"What nobler employment can we engage in than having the thoughts of God in silence and solitude as best we can, where the manifestations of His power are barest, far from stupefying noises and vice, far from ourselves?" The Contemplative John Muir This past weekend I went solo backpacking in the Flattops Wilderness south of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I especially enjoyed being away from the internet and cell phone, to really get in touch with my true self. I loved being able to sit at my campsite and meditate, journal and seek Insight. Photos: My tent on Skinny Fish Lake, Flattops Wilderness, CO, June 19, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ "All the rocks seem talkative . . . They are dear friends, and have warm blood gushing through their granite flesh, and I love them with a love intensified by long and close companionship." The Contemplative John Muir What a place to enjoy morning coffee! My backpacker's stove heats water in about 3 minutes. Then I add a packet of Starbuck's freeze-dried coffee and sit back and have a wonderful conversation with the snowy mountain, the osprey and various waterbirds frequenting the lake, the elegant spruces and firs, the new-made morning air! Photo: My backpacker's camp on Skinny Fish Lake, Flattops Wilderness, CO, June 18, 2016 For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ With the Loss of a Sacred Masculinity, Men Have No Place to Invest Their Sky-Sized Hearts & Souls6/17/2016 I'm headed out backpacking on Friday morning and my daughters have a packed schedule this weekend, so we'll be celebrating Father's Day next week. But I wanted to list here a few of the things I've loved about being a father. 1. In my 20s (I became a dad at age 23) and 30s I delved pretty heavily into the mystical spaces of the inner life, and therefore having the everyday tasks of being a young dad kept me grounded in ways that might not otherwise have been possible. You don't succumb to the temptation of losing yourself too deeply in the interior canyon during silent contemplative prayer when diapers need changing, cute frogs have just been discovered in the yard, or junior high papers need editing. 2. Like my own dad, I really enjoyed my role as a teacher of two daughters. I loved sharing with them the joys of Nature, various philosophies, world religions, personality typologies (like the Enneagram) and many different kinds of music. And then of course there was the always-entertaining line: "Dad, when we're on a hike, why do you ALWAYS have us sit and ask what the landscape is SAYING to us? I don't hear anything. That's a weird practice. My friends and THEIR families don't do that!" 3. I especially loved getting to be a kid myself - doing silly things, making up crazy songs about each of our daughter's toys, reading a children's book in five different voices and accents (the Londoner, the crusty old codger, the Western rancher, the DJ, the used car salesman, the tentative-sounding Woody Allen voice, etc.) 4. I enjoyed very much teaching our daughters to think critically, to see the positive and negative elements in every position, to come to their own conclusions, and to realize how SMART they are. 5. It was so amazing to watch our daughters each grow into her own person, with unique interests and personality traits. Key in this was Joanne's and my conviction that our children are GOD'S WORD to us, much more important than any words written in a scripture book. After all, our children ARE a scripture, and we learn from them just as they learn from us. 6. I loved having family discussions, with no TV, radio, computer or mobile device to distract us from really listening to each other at mealtime or while sitting around the campfire. 7. I feel like the usual fatherly disciplinarian role was simply that: just a role I played in order to get our children to learn SELF-discipline. While many parents are perhaps too easy on their children while young and then suddenly clamp down once they reach adolescence, we did just the opposite. I'm guessing I was fairly strict when the girls were young. As a result, they learned good study and work habits (and to care about the feelings and views of others), and thus when they became teenagers, the strictness could be relaxed because they were ALREADY self-disciplined and self-motivated. Along with this, I learned what all good parents eventually learn: you PICK your battles. Otherwise, you become a control-freak, which is no fun for anyone. Going forward, I think the thing I need to work on the most is ongoing communication with my daughters. There is a side to me that really IS the "hermit monk" and that can reach and commune with the core essence of people while I'm physically away from them and in solitude. Wonderful as this is, I need to learn to pick up the phone more often and simply call! How many more shootings - like the one in Orlando this past week - will have to happen before we realize, as a culture, that we need a new "men's movement"? Search the internet - or Instagram or Facebook - and marvel at the number of "goddess spirituality" groups there are. Women are really getting in touch with their own sacred feminine. Then do a similar search for "god spirituality" or "recovering the sacred masculine" and how many groups do you find? Hardly any, by comparison. Some would argue that much of our traditional religion and spirituality is ALL about the masculine. I disagree. Rather, most of the male imagery inherent in religion deals only with the SHALLOW and OPPRESSIVE roles that society (including our mothers) has foisted upon men. It has almost NOTHING to do with the Sacred Masculine. Here I recall a class in which I had the students read a manuscript of mine that contains two chapters on "The Search for the Sacred Feminine." One male student raised his hand and asked: "What about the search for the Sacred MASCULINE? It seems we've hardly begun in THAT endeavor!" Only when we men begin to get in touch with our inner lives, admit to our feelings of powerlessness and shame and our destructive attempts to deny these, and at the same time explore the spiritual riches of the non-patriarchal Sacred Masculine, will our society begin to experience healing. And only then will our culture of rape and violence begin to be transformed into something that is life-affirming for people of ALL genders. Some will ask: "Why have a MEN'S Movement"? We are all simply human beings with the same needs and desires!" There is of course some wisdom to this point. However, it is important to remember that women had a Women's Movement for thirty or forty years and learned during that time to uncover a deeper dimension of freedom and selfhood. We need something similar for men. As Ken Wilber is so fond of saying, we have to distinguish and integrate our various energies before we can transcend them into something higher or deeper. We men have not yet discovered and integrated the sacred dimension of our masculinity. Only when we do will we be able - like women - to move into a dimension that transcends (and includes) both masculinity and femininity. Photo: Ghost Ranch, NM For Spiritual Direction or Workshops, please visit: 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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