All True Wisdom is Actually a Waking Dream !

"My father often talked to me in a low voice.  This is how our people always talk to their children; so low and quiet, the child thinks he is dreaming.  But he never forgets."

Maria Chona, Papago Tribe

Photo: An early morning dreamscape at Yellowstone National Park, WY, September 5, 2011

The Mountain and I Never Tire of Each Other

"We settle down together, never tiring of each other.  Only the two of us, the mountain and I."

Li Po, 8th century Taoist poet

Photo: Western Yellow Paintbrush and Elephanthead, Snowy Range, WY, August 27, 2011

Our Shortcomings are Primarily Perceptual, Not Moral

 

I like to imagine that all of the suffering in the world caused by humanity could be solved if we were able to see things - really see them - from the perspective of another: another individual,  personality type, gender, economic class,  culture, race, or species. And what if this "other" included ourselves - and the planet - in another century or two? Imagine what would happen if we could actually become the other - even for just an hour - and then return once again to ourselves with that transformed awareness?  And every time we forgot that insight, what if the vision would return to us once again - full-force?  Would we ever again be capable of hurting another - or the earth? Envision how such enlightenment would empower us to work for justice and peace in the world!  It seems to me that the root of our problems is not primarily a moral shortcoming, but a perceptual one.  When it comes to this sort of enlightenment, we are all like infants. It should, I believe, be the goal of all true spirituality to work for this kind of perceptual shift.

Photo: Sunset at Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, October 28, 2011

Every Object Unlocks a New Sense Organ

 

"Every object rightly seen unlocks a new faculty of the soul."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photo: Yellow Monkeyflower at West Thumb Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, WY, September 4, 2011

Every Creature is Moses' Sacred Burning Bush!

 

"How full of God is this hollow! . . . Spiritual fires burning in every tree, in every bush, in every stone.  At such times, every bush is a burning bush – not consumed, but growing bigger."

John Muir

Photo: Red-hued Three-leafed Sumac and yellow Fremont Cottonwood bask in morning light, Lory State Park, CO,  October 25, 2011.  Eighteen hours after this shot was taken, the whole landscape was covered in a foot of snow!

Self-Esteem is Rooted in Our Love for Other Creatures

 

"I know of no redeeming qualities in me but a sincere love for some things, and when I am reproved I have to fall back on to this ground.  This is my argument in reserve for all cases.  My love is invulnerable.  Meet me on that ground, and you will find me strong.  When I am condemned, and condemn myself utterly, I think straightway, 'But I rely on my love for some things.'  Therein I am whole and entire.  Therein I am God-propped."

Henry David Thoreau

Photo: Wild plum leaves with snow-dressed ponderosa pines, Lory State Park, CO, October 26, 2011

Belonging Completely to Silence

 

"Vocation to Solitude - To deliver oneself up, to hand oneself over, entrust oneself completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods and hills . . . This is a true and special vocation.  There are few who are willing to belong completely to such silence, to let it soak into their bones, to breathe nothing but silence, to feed on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life into a living and vigilant silence."

Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk

Photo: Three "Snow Monks," (Ponderosa Pines), Lory State Park, CO, October 26, 2011

The Human Mind is Meant to Be a "Temple Open to the Sky"

 

"Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near I come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial affair, - the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how willing people are to lumber their minds with such rubbish, - to permit idle rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground which should be sacred to thought.  Shall the mind be a public arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly are discussed?  Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself, - a temple open to the sky, consecrated to the service of the gods?  I find it so difficult to process the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my attention with those which are insignificant . . . Such is, for the most part, the news in newspapers and conversation.  It is important to preserve the mind's chastity in this respect.  Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their holy-of-holies for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very bar-room of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us, - the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts' shrine!  Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide? . . . We should exclude such trespassers from the only holy ground which can be sacred to us.  It is so hard to forget what it is worse than useless to remember!  If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers . . . If we have thus desecrated ourselves, - and who has not? - the remedy will be wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and make once more a temple of the mind.  We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and naive children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention.  Read not the Times.  Read the Eternities . . . Knowledge does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven.  Yes, every thought that passes through the mind helps to wear and tear it, and to deepen the ruts . . ."

