Indigenous Mysticism Helps Us Realize that Even Our Own Thoughts Arise from an Ancient Past5/23/2016 "I sometimes imagine that I AM my ancestors. That as I write I am speaking what my ancestors spoke or would speak through me . . . It’s not something of which I am intellectually aware. That’s not the best of it. It is something of which I’m instinctively aware, I think . . . I think sometimes that my voice is the reincarnation of a voice from my ancestral past. Not only when I write but when I lecture, and even when I speak on a one-to-one basis, I sometimes have that feeling, and I think, 'Yes, this voice of mine is proceeding from a great distance in the past'. . . When I have this awareness that I am speaking from an ancestral point back in time, I feel very peaceful. I have the feeling that I have entered into the flow of things." N. Scott Momaday Kiowa Nation Whenever I hike, camp and photograph in Lakota country, I can't escape the feeling that I am surrounded by ancient presences, and that even my own thoughts are arising from a very distant past. I find this a helpful balance to the current "present moment" fundamentalism, where people get a little Eckhart Tolle under their belts, and then begin acting as though every thought in their minds that deals with past or future events is somehow "bad" and needs to be excised. I wonder how this faddish movement would deal with the experience of Native Peoples, who are very much in tune with the "old ways," and who are consciously aware of the presence of the ancestors who inhabit both their lands and their psyches? I'm not indigenous by blood, and yet even I can feel those ancient presences inhabiting the landscape. This past weekend, I experienced this phenomenon in the two places where I camped: at the Badlands and then at Devil's Tower (Bear Lodge) In fact, the entire time I had the sense that my own thoughts were not fully mine. Obviously an obsessive concern with the past (or future) can be just as fundamentalistic as focusing solely on the present. An overly optimistic (or pessimistic) view of the future can blind us to the realities of the present, just as an obsession with "doing things the way they've always been done" can have an unhealthy ring about it. But when I experience my own thoughts as echoes proceeding from an ancient past, and then see my own creative input as a sort of addition of "new words" to those echoes, or as a "new voice" that is different than the ancient originals, I feel a sense of wonder in the paradoxical combination of the two. For myself, I find that all of reality is filled with magic when it carries this ancient, echo-like quality to it. And yes, for those who specialize in the present moment, we can all agree that even thoughts of past and future events are ALSO occurring in the here-and-now! :) Photos: Badlands National Park (SD) and Devil's Tower National Monument (WY), May 20-22, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/
0 Comments
A Boundary-Setting Rule of Life Paradoxically Allows the Mind to Become More Vast and Spacious!5/19/2016 Today I've been reflecting on one of the great paradoxes of the spiritual life: The more we set boundaries on our time and attention - by creating and adhering to a disciplined rule of life - the more vast and spacious our mind and heart are able to become! Disciplines like silence, solitude, meditation, fasting for set periods from social media, and putting the phone on airplane mode are all examples of disciplines which help create these boundaries. Carl Jung puts it this way: "What America needs is one great healthy ability to say 'No.' To rest a minute and realize that many of the things being sought are unnecessary to a happy life. We are suffering in our cities, from a need of simple things." When we set these sorts of boundaries, our spiritual creativity then comes alive, enabling our imaginative capacities a wide-open expanse in which to roam and create fresh meaning for our lives. Just as the narrow tube of a geyser is needed to allow the pressure to build that will result in an explosion of steam and super-heated water out into the vast blue sky, so the boundaries created by a rule of life facilitate a similar movement outward into vastness. Tibetan Buddhist teaching has its own way of saying this, reminding us that the practice of "mindfulness of the body" leads to "spaciousness of mind." Similarly, Eastern Orthodox Christian contemplatives recommend the practice of "confining the mind within the heart" as a means of producing a physically-perceived warmth in the heart which is ONE-WITH the vast and all-encompassing love of Christ that extends throughout the entire universe! May each of us attend to developing our own unique rule of life, and so experience the freedom of this vastness! Photo: Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park, WY, Summer, 2011 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ Desert Mysticism teaches us not to avoid spiritual thirst by employing the millions of distractions our society continually foists upon us. Rather, the desert would have us make peace with our thirst and realize - when we see that we are GRASPED and GRIPPED by desire as though by an Other - that such longing is in reality a participation in the thirst of the Great Mystery for US. Desert Mysticism enables us to understand that dryness is necessary for creativity to spring forth. The ruddy hues of the redrock deserts of the Southwest are, as we've probably already noticed, also the color of eros, of desire, of lust. They help us realize that desire itself has a beauty all its own. Desert Mysticism inclines us to see ourselves - like arches, rock windows and natural bridges - as portals through to a reality much more