beat has come alive in you and your work, but your generation too?
What is it that hip hop is holding for us?