“What the Living have in common today is that they rarely think about the Dead. But the Dead think only about the Living, just as a loving, devoted parent thinks only about their child. What the Dead wish for you is that you may overcome your arrogance and know that yours is not the only life, not the only reality, and not the only time.
“If you knew what the Dead had to teach you, you would know how to live. And knowing how to live, you would know the path ahead of you. But with your back set against the Past in defiance of the Dead, you cannot see what lies before you. You are like blind men and women to whom the world holds only darkness.
“You light one candle after another to see your way forward—these are your so-called advances and innovations—but they are as nothing to the soul that cannot see. On these nights to come when yearly you remember your Dead, you light candles for them in churches or in jack-o’lanterns, and on various altars and mantelpieces across the world. But on the other 362 days of the year, the Dead are burning candles for you.
“Going forward you must learn to see by their light. There is no other way for you to make it through the darkness that lies ahead of you. Remember on this day next year that I spoke these words to you tonight. By then, many of you will have understood them to be true.”
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NOTE: As this session was ending tonight, Our Lady pointed to a book on the shelf across from where Clark was sitting and said, “Turn to page 237 and add the passage that is written there to My message for tonight so that you may reflect on them in the times to come.”
The book was “American Earth: Environmental Writings Since Thoreau,” edited by Bill McKibben, with a foreword by Al Gore. On page 237 was the following stanza of a poem called “what the ants are saying,” by Don Marquis, originally published in 1935.
america was once a paradise
of timberland and stream
but it is dying because of the greed
and money lust of a thousand little kings
who slashed the timber all to hell
and would not be controlled
and changed the climate
and stole the rainfall from posterity
and it wont be long now
it wont be long
till everything is desert
from the alleghenies to the rockies
the deserts are coming
the deserts are spreading
the springs and streams are drying up
one day the mississippi itself
will be a bed of sand
ants and scorpions and centipedes
shall inherit the earth