Henry David Thoreau, "Life Without Principle"

Photo: This pond is located in the midst of an old burn in the Snowy Range, WY, August 26, 2011.  I see the pond as symbolizing what Thoreau calls the "temple open to the sky" - the "hypaethral temple," he calls it.  The dead snags represent the devastation that happens to us when we feed our minds only with "the affairs of the street" instead of with true spiritual nourishment.

Excessive Socializing Prevents Us from Hearing from Ourselves

 

"Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation.  Surface meets surface.  When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip.  We rarely meet a person who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper . . . In proportion as our inward life fails,  we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office.  You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself in a long while. I do not know but it is too much [even] to read one newspaper a week.  I have tried it recently, and during the time that I did, it seems to me that I did not dwell in my native region.  The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees do not try to say so much to me."

Henry David Thoreau

If Thoreau lived in our era, he would be talking about text messages, email and Facebook instead of letters.

Photo: Two crows cawing at one another, Lory State Park, June 2, 2011

Nature Frees Us From the Constriction Caused by Human Institutions

"I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him.  None of his institutions control or pervade her . . . In her midst I can be glad with an entire gladness.  If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself; I should lose all hope.  He is constraint, she is freedom to me.  He makes me wish for another world.  She makes me content with this.  None of the joys she supplies is subject to his rules and definitions."

Henry David Thoreau

Photo: Long's Peak and changing aspen, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, October 10, 2011

Silence is God's Voice

 

"If you ask us, 'What is silence?' we will answer, 'It is the Great Mystery.  The holy silence is God's voice.'  If you ask, 'What are the fruits of silence?' we will answer, 'They are self-control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity and reverence.  Silence is the cornerstone of character.' "

Ohiyesa (Charles Eastman); Elder, Dakota Nation

Photo: The Never Summer Mountains at sunset, near Gould, CO, October 21, 2011

Man's Heart Away from Nature Becomes Hard

 

"The old Lakota was wise.  He knew that man's heart away from Nature becomes hard."

Luther Standing Bear

Photo:  View from Ohio Pass, near Crested Butte, CO, October 2, 2011

God Feeds the Mountains with Alpenglow Light

"God tends his mountains and feeds them with light, feeds them like a flock.  Strange we regard them as dead."

John Muir

Photo: Alpenglow on the Nokhu Crags, Never Summer Range, CO, October 21, 2011 

Follow Your Bliss!

 

"My general formula for my students is 'Follow your bliss.'  Find where it is, and don't be afraid to follow it.  The way to find out about your happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you are really happy - not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy!  This requires a little bit of self-analysis.  What is it that makes you happy?  Stay with it, no matter what people tell you.  This is what I call 'following your bliss.'  The adventure is its own reward.  When you follow your bliss, doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors, and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else."

Joseph Campbell

Photo: Vibrant autumn aspen trees near Kebler Pass, CO, October 1, 2011

Perhaps Our Society Has Never Really Learned to Love

 

"My white brother does many things well for he is more clever than my people, but I wonder if he knows how to love well.  I wonder if he has ever really learned to love at all.  Perhaps he only loves the things that are his own but never learned to love the things that are outside and beyond him.  And this is, of course, not love at all, for man must love all creation or he will love none of it."

Chief Dan George, Coast Salish Elder

Photo: Sunset suffuses the aspen trees with love-light, Rawah Range, near Gould, CO, September 26, 2011

A Friend Kindly Blows Away Our Untransformed Words

 

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thought nor measure words.  But pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away."

Shoshone saying

Photo:  Two aspen trees, Oh-Be-Joyful Pass Trail, near Crested Butte, CO, October 1, 2011

Elderberries Embody the Age of Miracles

 

"My body is all sentient.  As I go here or there, I am tickled by this or that I come in contact with, as if I touched the wires of a battery . . . The age of  miracles is each moment thus returned.  Now it is wild apples, now river reflections, now a flock of lesser redpolls . . . People talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in their lives.  Cease to gnaw on that crust.  There is ripe fruit over your head."

Henry David Thoreau

Photo: Elderberries in an aspen forest , Rawah Range, CO, September 26, 2011

Our Bodies Glow in Beauty Like Moses' Burning Bush

 

"Pure pleasures of the flesh, our bodies glowing in beauty like trees in fire, like Moses’ burning bush, without being consumed."

