Dwelling in the Vagina of the Earth

For me, hiking through a slot canyon in the desert Southwest is a deeply spiritual experience, one that involves elements of both the sacred masculine (God, the Great Beyond) together with the divine feminine (Sophia, Mother Earth, Gaia).

Embraced on both sides by canyon walls that are barely wider than my body,  I feel as though my masculine identity is "squeezed," embraced and held within the vagina of the goddess.  From this experience, I gain insight into the fact that whenever I encounter a beautiful object in the world around me, there is a two-way relationship involved.  There, when the object draws my attention, I realize that it is acting of its own accord to hold me within its loving embrace.  Thus, my experience of beauty is less one of grasping the object, and more one of being-grasped.  In the process, I come to realize an intimacy with the world - a sense of belonging - that is truly transformative.

However, standing in the depths of a slot canyon gives me an awareness of the sacred masculine as well.  For me, the experience is a perfect embodiment of contemplative prayer, known in its modern form as "centering prayer."  During this prayer, I practice letting go of all thoughts and feelings, allowing myself in the process to sink within the depths of my being and be HELD by the magnetic presence of the God who dwells endlessly deep inside the core of my being.  Here, in this intimacy, all concepts go dark - an experience similar to standing in the depths of the narrow slot canyon - while thoughts and feelings flit far "above" me, like birds flying past in the sky beyond or the stars circulating still farther beyond at night.  Here, I sense that the magnetic, attractive power of divine love welling up from the core of my being is also a sort of "gaze" in which God lovingly holds and regards me.  In this experience, the fact that God (as Great "Beyond") transcends all concepts during the nighttime of contemplation, AND dwells (as the "Beyond Within") endlessly deep at the center of my core, are both experiences of the transcendent quality of the sacred masculine.  However, the sense that I (in my masculine identity) am squeezed on both sides within the darkness of this interior canyon gives me an awareness of the immanent feminine dimension of MY OWN soul, which surrounds me on all sides. 

In any case, dwelling within the vagina of the Earth and inside the canyon of the soul frees me from an obsession with having to grasp at reality, and instead enables me to let go and BE grasped.  Such, I've discovered, is the liberating reality of the contemplative life.

Photo: Redosier Dogwood leaf glistens in sunlight within the depths of the Joint Trail; Needles District, Canyonlands National Park, UT; November 25, 2012