I have hit two creatures on the roads this week--an adult squirrel and a very very tiny rabbit. I felt nothing physically--no impact, no scream, not a thing.
But inside, I felt sick that my coming and going ended the lives of two creatures going about their business, crossing the road to get to the other side.
Each creature's death diminished me. The world seems divided by those who feel this way, and those for whom no loss of life but human (and their personal pets) are worthy of grief and loss.
We have the power (and some feel, the right) to take life from matter-that-lives, but we cannot give a life to matter, inert.
And in that sense, all life is sacred--a mystery to which we have become jaded. It is everywhere, all around us; common; ordinary. No big deal. Save for life’s absence in every other speck in the cosmos, so far as we’ve been able to discover so far.
Cicadas 1952, 1969, 1986, 2003, 2020, 2037
What is the point of living? To emerge from the dirt, mate once and die.
What is (any individual or any species) "good for?"
To leave our mark; to allow marks to be left in us--by friendships, by service, by memory, by inspiration and by place.
Weave all this into "life in place" and "life in time" and the community of thought, of cooperation and sharing, of common values and purpose collectively and individually.
Your observation struck me that we cannot create life so in that way it is definitely sacred! By the way, the comment button has disappeared again and only that little faint icon is available to click on.