Happy Spring Equinox! "Anytime new insight replaces an old assumption or a fossilized perception, that is the Spring. New understandings sprout, and new curiosity draws you to previously dark places. Just as the sun shines earlier and longer in the Spring, changes that seemed impossible appear to be possible with each new insight." Gary Zukav Photo: Crocuses, Naropa University Campus, Boulder, CO For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/
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"Let us do something for wildness and make the mountains glad." The Contemplative John Muir Photo: Pasqueflowers, Hewlett Gulch, Poudre Canyon, CO, March 16, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "Nature's modes work towards beauty and joy." The Contemplative John Muir Photo: Crocuses, Naropa University Campus, Boulder, CO, March 11, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ One of the most important tasks of the spiritual life, I believe, is the capacity to look deeper into challenging situations in order to find the Sacred Reality that is hiding there. For me, exploring our local forest fire burns - especially those occurring in 2012 in the High Park and Hewlett Fires that consumed 95,000 acres - is a supremely rewarding experience. Especially this time of year when Pasqueflowers bloom en masse next to charred Ponderosa Pines and Doug-fir trees. As a student of psychology, I'm well aware of the fact that one of the major differences in perspective between personality types is highlighted by the Sensing-Intuitive variable in the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator (MBPI). Those for whom "Sensing" predominates tend to look at facts the way they appear on the surface, while those for whom "Intuitive" is the chief quality look UNDER the surface in order to find the pattern hidden there. I see this difference at the university where I work, and especially with the Christian Mysticism course I teach. Naropa is a Buddhist (or rather, "Buddhist-inspired") university, and many of the students embrace Eastern Religions because of the oppressive elements they've experienced within Christianity. They are well aware that in modern fundamentalist America and throughout history, exoteric Christianity has led to much oppression, bigotry and bloodshed. Just ask any Native American, and you'll understand this perspective. However, if one looks under the surface at the inner or esoteric tradition of Christianity, one finds a mystical perspective that is every bit as liberating at those embedded within Eastern traditions. Even in the mystical tradition, of course, some of the oppressive exoteric elements still mix, so the sifting process must of necessity be an ongoing process. Being an Intuitive on the MBPI, I enjoy this kind of detective work, ferreting out the gems in the Christian tradition that are truly liberating. However, I've noticed that some of the students tend to remain on the Sensing level, unable to get past the oppressive externals of the tradition, especially as expressed in its modern fundamentalist version. On the other hand, these same students tend to idealize Eastern Religions which - to my mind - contain just as many oppressive elements as the Western ones do. Here, I find my own Intuitive bent looking under the surface, for example, of American Buddhism or Hinduism (which tend to emphasize the BEST elements of the tradition and ignore the worst) in order to find the fundamentalist elements that are present there as well. After all, fundamentalism is a HUMAN trait that has a tendency to infect every endeavor in which we human beings engage, including the realm of religion. With respect to Eastern Religions, for example, some practitioners claim to have attained the Absolute and left the realm of the Relative completely behind. As a consequence, they often ignore the fact that they are looking at Truth through a cultural, gendered, ethnic, personal and religious lens that is every bit as biased (and unconscious) as that of a Christian fundamentalist. And this, I believe, is a dangerous stance to maintain, especially in a post-modern world that is in the process of waking up to the diversity of different stances and perspectives - many of which have been historically suppressed - that make up life on this amazing planet. Thus, I believe an Intuitive capacity is important for ALL of us to practice - regardless of our personality type - as a means of discovering both the beauty hidden within desolation AND the shadow side lurking inside the things we consider beautiful. And this, I'm convinced, is especially true when our own tradition - whether Eastern, Western, or neither - is the subject of study and discussion :) Photo: Pasqueflowers and charred trees, Hewlett Burn, Poudre Canyon, CO, March 16, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ Pasqueflowers are truly a welcome sight when they first appear in the foothills during March, for they indicate the long-awaited arrival of Spring. Pushing their purple, tulip-like blooms through the brown expanse of a winter meadow before any other plants appear - and long before even their own leaves venture forth, Pasqueflowers