The Mysticism of Zoos

For me, last week visiting New York's Central Park Zoo for the first time in several years, as a wordsmith I was most struck by quotations sprinkled around on arbors, railings, and other borders. You might consider my infatuation with words in this case an infraction against Zen Buddhist clarity, of the sort noted in their old koan about looking at the moon versus looking at the moon's reflection in the water. Which somehow reminds me of today's Doubting Thomas Gospel.

No matter.

Here's a gorgeous sampling of what I mean:

The secret.
and the secret hidden deep in that.

-- Gary Snyder

Both William Wordsworth and T.S. Eliot often invoked the concept of the unnameable as a spiritual marker. Meister Eckhart talks of "the God beyond God," or words to that effect.

No wonder my son and his wife got married at the zoo.

Correct that: wonder, not no wonder.

Wonder, plenty of it.