 "The attitude of the American Indian toward the Eternal, the Great Mystery that surrounds and embraces us, is as simple as it is exalted. To us it is the supreme conception, bringing with it the fullest measure of joy and satisfaction possible in this life. The worship of the Great Mystery is silent, solitary, free from all self-seeking. There are no temples or shrines among us save those of nature. Being children of nature, we are intensely poetical. We would deem it sacrilege to build a house for The One who may be met face to face in the mysterious, shadowy aisles of the primeval forest, or on the sunlit bosom of virgin prairies, upon dizzy spires and pinnacles of naked rock, and in the vast jeweled vault of the night sky. Such a God needs no lesser cathedral." Ohiyesa (1858-1939) Santee Dakota physician and author Photo: A snowy landscape with the Twin Owls in the background, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/
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 “Looking at emptiness, I feel I see God . . . When I give thanks, daily, for my life, I think about creation as the amazing process by which nondifferentiated emptiness continually is reborn as form. In meditation, I feel like I’m at the edge of creation.” Sylvia Boorstein A Buddhist Jew ("Bu-Jew") Photo: Spring-Beauty flowers arising out of the snow, Lory State Park, CO, March 29, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  "I once heard an old elder say: 'I have come to the conclusion that this Jesus was an Indian. He was opposed to material acquisition and to great possessions. He was inclined to peace. He was as unpractical as any Indian and set no price upon his labor of love. These are not the principles upon which the white man has founded his civilization' . . . "Indeed, our contribution to our nation and the world is not to be measured in the material realm. Our greatest contribution has been spiritual and philosophical. Silently, by example only, in wordless patience, we have held stoutly to our native vision of personal faithfulness to duty and devotion to a trust. We have not advertised our faithfulness nor made capital our honor . . . "I confess I have wondered much that Christianity is not practiced by the very people who vouch for that wonderful conception of exemplary living. It appears that they are anxious to pass on their religion to all other races, but keep very little of it for themselves. I have not yet seen the meek inherit the earth, or the peacemakers receive high honor. "It is my personal belief, after thirty-five years' experience of it, that there is no such thing as 'Christian civilization.' I believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable, and that the spirit of Christianity and of OUR ancient religion is essentially the same." Ohiyesa (1858-1939) Santee Dakota physician and author Photo: View above The Loch, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, March 28, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  "I have never got over my surprise that I should have been born into the most estimable place in all the world, and in the very nick of time, too." Henry David Thoreau Photo: Pasqueflower blooming in the snow, Lory State Park, CO, March 29, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  "Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” Chief Seattle Photo: Ice patterns on The Loch, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, March 28, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  "The cold is merely superficial; it is summer still at the core, far, far within." Henry David Thoreau 1855 Photo: Pasqueflowers blooming in the snow, with the Twin Owls in the background, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, March 28, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  "At the same time as the human becomes the landscape's interior, so the landscape becomes the interior of man." Francois Cheng Photo: Ice patterns on Two Rivers Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, March 22, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  Yesterday as I hiked up to a beautiful subalpine lake, I got to thinking about the fact that so much of our lives is spent dealing with people issues. Miscommunications, misunderstandings, differences in world view, and the untransformed aspects of human behavior all factor into our difficulties in dealing with people. And if we are really honest, of course, we realize that WE TOO can be just as difficult for OTHERS to handle. Often we might fantasize about simply jettisoning the people from our lives who cause us the most difficulty, thereby leading to a more peaceful, stress-free life. Obviously we do need to avoid those whom we experience as toxic in our present state of personal evolution. However, it occurred to me yesterday that in actuality, there will never be a time when these kinds of people issues disappear. In fact, the more we put our vision out into the world, the more potential conflicts will also occur. I've discovered this especially over the past year, when my own vision - and the ways in which it sometimes conflicts with the visions of others - has become increasingly clear in both theory and practice. I also thought about our president, Barak Obama - or any world leader, for that matter - who continually finds himself in hot water with other people no matter WHAT stance he takes! The answer, I realized, is not so much to fantasize about removing myself from people, but to focus more time and energy on the Primary relationship, which is the one I have with the Beloved - the Divine Presence, the Ultimate Mystery. In the case of Wilderness Mysticism, this means both Goddess and God, or Mother Earth and Father Sky, the Web of Life and the Great Beyond, Unci Maka and Tunkashila. Hiking in the silence of the Great Outdoors yesterday with not another person in sight, I experienced once again the perpetual and mutual bliss of these Two, of a God lost in spacious awareness, and a Goddess lost in form-and-energy, both appearing in the guise of mirrors with their corresponding mirror-images, but with no Originals ever to be found. And there I found myself, dwelling in the middle - in the space between the two facing mirrors, tasked with the eternal calling to hold the Two in loving, creative tension! Whenever I focus on THIS primal union, then I find that my difficulties with people seem more manageable and workable. For they are, after all, the trickster side of both God and Goddess, challenging me - and each of us - to hold to our truest calling and vision, no matter what the challenges we encounter! Photo: Lichen rocks on The Loch, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, March 28, 2016 For Spiritual Direction and Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  Death and resurrection are events which are always occurring at the very heart of reality. Like sunlight diamonds that disappear into a beautiful alpine lake in order to reappear - in a slightly different position - a split-second later, each moment of our lives dies into the spacious vastness of divine awareness, only to pop back out - miraculously reborn - in the very next moment. The purpose of spirituality is to train us to identify ourselves with that vastness instead of with the momentary flashing of our sunlight- diamond small-self. For the ego must die over and over again if it is to be reborn as something larger. To use a different image, we can say that the light of spiritual insight can only occur if something within us burns up in an intense fire of transformation. We see this process occur whenever the fire of suffering stimulates us to shift our perspective in order to see life in a whole new way - enlightened. On a practical level, we recall that most new enlightening discoveries occur because of a prior suffering. New pharmaceuticals invented to cure debilitating diseases are prime examples of this principle. Every artist knows this process of sacrifice and resurrection, of fire and light. For it is the fire of suffering that causes the artistic person to create a work of art which transforms that suffering into something beautiful. We might recall, for example, that many amazing songs arise out of an experience of lost or unrequited love. But the process occurs in reverse fashion as well. As soon as an artistic work is created, doubt and disillusionment about the value of that work almost inevitably occur. The artist often is tempted to think the artwork is despicable or irrelevant, and experiences intense depression as a result. However, transformation can occur when the artist realizes that these afflictive emotions are actually a part of the fire of sacrifice that is necessary if the artwork is to be created and sustained in existence. Amazingly, a part of the artist DIES in order to be REBORN - in the work of art! Sacrifice and resurrection are motifs that occur throughout all of life. Plants and animals die when we ingest them, that they might be reborn as the substance of our human lives. We have to hike over steep trails to fully appreciate the destination - a peak or lake, for example - at the end. Labor pains are necessary to bring forth a child. A forest fire is necessary to stimulate a fresh bloom of Pasqueflowers the following Spring. In all of these examples, death and resurrection are fully present as archetypal realities that empower the entire process. Photo: Pasqueflowers in the Hewlett Burn, Poudre Canyon, CO For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/  I burn away; laugh, my ashes are alive! I die a thousand times: My ashes dance back - A thousand new faces Jelaluddin Rumi  Photo: Pasqueflowers, Hewlett Burn, Poudre Canyon, CO  |
AuthorStephen Hatch, M.A. is a spiritual teacher and photographer from Fort Collins, Colorado. His approach is contemplative, inter-spiritual, and Earth-based. Archives
June 2016
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