vast and spacious than we ever imagined. Rather than looking only at the surface of events, other people and our own hastily-crafted self-image, these artistic holes in the desert help us look THROUGH these superficial surfaces to a deeper Reality. Desert Mysticism engages our imagination, especially in the intense heat, when the logical mind feels dazed and our identity melts out into the expansiveness of the landscape, where imagination - like a mirage - loves perpetually to dance and play. As Middle Eastern scholar Henri Corbin reminds us, "The Imagination is a PRESENCE," echoing Native American poet Joy Harjo, who says that "the imagining needs praise as does any living thing. Stories and songs are evidence of this praise." Desert Mysticism tells us to simplify our lives, letting go of all but the things which nourish and stimulate us on the deepest level. Desert Mysticism teaches us that we are ONE WITH the desert, and that we are human embodiments of the arid but devastatingly beautiful open spaces. It helps us imagine ourselves AS the desert, especially when we find ourselves engulfed in confusion and trouble during the course of our everyday lives in the "rat-race" of society. May the desert and its mysticism guard and protect us through all of our days . . . Photos: Various scenes in or near Arches National Park, UT, April 23-25, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ “Religion, like poetry, is not a mere idea, it is expression. The self-expression of God is in the ENDLESS VARIETY of creation; and OUR attitude toward the Infinite Being must also in its expression have a VARIETY of individuality – ceaseless and unending.” Rabindranath Tagore Ah, springtime in the Rockies! Such boundless variety! Photos: Boulder Raspberries and waterfall, Lory State Park, CO; Ruddy cliffs and lime-green Cottonwoods, Lory State Park, CO; Purple Sugarbowl and Golden Banner, with Arthur's Rock in the background, Lory State Park, CO; Snowy peaks from Trail Ridge Road, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO. The first three photos were taken on May 18, 2016. The fourth was shot on May 12, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/_ "Oh, the red cruel deathly loveliness of the desert . . . The mute and timeless and implacable and sinister and incredible and heart-troubling mind-stunning canyons of the rich Colorado . . . Silences with glory, soaked in awe . . . A harsh cruel land, stark, naked beauty; terrible and deathly, untamed and untamable, lovelier than any song; a man's country." "Drugged. I'm drugged, sense and mind, by desert thoughts, canyon thoughts. I've been thinking of the Colorado Plateau . . . Thinking of those great canyons, and of the terrible and grand and unearthly wilderness of rock that surrounds them, my nerves and brain get taut and sharp and hot . . . I've got to go there, be there, live there: it's become an obsession with me, a passion!" Edward Abbey Photos: Various scenes near Moab, UT. The pictographs are from the Archaic Barrier Canyon culture, ca. 5,000 B.C.E. - 500 A.D. All four photos were taken on April 23-25, 2016 In the 9th century, Celtic Christian theologian John Scotus Eriugena made a fascinating statement. Like other Celtic mystics - and like the earlier Desert Fathers and Mothers - he spoke of TWO scriptures: the Bible and the world of Nature. The latter is of course known first and foremost through the five senses. However Eriugena made special mention of the VISUALLY-perceived aspects of the natural world as being especially effective in communicating the Word of God to us. Accordingly, he says that "The divine knowledge cannot be restored in us except by the letters of scripture and the SIGHT of creatures." He goes on to admonish us to "Know the FORMS and BEAUTY of sensible things, . . . and SEE there the Word of God . . . [For] God himself is the being of all things." What struck me today as I re-read this passage is the fact that the photography I spend so much time perfecting is therefore a sacred art. And so are all of the images our culture continually directs at us: images of beautiful people, beautiful food, beautiful home interiors, and - yes - beautiful landscapes. Since, according to Eriugena, these images are sacred, it is important therefore that we spend quality time with each one - to see what the divine Word may be speaking to us from within it - before we move on to the next image, and then the next. I also found Eriugena's words refreshing in the context of an academic liberal arts world where (except for the study of art), gazing at human beauty is often considered in purely negative terms as objectifying and degrading. How did we ever come to this state of affairs? It is the ATTITUDE behind the looking, and not the looking itself, that is either sacred or profane. Thank you, John, for helping restore to my mind, heart, soul, emotions and body the sacred dimension of an awe-filled, loving gaze - the one which seeks to listen to the Divine Word speaking continually through all things! Photos: Snowy peaks along Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park (CO); A Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep ram feeding in the Big Thompson Canyon, CO; Ball Cactus flowers at Vedauwoo, WY; Vibrant lime-green Cottonwoods and ruddy cliffs west of Loveland, CO All four photos were taken on May 12-13, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "Our brokenness is the wound through which the full power of God can penetrate our being and transfigure us in God. Loneliness is not something from which we must flee but the place from where we can cry out to God, where God will find us and we can find God . . . Yes, through our wounds the power of God can penetrate us and become