John Muir

Photo: Aspens at sunset, Clark Peak and the Rawah Mountains in the background, near Gould, CO, September 26, 2011 

Dare to Be Inconsistent

 

"Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then?  It seems to be a rule of wisdom . . . to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and to live ever in a new day . . . A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin [boogeyman] of little minds . . . With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.  He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.  Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today. - 'Ah, so you shall be misunderstood,' [someone will contend] - Is that so bad, then to be misunderstood?  Pythagorus was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh.  To be great is to be misunderstood . . . The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks.  See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency.  I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photo: Aspens and the Ruby Range, near Crested Butte, CO, October 1, 2011

Solitude Gives Us a More Timeless Perspective on Life

 

"I have had my share of solitude and know whereof I speak.  It is beautiful to me, for it brings back perspective and the sense of timelessness.  I come back to the friends I have left, stronger, better, and happier than when I went away.  If there is writing to do, my thoughts run more smoothly than before; my perceptions and understanding of life's problems more uncluttered after the cleansing power of solitude."

Sigurd F. Olson

Photo: Lone Subalpine Fir, Aspens, and Anthracite Mountain, near Crested Butte, CO, September 30, 2011

Divine Love is Radically Humble - Like Alpenglow Light!

 

"Alpenglow is the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God and suggests the spiritual Love-light in which the flesh-walls of earthy tabernacles are dissolved and everything puts on immortality."

John Muir

People in our time are weary of the self-referential quality of religion, where the "true believers" of each faith are constantly pointing to the superiority of their own religious founder.  In the Christian tradition, this takes the form of a Christ who - through his "followers" - is continually talking about his own uniqueness and holiness.  However, from a contemplative perspective, this is definitely not the true Christ - the one who is radically humble and eternally self-emptying.  For this, the image of alpenglow is the perfect metaphor. 

From the perspective of the observer standing on the ground just before sunrise, the alpenglow sun suddenly fires the peaks in shades of pink, orange or purple, while yet remaining hidden below the horizon.  Similarly - through the human embodiments of his love, whether Christian or not - Christ delights in shining the light of his love on all of reality, clearing away the clutter of the constricted ego-self and making each thing glow in its own radiant divinity.  Radically humble, he disappears - like the alpenglow sun - below the horizon of Being, not caring to be known as an object of devotion.  

However, unlike the physical sun - which we could indeed encounter if we traveled far enough to the east, the essence of Christ from which this alpenglow love-light issues could never be found, no matter how far we traveled along the Horizon of Being.  Nevertheless, the light of his love - surprise! - still appears within each creature, making it glow in its own innate divinity.  Such is the mysterious, self-emptying humility of Jesus - and indeed, of all true spiritual teachers, no matter what their faith!

Photo: Alpenglow on Beckwith Mountain with golden aspens, near Crested Butte, CO, October 2, 2011

Elk Power

 

"Spotted Tail was a great chief.  He did not drink or use the white man's tobacco.  But he loved women.  He could not resist them, and they could not resist him.  One of his nicknames was Speaking With Women . . . Altogether he had four wives, each with a fine tipi for herself and her children.  He was a good husband, a good provider, and a loving father.  But he had the elk power, which charms women.  There was nothing wrong with this from the Indian point of view at that time.  We do not think about such matters as white missionaries do."

Leonard Crow Dog

Lakota Medicine Man

Photo: Bull elk seeking more females for his herd; Long's Peak in the background; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, October 10, 2011

A Mountain is Never "Conquered"

 

"When a mountain is climbed, it is said to be conquered – as well say a man is conquered when a fly lights on his head.  Blue jays have trodden the [Half] Dome many a day; so have beetles and chipmunks, and Tissiack [Half Dome] will hardly be more conquered, now that man is added to her list of visitors.  His louder scream and heavier scrambling will not stir a line of her countenance . . ."

John Muir

Photo: Sunrise alpenglow on Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, CA, July 28, 2011

All Things are Interwoven

 

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe . . .  Everything is so inseparably united.  As soon as one begins to describe a flower or a tree or a storm or an Indian or a chipmunk, up jumps the whole heaven and earth and God himself."

John Muir

Photo: Radiant aspens near Kebler Pass, Crested Butte, CO, October 1, 2011

A Fresh Point of View Makes Us Born Again

"All that is necessary to make any landscape visible and therefore impressive is to regard it from a new point of view . . . Then we behold a new heaven and earth and are born again, as if we had gone on a pilgrimage to some far-off holy land."

