Thoughts as I walk in the wilderness and listen to Russell Brand’s Revelation:
What I can learn from 12 step groups:
- Ritual helps us “give up our addictions” more easily. Well. Maybe not “more easily” but at least, perhaps less fractiously.
- Tokens are handed out for milestone moments... 40 days without drugs... maybe 40 days without food for me (with medical supervision, of course).
“We are the unfolding path that we walk upon. Unless we can walk with grace, we are already fallen.” Russell Brand, Revelation.
Other quotes I’m embracing this week:
“The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.”- Mary Davis
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Wow! The more I examine this tiny verse, the more impactful and insightful, even incarnational, it becomes to me. While I always understood the first part as a recognition of the sacred all around us, even in us, I only ever understood the second part about others as dismissive of those who don’t perceive the sacred. Maybe I’m imbuing too much of my own limited perspective on this, but this is a profound insight into the ego-mind or the carnal mind, the unconscious mind-driven self. Those who do not perceive the sacred all around them and in them do only what is natural to the mind divorced from the sacred. They commodify or use the mundane for self-gratification, thus making it profane. As we already know, the sacred and the mundane are one and the same. It is a matter of perception, or in the latter case of the blackberry pickers, it is a misperception, an inability to recognize the sacred in everything. This blindness to the sacred all around is the great disconnect we talk of sustainability circles. It is our disconnection from the sacred that leads us to plunder and pillage the earth for our own selfish gain, to oppress and objectify “others” and thus, to commit acts of violence. This is not a judgment on blackberry pickers, either. There is nothing wrong with satisfying your natural cravings for food, right? Browning’s longer form of this verse from Aurora Leigh points to this dichotomy in the human world of both sacred and profane all around us.
In Native American tribes like the Inuit and Aleuts or the Amazonian tribes like the Achuar, this common, global problem of greed, corrupt systems, pollution and social disparities is perceived as only an external sign of a spiritual problem or a disconnection with spirit. This is why Jesus said that if you fix a man’s eyes, the whole man would see clearly. “But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!”( NLB)
Purple-hued mountains and bushes. Clouds of lavender and deep purple flowers. The luscious scent of Lilac and buttercups wafting from the pale blue and purple butterfly bushes in the wilderness. Everything was alive. The birds sang and chirped and cawed. The ants seemed to frolic as they hurried about their business. The bees seemed to hum with aliveness. Pinks, reds, magentas, purples, lavenders, white blossoms, brilliant yellows, neon oranges, spring greens, bluish sage... every color seemed more vibrant than ever before.
Even lizards- black, brown, gray, or one iridescent aqua and turquoise blue- seemed to dance and leap. A falcon allowed me to approach it. I heard a bird in the preserve calling. It reminded me of the sweet call of the red-winged black bird back home every spring.
Tiny little green finches gather up the dandelion seeds. My mother was right. Why keep a lawn without dandelions? What will the beautiful, little finches eat when they migrate through this land if everyone poisons the dandelions? I saw a dead hummingbird, its iridescent green feathers dulling. I wondered had it died of natural causes? Had the fierce winds yesterday knocked it down and killed it? I stopped for a moment to thank the bird for its beauty and its life. I wondered if it had a grieving partner somewhere? I thanked the tiny bird for its participation in this physical form, for its contribution to the dance of life.
I remembered the sweet, gentle mourning dove yesterday. As I approached along the sidewalk, I saw it lying perfectly still in the middle of the sidewalk. I drew closer. It did not move. I drew closer still, not wanting to frighten it, but wondering if it had been injured? Then, it flew away! And there on the sidewalk where it had lain was a tiny, damp feathered baby dove. The winds had blown it from the nest and the mother was sitting on her baby, warming it, cuddling it, protecting it beneath her outspread wings.
I thought of all the lovely redbud trees and the rocks, many pebbles which seem to find their way into the tread of my shoes... I thought about what it means to ‘be Zen’. Zen is to be alive to this moment, to all of life as it is, to be like a tree. Trees do not toil and strain. They do not complain or make up useless stories about either how great they are or how despicable or how victimized they are. They simply are.
Does that mean that trees do not have hardships? Of course not. Just look at the tree in my yard, its bark wounded and scarred from the childish trauma inflicted by my young nephew. Those wounds now allow the infestation of bacteria and insects. Or look at the twisted, bent-over trunks along my usual path up to the mountains behind my home. The Santa Ana winds are a destructive force to be reckoned with. Many trees are uprooted each year or branches broken. To be Zen is to be at peace with what is, to be present now, doing whatever you do now because this is just what you do. To be Zen is to be one with all of life. To be fully present. This is the sacred dance, the awareness of the underlying life in all, the connection of community, the perception of beauty, of joy, of is-ness.
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