The whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty

 

"The whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty."

The Contemplative John Muir, p. 181

Photo: Intense winds kicking up a storm of snow crystals, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, February 24, 2012

If you're interested in the book, go here.

Throwing Things at God

 

All day long

The earth shouts

"Gee, thanks."

Such an exuberant gee,

It starts throwing

Things

As if God were passing by in a parade encouraging

Rowdy behavior

By looking so beautiful -

That a whole avalanche of mania swoops in!

I like this idea of throwing thing at God,

And especially - His making us rowdy!

Thus, as soon as Hafiz is out of bed

I start stuffing large sacks

With old shoes, cucumbers,

And

Prayers

[To throw]

For the upcoming

Consecrated

Free-for-all -

And who knows 

What else.

Hafiz

14th century

Photo: A rowdy wind tossing snow crystals around; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, February 24, 2012

All things are divinized in morning light.

 

"All things are divinized in morning light."

The Contemplative John Muir, p. 160

Photo: Sunburst of light caused by intense wind blowing snow off the trees, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, February 24, 2012.   To see the book, go to http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-contemplative-john-muir/18858846 .

Let us work out in the rain, sun, mud, clay and wind; for these are our spiritual directors and our novice-masters.

 

"How necessary it is for contemplatives to work in the fields, in the rain, in the sun, in the mud, in the clay, in the wind: these are our spiritual directors and our novice-masters.  They form our contemplation.  They instill us with virtue.  They make us as stable as the land we live in."

Thomas Merton

Photo: Crystal at Reservoir Ridge Natural Area, CO, February 25, 2012

Storms are fine speakers, and tell all they know . . .

 

"Storms are fine speakers, and tell all they know . . ."

The Contemplative Muir, p. 115

Photo: Subalpine Fir on the Loch in a windstorm, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO. February 24, 2012.  This was a very challenging shot to get.  The wind was ferocious!

Although we may not understand a landscape, we can feel its beauty tingling within our bodies.

 

"We can see . . . a grand page of mountain manuscript that I would gladly give my life to be able to read.  How vast it seems, how short human life . . . , and how little we may learn, however hard we try!  Yet why bewail our poor inevitable ignorance?  Some of the external beauty is always in sight, enough to keep every fibre of us tingling, and this we are able to gloriously enjoy though the methods of its creation may lie beyond our ken."

The Contemplative John Muir, p. 277

Photo: Twisted Lodgepole Pine on Mills Lake with the Arrowhead looming in the mist, February 5, 2012

Lilies are the true saints.

 

"On my way back to the city [Salt Lake] the next day, I met a grave old Mormon with whom I had previously held some Latter-Day discussions.  I shook my big handful of lilies in his face and shouted, 'Here are the true saints, ancient and Latter-Day, enduring forever!' After he had recovered from his astonishment, he said, 'They are nice.' "

The Contemplative John Muir, page 64

Photo: Tiger Lilies, Redwood National Park, CO, August 1, 2011

Trees come with us out of eternity and return to eternity.

 

"Trees . . . all are our brothers and they enjoy life as we do, share Heaven's blessings with us, die and are buried in hallowed ground, come with us out of eternity and return to eternity."

The Contemplative John Muir, p. 119.

Photo: Three Ponderosa pines after a snowstorm, Lory State Park, CO, February 11, 2012

I shall hope to see you with the sparkle and exhilaration of the mountains still in your eyes

 

"I shall hope to see you with the sparkle and exhilaration of the mountains still in your eyes."

The Contemplative John Muir, p. 200

Photo: Micah Allen hiking on the Westridge Trail, Lory State Park, February 20, 2012

How little we know as yet of the life of plants - their hopes and fears, pains and enjoyments!

"How little we know as yet of the life of plants - their hopes and fears, pains and enjoyments!"

The Contemplative John Muir, p. 118

Photo: The first mountain bloom of this year's Spring!  I photographed this Spring-Beauty on a south facing hillside today, February 19, 2012, near Arthur's Rock in Lory State Park, CO.  The rest will start blooming in about three weeks.

Rest and clean snow and sky are the antidote for the challenges of city life.

 

 

"Go now and then [to the wilds] for fresh life – if most of humanity must go through this town stage of development – just as divers hold their breath and come ever and anon to the surface to breathe . . . Go whether or not you have faith . . . Form parties, if you must be social, go to the snow-flowers in winter, to the sun-flowers in summer . . . Anyway, go up and away for life; be fleet. 

I know some will heed the warning.  Most will not, so full of pagan slavery is the boasted freedom of the town, and those who need rest and clean snow and sky the most will be the last to move.  Once [during my childhood on the farm in Wisconsin] I was let down into a deep well into which choke-damp [carbonic acid] had settled, and nearly lost my life.  The deeper I was immersed in the invisible poison, the less capable I became of willing measures to escape from it.  And in just this condition are those who toil or dawdle or dissipate in crowded towns, in the sinks of commerce or pleasure."