John Muir

Photo: Looking upward through a fern frond toward the tops of the aspens, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, September 17, 2011    

When We Conserve Land, It is Really the Human Spirit That We Are Conserving

"There is a great need for people to come in touch with silence, cyclic rhythms and natural beauty if they are to retain their perspective. . . . It is the intangible values of the land they need.  The conservation of waters, forests, mountains, and wildlife are far more than saving terrain.  It is the conservation of the human spirit which is the goal, and that is what is meant by the good life, one with the opportunity to find peace and quiet
somewhere beyond . . ."

Sigurd F. Olson

Photo: Aspens and East Beckwith Mountain in early morning light, near Crested Butte, CO, October 2, 2011

Reason and Love are Contemplation's Two Eyes

 

"Contemplation has two eyes, reason and love.  These two are of great mutual assistance because love gives life to reason and reason gives light to love.  Often when these two eyes faithfully cooperate, they become one.  In the contemplation of God, where love is chiefly operative, reason passes into love and is transformed into a certain spiritual and divine understanding, which transcends and absorbs all reason . . . [Here,] love is an intellect that gives us knowledge of God."

William of St. Thierry, a 12th century Cistercian monk

"The one who loves You grasps you.  The more one loves, the more one grasps, because You Yourself are love."

Aelred of Rievaulx, another 12th century Cistercian monk

Photo: Aspen "eyes," Oh-Be-Joyful Pass Trail, near Crested Butte, CO, October 1, 2011

Our Own Unreciprocated Love Enlarges Us

 

"The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it . . . It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew to carry a friendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence [reciprocity] on the other.  Why should I encumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious?  It never troubles the sun that some of its rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet.  Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion.  If he is unequal [in affection], he will presently pass away; but thou art enlarged by thy own shining."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photo: A single aspen overlooks the mountain vista; Oh-Be-Joyful Pass Trail, near Crested Butte, CO, October 1, 2011

Primeval Silence and Timelessness are Always the Background of Our Busy Lives

 

"The great silences mean more than stillness.  They are the ancient overpowering silences this planet knew before the advent of modern man . . . The silence . . . dealt with distance, timelessness, and perception, a sense of being engulfed by something greater where minor sounds were only a part, a hush embedded in our consciousness . . . Quiet is a temporary thing, the old silence ageless.  It is the background of our inherent feeling for the earth, part of our inner self and of the cosmic point of view, the core of mysticism, of religious belief, and of myth and legend . . .

"We cannot all live in the wilderness, or even close to it, but we can, no matter where we spend our lives, remember the background [of silence and timelessness] . . . , and remember that days, no matter how frenzied their pace, can be calm and unhurried.  Knowing we can be calm and unhurried, we can refuse to be caught in the so-called rat race and the tension which kills Godlike leisure.  Though conscious of the roar around us, we can find peace if we remember we all came from a common . . . primeval background."

Sigurd F. Olson

Photo: Aspens and "The Castles" from Ohio Pass, near Crested Butte, CO, October 2, 2011.  My wife insisted I share this photo, which is a favorite of hers.

Gaze at Nature Sideways

 

"Man cannot afford to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye.  He must look  through and beyond her . . . I should be the magnet in the midst of all this dust and iron filings . . . I must let my senses wander as my thoughts, my eyes see without looking.  Be not preoccupied with looking.  Go not to the object; let it come to you. What I need is not to look at all, but a true sauntering of the eye."

Henry David Thoreau

Photo: As I was drinking  morning coffee at my campsite on Lost Lake near Crested Butte (CO), this aspen "eye" caught my attention, peering at me as though from the side from behind the surrounding trunks.  October 1, 2011

The World Exists to Satisfy Our Desire for Beauty

"The world exists to the soul to satisfy the desire for beauty."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photo: Golden aspens and the first major snow of the season on the Medicine Bow Range, near Gould, CO, October 6, 2011

Love is a Magnifying Glass that Reveals the Inner Beauty of a Thing

 

Love and a sense of wonder are not just sentimental feelings; they have real, epistemological value.  For these attitudes serve as a sort of magnifying glass that enables us to see clear through to the divine core present within each being and each situation. Indeed, this capacity to penetrate through superficial clutter to the core of inner beauty is precisely what the spiritual life is designed to accomplish.

