I can never get enough alpenglow. For I sense when I'm in the presence of such glowing orange, red or purple hues that I actually BECOME a human embodiment of this amazing phenomenon. People sometimes complain about the seeming absence of the Divine - of God, the Great Mystery, The Beloved, the Great Beyond - but I find exhilaration in knowing that all things are somehow able to light up with the radiance of their own true nature, while the One who highlights them in love meanwhile lies HIDDEN - trickster-like - beyond the infinite Horizon of Being! Photo: Evening alpenglow on Long's Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 14, 2015 Please visit my website: http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/
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The beauty all around us is the radiance of a grateful heart. Photo: Aspen trees and Pyramid Peak, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO, September 27, 2015 - - - - - - - - - http://www.resourcesforspiritualgrowth.com/ I have to admit that I started to cry last night when the birthday wishes started coming in. Not because it is MY birthday, but because I could actually watch the earth turn with each succeeding hour - just by watching the posts on Facebook! The first post came from the places where morning first arrived, and where November 20th first began, and then they started moving westward. New Zealand first, then the Philippines, and then India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, etc., and then Europe, then Saudi Arabia, and then the Western Hemisphere. Isn't it amazing that we all live on the very SAME planet, and that we come from so many different cultures, races and religious traditions, and yet we all have the same desires, hopes and dreams? What an incredible journey this life is - sharing it with all of you, and with the beautiful landscapes that support us all! Blessings to you all this day :) Photo: Morning sun, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO, September 27, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one sessions giving instruction in Wilderness Insight Meditation and Wilderness Contemplative Prayer, or for spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at canyonechoes@gmail.com 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. Today, on my birthday, I'm struck by what an amazing thing it is to be born into this world. The Buddhist tradition has a metaphor which illustrates the completely miraculous nature of our appearance as human beings here on this Earth. Picture an infinite ocean stretching out endlessly in all directions. Then imagine a single inner tube thrown randomly onto this limitless ocean. Next, picture a solitary sea turtle coming up for air to the surface of the water from the bottom of the sea. The likelihood of being born a human being with all of the capacity for spiritual transformation that this entails is the same chance of having the sea turtle swim up from the sea bottom to stick its head through that single inner tube! Viewed from this perspective, life itself is truly a miracle. As Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says, the true miracle is not to walk on water, gospel-style. The true miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment. When I think of life on Earth, I'm in awe of the diversity of different kinds of people, cultures, religions, philosophies, animal and plant species, and landscapes that inhabit this planet. Truly, I feel like the proverbial "kid in a candystore." There is SO MUCH to learn, so many different perspectives to try on, so many amazing personality types, cultures, races and spiritual traditions from which to imbibe wisdom. Isn't it simply astounding? And yet all of this diversity is also part of a single web of life, where - to use the Buddhist image of the Net of Indra - every creature is like a jewel tied into a node in the net, a jewel that ceaselessly reflects every other jewel, and vice versa! Photo: Stephen as a baby (with friend) in Pennsylvania. "With man all is uncertainty. Nature is confident." Henry David Thoreau Photo: Golden Cottonwoods with ridges above that were hit by the High Park Fire in the summer of 2012. Poudre Canyon, CO - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one sessions giving instruction in Wilderness Insight Meditation and Wilderness Contemplative Prayer, or for spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at canyonechoes@gmail.com 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. Yesterday I talked about human spiritual evolution and the necessarily evolving aspect of the Divine. This facet of our union with the Ultimate is what I am calling the "feminine" or dynamic dimension. In Sanskrit terms, it roughly corresponds to "Prakriti" (or Shakti), the presence indwelling all life and energy. In Process Theology, it is the Consequent Nature of the Divine, the part of the Source that evolves in and through us. We might get an approximate image of this aspect by imagining a vivacious, ever-youthful woman. Here I think of White Buffalo Calf Woman of the Lakota, who is youthfully beautiful, yet who is often depicted with the white hair of a sage. In any case, this is the lively, seamless, river-like flow of wisdom. However, this picture would be incomplete without mentioning the stable, static, unchanging facet of the Divine. This aspect is what I am calling the "masculine" or endlessly-spacious dimension. In Sanskrit terms, it roughly corresponds to "Purusha." In Process Theology, it is the Primordial Nature of the Divine. We might get an approximate image of this aspect by thinking of the "strong, silent male," or the god Shiva in his ceaselessly meditative aspect. In any case, this is the spacious, sky-like aspect of meditation. We might also think of it as a high mountain. Although sometimes in