“The idea of a document’s being “scriptural,” that is, having authority, is integral to Western thought. We no longer remember that wisdom, knowledge, and teaching were conveyed primarily by oral means, that in early Celtic times it was the word that had authority, not what was written. The druids did not write their teachings down; they conveyed them by word of mouth directly to the ear of the hearer. Nothing intervened.
Beyond oral traditions of transmission is another level of understanding that human beings have largely forgotten but that animals still live by and understand – the gospel of the grass. The connective principles of the green world have their own authority and primacy in the transmission of living wisdom. The Book of Job compares all life to grass, and speaks of the way in which the upspringing green shoot that withers away is cast into the fire to be burned. Yet this green shoot feeds the human and animal worlds. The green grain ripens into the golden harvest that makes our very bread.
Before people spoke, or wrote, or even existed, the grasses were growing and swaying in the wind. If we are able to listen to the wisdom of the green world with our instinctive senses, we may hear the primal scripture that has its own spiritual language and understand the knowledge that transcends all religious boundaries.”
Caitlin Matthews
Chorlton Unitarians 