A year ago, the only way I could access email or Facebook was from my desktop computer at home. The rest of the time, I was blissfully internet-free. Then, about a year ago, I acquired a tablet - an iPad - so I could run my Wilderness Mysticism slideshows. It also enabled me to join Instagram, which people had been telling me was a necessary component for spreading the word about my business. However, since the iPad could only run off Wifi, I still remained internet-free whenever I wasn't encased within the walls of a building. Then, four months ago, I finally bought a smartphone for the express purpose of taking iPhone videos and posting them for my business on Facebook. I'd been resisting getting a smartphone for many years because I didn't want to be almost continually "plugged in." However, with the smartphone, I now had the capacity for checking email, Facebook and Instagram not only at home and in other buildings, but also while recreating in many outdoor locations. Fortunately, in Colorado, we still have quite a few backcountry areas where cell phone service does not reach. That includes the 60-mile Poudre Canyon (located just a few miles from my home) and many sections of Rocky Mountain National Park. But I'm sure this will eventually change as technology advances and cell phone service is then available virtually everywhere. While having the capacity to be "plugged in" so frequently has its obvious advantages, I'm discovering that it also means the potential for becoming addicted to social media - especially to "Likes," "Comments" and personal messages. It is of course always possible to justify this need for connection because it is related to business concerns - which for me means more Spiritual Direction clients, the scheduling of workshops and enhanced interest in my photography - but it also means that I subtly begin to become more dependent on the opinions and responses of others. This stands in stark contrast to the previous three decades of my life, when I could spend most of the day focusing my attention on the development of inner creativity. In those days, any momentary experience of boredom was channeled immediately into developing creative insights. Today, I am, like most of us, tempted to take the same boredom and instead check for Likes and Comments on the cell phone. Recently, however, I've begun leaving my cell phone in the car, or putting it on Airplane Mode. Now, whenever the yearning for connection occurs, I find myself funneling that desire instead into my union and love affair with the Divine - especially within beautiful landscape settings - which represents a partial return to the way I lived for most of my life. For me, this "fasting" from internet connection for extended periods of time each day brings with it an increased sense of personal agency, creativity and peace. It also reawakens the realization that ultimately, my life - like that of ALL of us - dwells in the midst of a profound communion with both God and Goddess - the Great Beyond and the Sacred Earth - who are, after all, the only Ultimate Realities in the cosmos. For all of us human beings - together with our numerous "Likes," "Comments," and Messages - are at root simply expressions of the union of those Two Fundamental Presences. Now, whenever I feel the longing to check my phone for messages, I know I have a golden opportunity - at least a portion of the time - to realize my insatiable desire for Divine communion instead. Thus, what begins as a potential for distraction turns at last into a reminder to engage in meaningful spiritual practice. For, as the 14th century mystic Julian of Norwich reminds us, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” Photos: Blue ice on Lake Haiyaha, tree snag and the Twin Owls, and Pasqueflowers, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/
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"Look at the glory! Look at the glory! The Contemplative John Muir The only alpine lake I know of that has blue ice in our section of the Rockies is Lake Haiyaha. Because of steep, exposed slopes on the access trail, it's a little difficult to get to in the wintertime unless the conditions are just right. And this of course makes the lake all that much more special. For me, stunning landscapes like this jolt my mind and heart into taking a similar stance of awe and wonder toward the events and people I encounter in the midst of daily life. For they too are just as amazing if only we have the eyes to see! Photo: Ice sculptures on Lake Haiyaha, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, March 21, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ TODAY IS OUR 36TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! Here are some of the tips Joanne and I have learned for having a happy marriage over the past three decades: 1. Treat each other as a manifestation of the Divine Presence. Always look for and highlight the best in each other. 2. Orient our lives toward something Bigger than the two of us (and bigger than family, home, nation, race, or religious group). In other words, focus on a common spiritual journey. For us, that involves lots of time spent outdoors, meditating, reading and discussing ideas together, and having lots of heart-to-heart communication. 3. Practice kindness and "Right Speech." Honor and respect one another. 4. Balance both Solitude (times apart in retreat) and Time Together 5. Whenever conflict arises, take the attitude that BOTH partners (not just one) are meant to work to see their part in creating the conflict. 6. Encourage each other to value and manifest their own unique gifts. Ask each other lots of questions and be inquisitive. Learn from each other. 