The end of autumn - embodied in this season when the last leaves have changed and are falling from the trees - is a time when we enter a period of inward contemplative rest. Winter clothing enhances this sense of going inward, and we feel drawn to dwell within the core of our being and to find fresh spiritual nourishment there. Photo: Autumn leaves, Gem Lake Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, October 26, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one sessions giving instruction in Wilderness Insight Meditation, or for spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested. The rate is $65 per hour-long session. You might also want to check out my Spiritual Direction with Stephen Hatch Facebook page. Many of my photos are available as prints, either mounted or unmounted. Here is a link to the pricing and various mounts available: http://www.stephenhatchphotography.com/#!mounting-prices/cpr6
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"The solitary is here to tell people that if they were able to discover and appreciate their own inner solitude, they would immediately discover God, and find out that they are really PERSONS." Thomas Merton Photo: Aspen leaf lying on fresh snow, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, October 23, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one sessions giving instruction in Wilderness Insight Meditation, or for spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested. The rate is $65 per hour-long session. You might also want to check out my Spiritual Direction with Stephen Hatch Facebook page. Many of my photos are available as prints, either mounted or unmounted. Here is a link to the pricing and various mounts available: http://www.stephenhatchphotography.com/#!mounting-prices/cpr6 Wilderness Insight Meditation teaches us to identify with the spaciousness of our awareness through attention to each exhalation or outbreath. Some meditation teachers call this "mixing mind with space." This is, of course, the exact opposite of our usual habit of constricting around our own thoughts and emotions, especially those that cause us - and others - a great deal of suffering. Instead, during meditation, we watch in absolute amazement as these same thoughts and emotions emerge as though out of nowhere, like echoes with no original word ever spoken! Accordingly, whenever a thought or emotion arises during meditation, we gently label it "Echo; echo," and then allow it to fall back into the vast awareness out of which it originally arose. Here we might imagine that the Great Beyond - God, the Transcendent, Tunkasila, The Beloved, the Ultimate Mystery - was just about to speak a love-word into the world. However, before "he" could ever speak this word, he lost himself in blissful, self-emptying love into the vast spaces of sky and landscape, and into the spaciousness of our own inner mind and heart. And yet - and HERE is the utter magic of the meditation process - ECHOES of that never-spoken Word appear at the root of our thoughts and emotions ANYWAY! Here's a two-minute YouTube video: https://youtu.be/KtcIuOeuD8k Photo: Pronghorn Antelope lying in a field, with Greyrock and the Mummy Range looming in the distance; Larimer County, CO, October 24, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one sessions giving instruction in Wilderness Insight Meditation, or for spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested. The rate is $65 per hour-long session. You might also want to check out my Spiritual Direction with Stephen Hatch Facebook page. Many of my photos are available as prints, either mounted or unmounted. Here is a link to the pricing and various mounts available: http://www.stephenhatchphotography.com/#!mounting-prices/cpr6 I am going to be blunt here. I don't have much use for the traditional notion of the "guru" or "spiritual master" insofar as this means that a person claims to have transcended his or her own human needs and neuroses. What I object to is the idea that a guru "has it all together." I firmly believe that a spiritual master is a person who has the same struggles and issues as everyone else, but who spends ever-decreasing amounts of time wallowing or stuck in those issues because they've found the tools that help them move toward liberation. But the issues still DO come up! Besides, even if a guru were to work through all of their own personal issues, they would still remain so united to the struggles of the WORLD that they would then be continually wrestling with everyone else's struggles FROM WITHIN. This is, of course, the principle of Christ, who is forever shouldering - and working to transform - the suffering of the world inside himself, and of the Bodhisattva, who vows not to enter the final liberation until they are able to help everyone else attain liberation as well. In connection with this, I also do not believe in the possibility of "enlightenment," at least insofar as it is erroneously viewed as a finished and completed state of perfection or awareness. What I do know is that there IS a progressive enlightenment which innately contains the possibility for ENDLESS deepening. Here I've been deeply influenced by the Eastern Orthodox Tradition (Greek, Syrian, Turkish, Egyptian, Armenian, etc.) that understands perfection as a process of endless growth, even in the next life. This is in fact a major feature of the teaching of St. Gregory of Nyssa, who lived during the fourth century in what is now Turkey. Accordingly, every attainment in the journey toward divine union simply becomes the starting point for reaching out toward the NEXT horizon, and so on - ad infinitum! Here we might imagine that an ordinary person has traveled 1 millimeter on the spiritual journey, while a "master" has gone ten times as far, or 10 millimeters. However, since the journey is endless in length, the difference between these two is actually just a drop in the bucket! :) Photo: Sunburst, Aspen trees and Pyramid Peak, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO, September 27, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested. The rate is $65 per hour-long session. You might also want to check out my Spiritual Direction with Stephen Hatch Facebook page. Many