traditional spiritual traditions, the unchanging "masculine" aspect is given priority over the dynamic "feminine," a Wilderness Mysticism holds that BOTH dimensions are necessary for a balanced and complete spiritual life. Here I think of poet Gary Snyder's epic poem entitled "Mountains and Rivers Without End." Both are needed for a beautiful landscape, and both make up a healthy spirituality. The interdependence of these two elements is superbly indicated by the fact that many mountains are actually composed of sediments that once lay at the bottom of an ancient river or ocean, while rivers themselves are formed from snow precipitated by mountains that cause water vapor in the atmosphere to condense and fall to earth. As always, Wilderness Mysticism is a both/and kind of spirituality, valuing both the Changing and the Changeless, the Evolving and the Stable, the Visible and the Invisible, Horizontal Unity and Vertical Unity, the Feminine and the Masculine - in short, "Mother Earth" and "Father Sky." Photo: Ruddy peaks with aspens and a stream flowing into Crater Lake, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO, September 27, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one sessions giving instruction in Wilderness Insight Meditation and Wilderness Contemplative Prayer, or for spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at canyonechoes@gmail.com 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. Cosmologist Brian Swimme offers a fascinating perspective on why we human beings have such a strong tendency toward fundamentalism. He says that because we are capable of the widest awareness of any creature, we are thereby sensitized to a broader range of stimuli than any other species. A microscopic paramecium may only be sensitized to its immediate surroundings, but a human can feel events occurring clear across the world. For Swimme, the dominant aspect of the world is its beauty. Human beings, in having the broadest powers of reflection, are thereby sensitized to more beauty than perhaps any other creature. Because of this ability, it is we who are responsible for awakening the universe to its beauty and goodness. And herein lies our problem. Sometimes our awareness of such intense, widespread beauty is more than we can bear. Since this is the case, Swimme asks, “Can this voluptuousness be contained within the human vessel? Can allurement bear the knowledge of its own essence? Or will the tensions this creates shatter any self?” The purpose of contemplative practice is to expand the self so it can take in ever-increasing amounts of beauty. But in our contracted, unenlightened attitudes, the beauty of the world is almost too much to bear. Therefore, we focus obsessively on just a mere fragment of that beauty, usually on that of our own skin-encased ego, our family, our community, nation and religious group. And this is the source of our fundamentalistic attitude. Swimme makes this point eloquently when he reminds us that “The paradox is this: the greater your sensitivity, the more unbearable the tension. It is much easier to latch onto just one of these allurements, making it the whole. Anyone who grabs a sliver of beauty and insists it is the whole becomes a fanatic, workaholic, cynic, fundamentalist, or drug addict.” He realizes that “To break the tension of living in a universe rich in allurements is to move toward the needless destruction of pursuing a partial vision. The glory of the human is also the difficulty of the human. Precisely because we are able to feel such beauty, we are simultaneously vulnerable to the addiction of fanaticism in any of a million forms.” What we need is to expand the capacity of the human container to enable us to take in more beauty. Photo: Ponderosa Pine and ruddy hill, Red Mountain Open Space, Larimer County, CO; October, 2015 - - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one sessions giving instruction in Wilderness Insight Meditation and Wilderness Contemplative Prayer, or for spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at canyonechoes@gmail.com 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. In the light of recent tragic world events, we are sometimes tempted to wonder if the internal state of humanity is getting worse rather than better. Fundamentalisms of all sorts are rampant these days - religious, ethnic, racial, gendered, political and individual - causing us to wonder where it is all headed. However, my faith is that spiritual evolution, both individually and as a species, is indeed still proceeding. We might say that spiritual evolution involves two qualities. First, we become more introspective, self-aware, cognizant of the biases and filters through which we see life and those around us. This aspect of spiritual evolution teaches us that knowledge - even of the highest and deepest realities - is always perspectival. We always and forever see reality through a filter. Each of us - and each culture and religion - is like the proverbial group of blind people grabbing at different part of the elephant. We are tempted at first to think that the "trunk" or "ears" or "waist" or "tail" or "toenails" ARE the whole, but we gradually learn that we are seeing only a part. This realization guarantees that we will remain forever humble and in need of an endless number of OTHER perspectives to complete the cosmic picture. This brings me to the second aspect of spiritual evolution, which is the capacity to expand our awareness to include more and more perspectives on Life. Here, we begin actually to see the world through another's eyes and to TAKE ON their perspective. For me, the study of personality typology - the Enneagram, for example - helps me first to see that there ARE other perspectives, and then to begin to get in touch with those very perspectives as they are present - subconsciously at first - within myself. Similarly, the study of other religious traditions evolves from first understanding that they exist as valuable contributions to humanity, and then to being able actually to see life from WITHIN those perspectives. This broadening of one's perspective is currently happening on a world-wide scale, especially with the advent of the internet (the "world-wide WEB") and the fact that we are daily brought in touch with a variety of perspectives and world events. International travel - especially among those in the Millennial Generation - is an expected part of life for many people, and this phenomenon continues to bring a multitude of cultures and world views into ever-closer proximity. So the question naturally arises: if consciousness truly is becoming more inward and expansive, why do fundamentalisms of all sorts seem to be on the rise? We might think of human spiritual evolution as proceeding in similar fashion to climbing the Great Sand Dunes - the tallest of which rise 750 feet above the valley floor - here in Colorado. For every step forward, we slide half a step backward! Similarly, every advance in spiritual evolution is accompanied by a momentary slip backward into untransformed ways of thinking and acting. Contemplative psychologist Gerald May calls this phenomenon "ego backlash." We know that it happens on an individual level, when something in us resists change every time we progress another step forward on the spiritual journey. But today we are seeing it happen on a cultural level as well. Because the human brain and mind are being asked to do something they never had to do before - namely, to expand endlessly to take in a larger and larger number of perspectives and greater amounts of information - they appear to be balking at the task. Some would claim that the seemingly higher incidences of mental illness in our time are in fact an indication of the increasingly challenged human brain and mind. However, my faith is that the human brain and mind - together with our entire being - will continue to evolve, becoming ever more aware of its own filters and biases, AND expanding to take in a greater number of perspectives and integrate them into a single Whole. Why do I maintain this faith in human spiritual evolution in the midst of a plethora of tragic current events? Because I am convinced that it is THE DIVINE who is ever evolving within us! Photo: Aspen trees in the second largest aspen grove in the world, near Kebler Pass, CO, September 26, 2015 - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one sessions giving instruction in Wilderness Insight Meditation and Wilderness Contemplative Prayer, or for spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at canyonechoes@gmail.com 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 "By poverty, i.e. simplicity of life and fewness of incidents, I am solidified and crystallized, as a vapor or liquid by cold." Henry David Thoreau Photos: Snowy Range, WY I am available for one-on-one sessions giving instruction in Wilderness Insight Meditation and Wilderness Contemplative Prayer, or for spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at canyonechoes@gmail.com 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 will pray for whomever the media tells me to pray for." (A quote seen on Facebook several days ago) I've been thinking a lot over the past week about how much we tend to be influenced by what the media reports feed us each day. I mean - it is good that we stay on top of world events, for sure. Especially ones as tragic as the recent terrorist attacks in France, Beirut, Kenya, etc. But I also think it is important to keep our own center in the midst of it all. Personally, I don't listen to the radio or watch TV because I want to have the chance to think my own thoughts rather than those of someone else. At least with newspaper and internet news sources, I have time to take in each news item, reflect on it, weigh its relative importance, and then do further research - if needed - to try to understand the larger context of each item. What especially pains me is the animosity that occurs between the various groups in our country (and around the world) in the aftermath of each traumatic news event. Here in America, conservatives and liberals take the news events and intensify their sparring regarding immigration policy, Islam, military issues, etc. People who otherwise don't even know each other begin hurling abusive comments at those who hold a different opinion, all based on media reports. Is this a sane way to live? I really don't have any desire to relate to other people through a third party - whether it be Washington, ISIL (or is it ISIS?), a particular view espoused by a religious founder who lived one or two or five thousand years ago, or by various media sources. I desire instead to deal with people directly, to understand their life-story, the events in their personal history that have influenced their present positions, and the like. Most of all, I hope that all of us can remain centered - like the quartzite rock depicted in this photo - rather than simply react to news reports and the mud-slinging that inevitably occurs between the various political factions residing in our own country and across the world in the aftermath of each event. May each of us take some time this week to find that Center. For it is truly a Center that connects us ALL at our deepest core. Photo: Quartzite boulder on Mirror Lake, Snowy Range, WY., November 9, 2015 - - - - - - - - - I am available for one-on-one sessions giving instruction in Wilderness Insight Meditation and Wilderness Contemplative Prayer, or for spiritual direction / mentoring via phone or Skype. You can contact me at canyonechoes@gmail.com 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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