like rivers of living water to irrigate the arid earth within us. Thus we may irrigate the arid earth of others, so that hope and love are reborn." Jean Vanier "The Broken Body" Photos: Various scenes near Moab, UT. April 23-25, 2016. The Pictographs are from the Archaic Barrier Canyon culture, ca. 5,000 B.C.E. - 500 A.D. Jean Vanier established L'Arche, an international federation of communities spread over 35 countries, for people with developmental disabilities and those who assist them. "In meditation, we realize there is nothing that appears in our experience that is fixed and solid. Whatever you experience, it is just your own mind. But what is that mind? As you look closer and closer, you don't find an observer or a solid mind. Any sense of solid mind or concrete observer dissolves into space and becomes empty. Simply feel this vast, unbounded space. Mind is that spacious experience. Feel that boundless space like a vast desert sky, so vast there are no boundaries. UNION refers to that openness and the awareness of openness. And from that union, from that recognition of openness, bliss arises." Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche Tibetan Bon teacher Photos; Turret, Double and Corona Arches, near Moab, UT; Pictograph from the Archaic Barrier Canyon culture, ca. 5000 B.C.E. - 500 A.D., Sego Canyon, UT. All four photos were taken April 23-25, 2016 "The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness” Michel de Montaigne 16th century French Renaissance philosopher "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." Walt Whitman 19th century American Transcendentalist poet I love springtime in the Rockies! One can experience such a variety of different ecosystems, climates and stages of growth, just by changing elevation. Why should it be any different with the springtime of the soul? Inner beauty involves holding the tension between a variety of different personality traits, perspectives and emotions! Photos: View from the ridge above Montgomery Pass, CO, 11,500 feet; Pasqueflowers at Vedauwoo, WY, 8,600 feet; Fern at Horsetooth Falls, 5,800 feet; Ball Cactus, Vedauwoo, WY, 8,600 feet. For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "Geniuses, according to physicist David Bohm, are able to think differently because they can tolerate ambivalence between two incompatible subjects. Another physicist, Niels Bohr, argued that if you hold opposites together in your mind, you will suspend your normal thinking process and allow an intelligence beyond rational thought to create a new form. Example: Bohr's ability to imagine light as both a particle and a wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity." Michael Michalko Utne Reader "The Art of Genius" Here along the Front Range of Colorado, I love being able to travel between completely different climates and ecosystems just by changing elevation. Last week, I went from vibrant greenery at 5,000 feet on the Great Plains, up to blooming Cactus and Pasqueflowers surrounded by leafless shrubs at 8,500 feet, up to snowy peaks at 12,000 feet on Trail Ridge Road. Being able to hold all of these different environments in creative tension - and to receive the special gifts of each - is one of the great benefits of living here. In the realm of mystical spirituality, one of the most important signs of a true state of divine union is a pervasive sense of paradox; that is, the ability to hold opposite qualities in tension. For example, the true contemplative realizes that nonduality is NOT the final merging of the "ten thousand things" into the One, but is instead the ability to inhabit the liminal space where we can watch in amazement as The Many do indeed melt into the unity of the One - the "Great Beyond" - AND THEN emerge suddenly and spontaneously in pristine individuality out of that One. Similarly, mysticism involves the realization that we inhabit the space between God-as-Self and God-as-Other, watching spellbound as each shapeshifts continually into the other. In addition, a spirituality carries the mark of genius when it values BOTH Logos and Sophianic Wisdom; that is, for example, the ability to distinguish between the unique concerns of different personality types, genders, races, cultures and religions, and then to see how there also exists an ultimate underlying Unity that makes them all facets of a single Whole. True spirituality also holds the tension between detaching from our passions (like lust and anger) and simultaneously drawing out the sacredness that lies hidden within them. The most profound mysticism also can distinguish between sacred masculine and feminine traits, and yet see how each is actually an aspect of the other. The same holds true with the shapeshifting of words and silence into each other, the feeling of our own suffering and our simultaneous ability to release it into the suffering of the Divine Whole, the mutual mirroring of both Nature and humanity, the necessity of dwelling in between the best aspects of both conservatism and progressivism, and an ability both to embrace the good of a religious tradition AND simultaneously to go beyond that tradition into something much more Vast. This is, as Carl Jung once wrote, an ability to be "crucified between the opposites until the reconciling third comes to birth." Are we ready to hold the tension rather than settling into the usual black-and-white thinking so characteristic of ordinary, mundane, herd- mentality humanity? Photos: The Snowy Never Summer Range from Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; Fresh Cottonwood leaves on the Plains, just west of Loveland, CO; Pasqueflowers and Ball Cactus at Vedauwoo, WY. May 12 and 13, 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
Categories |