"Nobody sees the obvious, nobody observes the ordinary. There are more miracles in a square yard of earth than in all the fables of the Church"
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Wilson isn’t praising nature so much as indicting our attention span. “Nobody sees the obvious” lands like a jab at the modern mind: trained to hunt for hidden plots, mystical upgrades, and special effects, while stepping over the daily strangeness of being alive. The first line is blunt on purpose. It’s not poetic drift; it’s a diagnosis. We don’t lack wonder, we lack observation.
Then he turns the knife with “miracles in a square yard of earth,” a deliberately low-budget frame. Not mountaintops, not cathedrals, not cosmic visions: dirt. The phrase forces a scale shift. If you actually look, that patch contains biochemical factories, miniature wars, decomposers turning death into fertility, roots negotiating with fungi like a shadow economy. Wilson’s “miracles” are not violations of natural law but the fact that natural law, up close, is already outrageous.
The kicker is “more than in all the fables of the Church,” a provocation aimed at institutional storytelling. Wilson, a writer steeped in counterculture skepticism, isn’t just taking a cheap shot at religion; he’s critiquing any authority that outsources awe into approved narratives. “Fables” suggests not only disbelief but a deeper complaint: packaged wonder becomes a substitute for direct perception. The subtext is anarchic and practical: stop chasing sanctioned mysteries and look down. Reality is the heresy we keep ignoring.
Then he turns the knife with “miracles in a square yard of earth,” a deliberately low-budget frame. Not mountaintops, not cathedrals, not cosmic visions: dirt. The phrase forces a scale shift. If you actually look, that patch contains biochemical factories, miniature wars, decomposers turning death into fertility, roots negotiating with fungi like a shadow economy. Wilson’s “miracles” are not violations of natural law but the fact that natural law, up close, is already outrageous.
The kicker is “more than in all the fables of the Church,” a provocation aimed at institutional storytelling. Wilson, a writer steeped in counterculture skepticism, isn’t just taking a cheap shot at religion; he’s critiquing any authority that outsources awe into approved narratives. “Fables” suggests not only disbelief but a deeper complaint: packaged wonder becomes a substitute for direct perception. The subtext is anarchic and practical: stop chasing sanctioned mysteries and look down. Reality is the heresy we keep ignoring.
Quote Details
| Topic | Nature |
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