embody the qualities of courage, stamina and beauty. Several adaptations allow these members of the buttercup family to appear so early in the season. First, a hollow stem enables each flower to concentrate its own metabolic heat, thereby helping warm the plant during the chill of a March day. Thick, fuzzy hairs also work to conserve heat when winds would suck much of it away. Whenever clouds arrive or the sun begins to set, Pasqueflowers close their petals - crocus-like - thereby providing added warmth and creating protection against the sudden rain- and snow-storms so typical of early Spring in the Rockies. Finally, Pasqueflower blooms have a tendency to follow the sun throughout the day, thus contributing additional heat, making them an attractive shelter for a whole host of insects. Mirroring our own inner life, Pasqueflowers teach us to bloom courageously even when everything around us seems dead, wintry, and devoid of inspiration. They also instruct us to concentrate our spiritual creativity, passion and energy rather than dissipate ourselves across a welter of external circumstances and distractions. Embodying a wise introversion that puts us in touch with the same Ground of Being out of which the wisdom of every other creature also springs, Pasqueflowers offer valuable lessons for surviving the craziness of a life lived in modern society. Photo: Pasqueflowers in the snow, Lory State Park, CO, March 17, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ I can't get enough of seeing Pasqueflowers pop up out of an early-Spring bed of dead pine needles as though out of nowhere. For me, they illustrate the practice of Wilderness Insight Meditation, where we watch spellbound as all thoughts, emotions and perceptions arise spontaneously out of the vast and empty backdrop of Awareness like echoes with no original Word ever spoken! Photo: Pasqueflowers and Ponderosa Pine needles, Hewlett Gulch, Poudre Canyon, CO, March 16, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ These lines are from a poem my talented daughter, Holly Hatch , wrote just today: I have only been truly alive in my adult being for 5 years - and I’m still learning - still trying to remember that most days, the pain I feel isn’t mine at all. It’s the energy that circles our heads -it’s the uncertainty- of the state of the world around us It’s the sorrow the sadness the loss, the love the sunset or the sunrise that we pray to God won’t fade until we can soak the changing colors into our being and let it fuel us with a knowing that there is something bigger than ‘I.’ Photo: The sun and charred trees, Hewlett Burn, Poudre Canyon, CO, March 15, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "Nobody sees a flower, really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time." Georgia O'Keeffe Photo: Pasqueflower, Lory State Park, CO For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "Color has taken possession of me; no longer do I have to chase after it. I know that it has hold of me forever... Color and I are one. I am a painter." Paul Klee Swiss-German artist Photo: Crocuses, Naropa University Campus, Boulder, CO, March 11, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ All of us go through times when we encounter resistance in the course of sharing our heart's passion. Others may not understand our perspective or may actually oppose it. This is especially difficult for those of us who are sensitive by nature. Our sensitivity turns out to be a double-edged sword: the very quality that makes us receptive to the beauty and goodness of the world also causes us to be sensitive to criticism and to the failure of others to understand our calling. It is during such times that we can take consolation in what Meister Eckhart calls "living without a WHY." He says: "The one who has abandoned self in all things and does all she does without Why and in love, is alive in God and God in her. God loves for the sake of love and acts for the sake of action. Therefore, whoever is born of God loves God for the sake of loving God and does all her work for the sake of working." Here, the "self" one abandons is the usual human identity that needs to feel support and consolation from others or from circumstances. "Loving God for the sake of loving God" means cherishing the divine joy present in one's field of endeavor, no matter what. During these times, I like to picture that I - like all of us - have my existence as a mirror-image of the Beloved. Here it is as though the Beloved playfully withdraws consolation from a situation in order to get the mirror-image - i.e., myself and my passion - to act on its own, as though making gestures that the Beloved never made, and echoing in a voice that is playfully different than that of the Beloved and with words that the Beloved never spoke! In other words, during times of desolation, I enjoy imagining that I am meant to add surprise and wonder to the mirror-image which I am, thus increasing joy and delight in the Cosmos at large! Photo: Douglas-Fir cone and sprig and the Red Rocks Fountain Formation, 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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