of my photos are available as prints, either mounted or unmounted. Here is a link to the pricing and various mounts available: http://www.stephenhatchphotography.com/#!mounting-prices/cpr6 For several decades before I got into photography - which occurred just about four years ago - I focused much of my time and energy on absorbing the beauty and spirituality of inspiring landscapes into myself and then EMBODYING these qualities within my being, radiating them back into my surroundings. My path was one of reflecting beauty back to the Divine - both God and Goddess - and I consequently thought little about what the response of other people might be. I did teach and write extensively about the landscapes I love, but that writing focused mostly on a description of the spiritual qualities I could feel in Nature rather than on the externals of the landscape. With the advent of photography in my life, however, I began sharing the visual aspects of the landscape with people. I still wrote, but in shorter passages, and used those writings to supplement the photos. That, of course, is what I still do. About the time I began using a camera, I also joined Facebook, and I discovered that I could now reach thousands of people rather than just a few dozen either through my lectures or writings. In a sense, therefore, my time in the wilderness gradually began to focus more on other people - i.e., on the imagined viewers of my photos - and in helping them experience the beauty of Nature in fresh ways through my camera lens. In fact, I've understood this to be one of my major services to the world. Nowadays, I still take time out for meditation, reflection and journaling when I'm out in the wilderness, but increasing amounts of time are now devoted to photography and to thinking about how I might help my viewers live more spiritually fulfilled lives. Interestingly, I've fantasized that I have hundreds - and maybe even thousands - of viewers intently following my work. But over the past few weeks, I've had a sudden wakeup call. I now realize that the number of people who are intimately involved with my work is probably just several dozen. There are others as well, but they perhaps just dip in and out once in a while. This number is probably just a few more than the audience I had for my writings and lectures in the advent before I became a photographer. What this awareness has done is to make me realize that I've been spending far too much time thinking about these imagined viewers and their reactions. Of course this is a reasonable attitude, considering the fact that I am attempting to make more of a living from my craft. But because of recent disappointments, I understand now that I need to return to the fact that I am called primarily to be an eye through which THE DIVINE knows and appreciates Beauty, regardless of whether other people see and appreciate my work. It is easy at first to think that the photography is purely for other people to appreciate, and that I should therefore scale back on it and focus more on reflecting beauty back to the Divine from within my inner being, just as I did for decades before I started doing photography. However, this morning I came to the sudden realization that my photography, strange as this might seem, is actually primarily for THE DIVINE to enjoy - for God and Goddess - who are able to appreciate their own beauty and goodness even more thoroughly through my photographs rather than solely through my inner being. It is this realization that brings immense peace to my heart and soul, for it enables me to continue my craft - rather than give it up - regardless of the reactions or non-reactions of others. After all, my own life - like that of each and every one of us - is meant to be lived first and foremost in the presence of The Divine Beloved. People and their varying reactions will come and go, but at their core - and within my own act of perception of the natural world both through my eyes and through my camera - is a Divine Presence who is the TRUE audience for my work :) Photo: Aspens and Pyramid Peak, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO, September 27, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested. The rate is $65 per hour-long session. You might also want to check out my Spiritual Direction with Stephen Hatch Facebook page. Many of my photos are available as prints, either mounted or unmounted. Here is a link to the pricing and various mounts available: http://www.stephenhatchphotography.com/#!mounting-prices/cpr6 "To be one with One Whom one cannot see is to be hidden, to be nowhere, to be no one: it is to be unknown as He is unknown, forgotten as He is forgotten, lost as He is lost to the world which nevertheless exists in Him." Thomas Merton "The SIlent Life" Photo: Aspen trees and snowy peaks, Moraine Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, October 23, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested. The rate is $65 per hour-long session. You might also want to check out my Spiritual Direction with Stephen Hatch Facebook page. Many of my photos are available as prints, either mounted or unmounted. Here is a link to the pricing and various mounts available: http://www.stephenhatchphotography.com/#!mounting-prices/cpr6 "Before I was twenty I never worried about what other people thought of me. But after age twenty I worried endlessly -- about all the impressions I made and how people were evaluating me. Only sometime after turning fifty did I realize that they hardly ever thought about me at all!" Anthony de Mello Jesuit spiritual master At breakfast this morning, my wife gave me this wonderful piece of advice: "Stephen, I listen to NPR all the time, yet when they have their fundraiser each year, I often don't send a contribution. It's not that I don't appreciate all of the things NPR provides me free of charge. No, I guess I always figure that SOMEONE ELSE - someone who makes more money than we do - will always help support them. I sometimes feel guilty when I don't contribute. But at the same time, I - like many people - generally feel impatient during the fund drive, looking forward to the time when it is finally over. It's not that I don't appreciate NPR. I really do. It's just that I'm