“[T]he Earth can be wonderfully thought of as a planet shimmering with awareness. Perhaps there are other planets that so shimmer, or perhaps this is the only one. In any case, awareness is integral to life, and integral as well to our religious lives.” (89)
“For me, the existence of all this complexity and awareness and intent and beauty, and my ability to comprehend it, serves as the ultimate meaning and the ultimate value.” (171)
- Ursula Goodenough The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998)
I've
been to the woods twice in the last week and a half, and have experienced the
changing of the season in my whole
being. I can taste the changing season as
I breathe in the damp air, laced with molecules flung from soil, reviving grass
and trees. I can smell the moist
branches and foliage as it emerges from its winter stasis in ice and under
snow. I can see the water dripping from
branches with new buds starting to unfurl on their stems. Two weeks ago I saw the first of the flowers
– the crocuses and then the daffodils – beginning to push up through the
leaf-covered flowerbeds. I have heard the birds in ever greater number as they
have returned to our feeders, and I have felt the warmth of the sun on my face! In all of this I meditate on our emergence
from Winter’s epilogues.
As
I walk out onto paths that I’ve not travelled for a couple of months, my body
responds to the exercise; I am warmed by the exertion. With each walk I have travelled more and more
vigorously on the hoof! Weekend before
last I was walking in chilled mist and occasional rain that wet me down and
allowed me the pleasure of feeling 'damp;' not just 'externally' but also
'internally'—in my inward being; my nephesh
– where poetic and philosophical inspirations came like seeds ready to
germinate.
Last
week I went walking down the trail I hiked in January; venturing out to
imagination’s landscapes—the bridge over ‘Willow Creek’ where I often ‘meet’
the Whittiers in poetic presencing.
There, standing on the boards of the bridge, I reflected on the difference
between my experience this month and my experience back in January. Nothing speaks of a change-of-season as does the
contrast in experience at one time of
the year and another at the same location in earthen spacetime. It was over 60° last week when I was at the
bridge, and I wore no coat or boots or ear muffs; only a gray hoodie; which was
actually a bit too much for the day.
Yesterday
I went wandering in sun drenched (yet once again chilled) sylvan places that I haven't
frequented since mid-December; since before the snow and ice and sub-zero
temperatures that induced enclosure;
my confinement to the house and restriction of movement—that lasted through the
whole of February and into mid-March. In that enclosure was to be found several touchstones where the joys
of contemplation became manifest! Now, in the aftermath of the thaw comes
the refreshment of release; the energizing of the self and the re-connection
with Nature that can be called 'emergence.'
Yesterday,
out on an old woodland trail, I reflected on the old rune that Spring, like any
season, is a spiritual as well as a naturalistic season. It never ceases
to amaze me how well the seasons of earth metaphor the seasons of the
spiritual life (or, rather, is it the other way around?); the constant turning
and re-turning that we go through, awakening, planting, growing, exploring,
harvesting, going to sleep_ and then starting all over again with a new or
deeper sense of the meaning of it all—in this our spiritual life is mirrored in
the phase-shifts of Nature. If you want a metaphor for something you are
going through, just search the natural world in all of its wondrous seasonal transfigurations,
and therein some appropriate motif is bound to occur to you.
Following
the seasons from year on to year as our lives unfold is a rewarding way to map
our own changes and germinations, spiritual ‘deaths’ and ‘rebirths,’ flowerings
and goings to seed.
Ever
in the vernal tides, the idea of emergence speaks deeply to me. It describes both what is happening around me
in the natural world as well as what I am experiencing in my own earthen
soul-house. The Passages of Winter inevitably draw me inward; to the very
center of dwelling; both external and internal. The weather often facilitates
a kind of 'house arrest;’ figurative as well as literal. Not being able to get out to the woods or to
a favorite trail when the snow is deep and ice is forbidding turns an earthen-spirited
journeyer into a home-bound contemplative. You may walk short distances;
a walk to work and back home again, perhaps. You go to get food at local
stores. But, most winters, one's range of wandering is limited. If you can manage to respond to this in positive
spiritual ways, it brings one to the Hut of the Self; a place 'within' where
you may become the earthen 'monk' that you are (capable of becoming).
But
then the snow & ice melt and a veritable ‘liberation’ happens—little by
little or sometimes all at once—after which the contemplative naturalist can
once again venture forth! The cry is heard from the depth of the self:
“Into
the Woods! Out to the Wooded Places!”
The
thrill and refreshment that come with those first walks out-of-doors, beyond
the bounds of winter's more imaginative rambles and ambles, is characteristic
of what I experience as 'emergence.' It happens in
Nature; i.e., as the snow and ice retreat, the 'land' is revealed beneath
it—wet, muddy, brown and primed for the rebirth of the green grass, leaves and the
many-colored flora. It oft happens in us, too, as Spring comes on; if
we've embraced our wintry hibernation—that we experience a liberating release as vernal forces swell.
To
roll and flow with the flux of the seasons is the desire of the earthen mystic;
to ride out and dwell deeply in their phenomena—their colors, textures, events,
moods and iconic moments. From the experience of Nature comes the desire
to understand; through science and poetics, story and history. There is always an excitement at the
boundaries between one season and the next; just as there is at the edges of
day and night. Things begin changing, and what has seemed the 'norm'
fades away, giving way to a new 'norm' – a verve and a 'language' that will
hold sway for a month or two, perhaps, until the transition into the next
season begins.
There
is a beauty and a satisfaction in riding the crests and rolling through the
troughs of the natural year; time after time, year to year—pilgriming through
the phases of the seasons. One-ing with Nature, the earthen mystic connects
with what makes us most what we are; to be human is to recognize that we are
but an extension of Nature—we are a moment of the Universe becoming aware of
itself. How much spiritual progress could we make if we could realize
this, however imperfectly? We might finally outgrow our superstitions and
ideologies and reinterpret all of our old myths – religious and secular – setting
the old touchstones of wisdom in a new paradigm (one defined by the revelations
of science), forging therein a new praxis for being and becoming human.
In
the emergence that I experience in the coming of the vernaltides each year, I
find myself looking forward to experiencing, once again, the en-fecundating
powers of Nature; the re-greening of the world leading on to fruition and
harvest. What wonders might await the patient earthen mystic this
year? Only devout pathing through the
seasons will tell. And so—
_OFF
TO THE WOODS!
“I
love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the
subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion,
or the arts, or be awed by Nature.
Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and
reinvigorate it.” (xii)
- Robert
Sopolsky
Why
Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers (1998)
