The Art of Creaturely Life: A Question of Human Propriety

Abstract

There appears to be a law that when creatures have reached the level of consciousness, as men have, they must become conscious of the creation; they must learn how they fit into it and what its needs are and what it requires of them, or else pay a terrible penalty: the spirit of the creation will go out of them, and they will become destructive; the very earth will depart from them and go where they cannot follow. ¹

Human beings have lost their creaturely nature; this has been corrupted by their being sicut deus [like god]. The whole created world is now covered in a veil; it is silent and lacking explanation, opaque and enigmatic. ²