distracted by a whole host of other concerns. So, it's the same with you, Stephen. When people don't send contributions for your camera fund, it doesn't mean that they don't love all of the photos and spiritual meditations you provide them for free. In fact, they appreciate you very much. It's just that they're distracted and stressed, and they figure that you must have hundreds or thousands of OTHER people who ARE going to help out. But of course, everyone - except for a handful of loyal contributors - all think similarly. I know it can be frustrating. But please don't personalize it. It's just the way the world is." Photo: Aspen tree, Moraine Park, and Stone's Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, October 23, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested. The rate is $65 per hour-long session. You might also want to check out my Spiritual Direction with Stephen Hatch Facebook page. Many of my photos are available as prints, either mounted or unmounted. Here is a link to the pricing and various mounts available: http://www.stephenhatchphotography.com/#!mounting-prices/cpr6 "To feel that we belong to the World, we must be deserted." Ellen Meloy, reporting on a conversation with a contemplative Jesuit friend A large part of the interior desert experience is a realization that - except for a handful of friends and family members - we really have very few people who are truly "there" for us. This may not be true for young college-age folks, who rely quite heavily on friendships for a sense of identity. But once people enter a career and have a family, wider communication generally diminishes significantly. This is especially true in the postmodern world, where everyone is incredibly busy and where cultural ADD reigns supreme. This desert of real communication is strikingly true in the social media arena. People may initiate a conversation, but then drop away when we ask deeper questions in response, or request that they explain further a point that they've made. A lot of this has to do, I believe, with the fact that a large percentage of social media users communicate via texting, Instagram chat, or Facebook chat, where conversations necessarily remain brief because of the difficulty involved in spelling out long messages via smartphone or tablet. In any case, this manner of communication often leads to a heightened sense of alienation, especially because much of the socializing that used to occur face to face now has been replaced by cellphone and text messages. In this connection, my wife often talks about lunch time at her office, where she walks in on a whole breakroom full of people, busily occupied with texting rather than with talking to each other. Even with the friendships each of us has developed outside social media - through face-to-face communication in an actual physical location - many of us seem to have less time these days to schedule coffee or lunch appointments, especially as the pace of life becomes more hectic for everyone. What can we learn from this situation? First, we need to nurture more carefully the relationships we have with the people with whom we feel mutual love and caring. Second, we can reduce our expectations for deep communication via social media, and adopt an attitude of gratefulness for the deep friendships, however rare, we ARE able to develop there. But third, and most importantly, we can use this societal interpersonal desert to develop our relationship and union with our Source - with the God and Goddess aspects of the Divine Beloved who, as St. Augustine and St. Bernard of Clairvaux remind us so exquisitely, are "closer to us than we are to ourselves." In fact, from a cosmic perspective, relational disappointments seem intended to DRIVE us toward a deeper communion with our Source. In fact, intense longing for and union with The Beloved would most likely never occur without the heightened desert experience that is activated by our disappointments over less-than-fulfilling human interactions and relationships :) Photo: Ponderosa Pine and ruddy cliffs, Red Mountain Open Space, Larimer County, CO, October 24, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested. The rate is $65 per hour-long session. You might also want to check out my Spiritual Direction with Stephen Hatch Facebook page. Many of my photos are available as prints, either mounted or unmounted. Here is a link to the pricing and various mounts available: http://www.stephenhatchphotography.com/#!mounting-prices/cpr6 "It is time for me to stop arguing with the seven guys who argue inside my head and be completely quiet in front of the face of Peace. It is time for me to get very quiet through me giving to Somebody Else everything I am thought to be so that my house may be at rest, and the soul talk in peace and listen to Peace and learn from Peace. No, honestly: it is time to stop being sick, and really get well. It is time to be full of peace and silence." Thomas Merton Photo: Aspen tree, rocks, and meadow, Moraine Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, October 23, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested. The rate is $65 per hour-long session. You might also want to check out my Spiritual Direction with Stephen Hatch Facebook page. Many of my photos are available as prints, either mounted or unmounted. Here is a link to the pricing and various mounts available: http://www.stephenhatchphotography.com/#!mounting-prices/cpr6 "God who is Light has led me tenderly from light to light to the shoreless ocean of rayless beamless Spirit Light that bathes these holy mountains." The Contemplative John Muir Photo: Sun and aspens near Crater Lake, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO, September 27, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at [email protected] if you are interested. The rate is $65 per hour-long session. You might also want to check out my Spiritual Direction with Stephen Hatch Facebook page. Many of my photos are available as prints, either mounted or unmounted. Here is a link to the pricing and various mounts available: http://www.stephenhatchphotography.com/#!mounting-prices/cpr6 |
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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