7. The best kind of advice is to feed the other's OWN words and convictions back to them. 8. Attend educational events together. This includes movies, talks, workshops, National Parks, museums, etc. 9. Be silly and laugh a lot. Joanne's additions: "Really listening to one another is important. Be each other's biggest fan! It's a journey! Photo: Joanne relaxing in a sunny cave on a cold day in Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, March 19, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "The blue mountains walk to the kitchen and back to the shop, to the desk, to the stove. We sit on the park bench and let the wind and rain drench us. The blue mountains walk out to put another coin in the parking meter, and go on down to the 7-Eleven . . . 'Such mountains and waters of themselves become wise persons and sages' – become sidewalk vendors and noodlecooks, become marmots, ravens, graylings, carp, rattlesnakes, mosquitoes. All beings are 'said' by the mountains and waters – even the clanking tread of a Caterpillar tractor, the gleam of the keys of a clarinet." Gary Snyder "Blue Mountains Constantly Walking" Photo: Ice on Lake Haiyaha, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, March 21, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ When you came back I saw the mountains in your eyes. Your arms swept out like long full limbs of sugar pine, glinting in the final sun. You sagged on the step, lifting the laces of your boots like cedar logs from the forest floor, but still your eyes spoke luminous heaven, the miles and country they had seen never to surprise again as now received and known in secret. you cannot tell me. I will not ask. Your mouth tastes like melting snow. Paul Willis “Madulce Cabin: A Fantasy” Photos: Lumpy Ridge and Lake Haiyaha, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; Pasqueflower, Lory State Park, CO For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "Man is not himself only, not solely a variation of his racial type in the pattern of his immediate experience. He is all that he sees; all that flows to him from a thousand sources . . . He is the land, the lift of its mountain lines, the reach of its valleys; his is the rhythm of its seasonal processions, the involution and variation of its vegetal patterns. If there is in the country of his abiding, no more than a single refluent color, he takes it in and gives it forth again - as a manner, as music, as a prevailing tone of thought, as the pattern of his personal adornment." Mary Austin 1924 Photos: Ice patterns on Two RIvers Lake with Notchtop Mountain in the background; Blue ice on Lake Haiyaha; Snow on the Lumpy Ridge; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO. Refluent means "flow back." For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "Ice is only another form of terrestrial love." The Contemplative John Muir Today the conditions were finally right for me to hike up to blue-iced Lake Haiyaha, It wasn't snowing or overly windy (which would cover up the trail on the exposed sections) and the day was sunny and warm. What a perfect opportunity for taking pictures of ice artistry! Photo: Blue ice on Lake Haiyaha, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, March 21, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "Look at the glory! Look at the glory! The Contemplative John Muir The only alpine lake I know of that has blue ice in our section of the Rockies is Lake Haiyaha. Because of steep, exposed slopes on the access trail, it's a little difficult to get to in the wintertime unless the conditions are just right. And this of course makes the lake all that much more special. For me, stunning landscapes like this jolt my mind and heart into taking a similar stance of awe and wonder toward the events and people I encounter in the midst of daily life. For they too are just as amazing if only we have the eyes to see! Photo: Ice sculptures on Lake Haiyaha, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, March 21, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "The final grounds of holy Fellowship are in God. Lives immersed and drowned in God are drowned in love, and know one another in Him, and know one another in love. God is the medium, the matrix, the focus, the solvent . . . Such lives have a common meeting point; they go back into a single Center where they are at home with Him and with one another. It is as if every soul had a final base, and that final base of every soul is one single Holy Ground, shared in by all. Persons here are related to one another through Him. They get at one another through Him." Thomas Kelly Quaker writer Photo: Pasqueflowers in the snow, Lory State Park, CO, March 17, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continually return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-worn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home to Itself . . . It is the Presence in the midst. Here is the Slumbering Christ, stirring to be awakened, to become the soul we clothe in earthly form and action. And He is within us all." Thomas Kelly Quaker Writer It is of utmost importance that we discover and learn to dwell within that inmost Center out of which our lives continually emerge. Society would seduce us into living merely on the periphery, drawing us from one distraction to the next, informing us that what will fulfill us is a life of constant chatter, non-stop social interactions, and mindless consumption. Society lures us to continually check our social media apps, email accounts and cell phone messages, thus drawing us away from the unique creativity and inspiration that abide within our innermost Center. What we really need, therefore, is a life of self-discipline, silence, solitude, simplicity, meditation, journaling and time spent in Nature, all of which help return us to our own agency, thereby preventing us from becoming passive to the devious designs of corporations, advertisements, and the obsessive drama of the media and entertainment industries. I pray, therefore, that we may heed the call of the still, small voice speaking peacefully yet persistently from deep, deep within us :) Photo: Quartz crystal and Red Rocks Fountain Formation Conglomerate, Roxborough State Park, CO, March 12, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ |
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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