Photo: Raindrops on an aspen leaf, Medicine Bow Mountains, CO, October 6, 2011

Each of Us Has a Special Listening-Point from Which to Contemplate the Universe

"From my Listening Point I have seen the immensity of space and glimpsed at times the grandeur of creation.  There I have sensed the span of uncounted centuries and looked down the path all life has come . . . Everyone has a listening-point somewhere . . . , some place of quiet where the universe can be contemplated with awe."

Sigurd F. Olson

Photo: View southward from the Oh-Be-Joyful Pass Trail, near Crested Butte, CO, October 1, 2011

Tipsy with Water

"The poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low and plain, that the common influences should delight him.  His cheerfulness should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photo: Sunlight shining on spherical raindrops perched on an aspen leaf, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, October 3, 2011

One with Sacred Spaciousness

 

"Standing on the bare ground - my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space - all mean egotism vanishes.  I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photo: Golden aspens and the peaks of the Raggeds Range at sunset, Oh-Be-Joyful Pass Trail near Crested Butte, CO, October 1, 2011

Echoes of a Divine Love-Word Appear Continually as Though Out of Nowhere!

 

I was sitting just before sunset on a rocky promontory overlooking this sea of aspen when a bull elk began bugling somewhere from within all of that gold.  Because he was totally invisible, I got the sense that his voice was like an  echo emerging out of nowhere.  Similar to an experience I had several weeks earlier while listening to the elk in a meadow within Rocky Mountain National Park,  I immediately felt I was in the presence of the Great Mystery.  It seemed that each bugle - together with each aspen tree, mountain and cloud - was actually an echo of a love-word that the Great Mystery was just about to speak but was never able!  For before he could even utter it, he had already lost himself for all eternity in blissful ecstasy, a bliss I could also sense within myself as I melted into the wide-open sea of love present within all of that gold. Magically, even though the love-word had never been uttered, echoes somehow emerged, anyway!  This intuition  imparted to me a wonderful sense of the playful mystery of life and offered me the strength to return home and embody the qualities of this sublime scene within my everyday life.

Photo: changing aspen and Marcellina Peak, viewed from the Oh-Be-Joyful Trail near Crested Butte, CO, October 1, 2011

Cares Will Drop Off Like Autumn Leaves

 

"Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer . . . Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."

John Muir

Photo: Aspen forest on the Oh-Be-Joyful Pass Trail, near Crested Butte, CO, October 1, 2011

There are Two Mirrors and Two Sets of Mirror-images Facing Each Other, But No Originals!

 

We might  think of Life as consisting of two facing mirrors and their corresponding mirror-images, but with no originals present. 

Speaking mythologically, let us imagine that we are compelled to look intently toward the horizon - toward transcendence.  This act represents our desire for an experience of a masculine Great Beyond, the Presence who would shift our focus away from this world of instability and change and ground us in a vast, stable expanse of love. In any case, as we look toward the horizon, we see a mirror reflecting a beautiful woman in the act of walking.  This woman is Sophia, Gaia, Mother Earth.  However, when we turn around and look away from the mirror in order to find her, we realize that she is nowhere to be found!  For she is eternally emptied out into the bliss she experiences as a result of  her love affair with the Beyond. Yet her mirror-image still appears, anyway!

Similarly, we often find ourselves drawn away from transcendence in order to discover the sacred within our sensual experience of the world - within the beautiful particulars of life. Here, when we look at the world of Mother Earth, we find only a second mirror, one that faces the first mirror. This mirror is the world of immanence, or this-worldliness. In this mirror, we can see the reflection of a handsome man - the Great Beyond -  walking toward us. However, when we turn around and away from the mirror in order to look for him, we find no one! For he is eternally emptied out - lost to himself - in bliss. Such, we understand in a flash, is the great magic and mystery of life - composed as it is of two facing sets of  mirror-images, but with no originals ever present!

Photo: Beckworth Peak and golden aspen trees above Lost Lake, near Crested Butte, CO, October 1, 2011

The Interior Castle

 

"We consider our soul to be like a castle made entirely of a diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms . . . If I had understood as I do now that in this little palace of my soul dwelt so great a King, I would not have left Him alone so often."

St. Teresa of Avila, "The Interior Castle"

Photo: "The Castles" viewed from Ohio Pass, near Crested Butte, CO, October 2, 2011