The Contemplative John Muir, pp. 213-214

Photo: Nokhu Crags, Never Summer Range, CO, February 17, 2012.  As this photo reveals, a subtle golden light suffused the Crags just before sunset.

A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism.

"A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism."

Dion Fortune

Photo: "Queen Nefertiti," Arches National Park, UT, April 16, 2011  This quote only applies to those who seek a meaningful theism.  Those who are conscientious atheists or non-theists have their own ways of celebrating the sacredness of the feminine.

For the Goddess, theory itself is not sacred. It is our ongoing process of building the theory that becomes a sacred act.

"The way of the Goddess seems to be that of inclusion and adaptability, rather than exclusion and rigidity.  We have no need to set up theories that become so rigid we might be tempted to ignore additional ideas and information just to protect the theory.  The theory itself is not sacred.  It is our ongoing process of building the theory that becomes a sacred act.  And perhaps the very fact that we enter into this process together, with compassion, cooperation, nurturance, intuition, respect for intuition, sympathy, and empathy, capable of sensing process and flow, and with love for each other, each of us a part of the unity of the Goddess, will say more about the feminine principle than any specific theoretical expression."

Merlin Stone

Photo: Fourmile Falls with Heart-leaved Bittercress flowers, San Juan Range, CO, July 1, 2011

The Goddess is the FLOW of Life

"Within nearly all expressions of contemporary women's spirituality is the idea of the Goddess, not as a woman sitting on a throne above the clouds, i.e., transcendent, apart from us, but as immanent, within ourselves.  Many would carry this even further and speak of the Goddess as being within all manifestations of life.  And more and more women are relating to the idea of divinity . . . as the flowing energy in the very processes of life and living.  This Goddess would not be in a person, or tree, or river, so much as she would be the actual organic process, the flow, the changes, transitions, and transformations that the person, tree or river go through.  This idea . . . is perhaps more closely related to Taoism than any other body of spiritual thought."

Merlin Stone, "When God Was a Woman"

Photo: Woman at the Merced River, Yosemite National Park, CA, July 26, 2011

A love unconcerned with reciprocity never says "You owe me!"

 

Even

After

All this time

The sun never says to the earth,

"You owe 

Me."

Look

What happens

With a love like that,

It lights the

Whole

Sky

Hafiz, 14th century

Photo: Sunrise near Craters of the Moon, ID, August 7, 2011

Another human, alone, cannot possibly provide all the otherness we need to feel loved.

 

"The human body knows that it needs a multiplicity of relationships with the whole of its surroundings.  Our bodies have co-evolved with all these other fleshly forms, all of these other bodies – with cedar trees and salmon and windstorms and moon and sun, with critters and plants and herbs of every shape and size . . . [But] we [so often] believe that the only place we can encounter otherness is in another human being.  And so our bodies turn toward our human partners, demanding the sustenance that can only come from a full range of relationships.  But another human, alone, cannot possibly provide all that otherness, and the strain rapidly shatters so many marriages and partnerships."

David Abram, ecological philosopher

Photo: Rosy Paintbrush and other wildflowers, Silver Creek Basin, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO, August 13, 2011

We need to de-anthropocentrize this thing about falling in love, which our culture reduces to soap operas and finding a mate. We have to realize you fall in love with CREATION.

 

"You must be especially careful not to breathe upon a loved human the Divine communion that more properly belongs to the Beloved, although you can mirror the Beloved to the other.  If you make the mistake of investing in human beings the love that belongs to the Beloved, you run the risk of blowing them out by the intensity of feeling you project.  Almost inevitably, they must escape and you are left with an immensity of loss and bereavement."

Jean Houston

"I think frankly that our species is pansexual.  I don’t think we’re heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual.  You can have sexual experiences walking on the earth . . . You can’t do ecology without an aesthetic, without a sense of beauty.  It’s beauty, and being in love with forests, and with healthy soil, and healthy food, and healthy bodies that’s going to give us the imagination and the courage to do something about it . . . And we have to de-anthropocentrize this thing about falling in love, which our culture reduces to soap operas and finding a mate.  We have to realize you fall in love with CREATION . . . Once we get that energy going, we’ll have the political imagination and the moral imagination to change our ways."

Matthew Fox

Photo: Rosy Paintbrush cross-pollinated by bees with Western Yellow Paintbrush, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO, August 13, 2011

The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature

 

"The Goddess in all her manifestations was a symbol of the unity of all life in Nature. Her power was in water and stone . . . , in animals and birds, snakes and fish, hills, trees, and flowers. Hence the holistic and mythopoetic perception of the sacredness and mystery of all there is on Earth . . . The Goddess gradually retreated into the depths of forests or onto mountaintops, where she remains to this day in beliefs and faery stories. Human alienation from the vital roots of earthly life ensued, the results of which are clear in our contemporary society. But the cycles never stop turning, and now we find the Goddess reemerging from forests and mountains, bringing us hope for the future, returning us to our most ancient human roots."

Marija Gimbutas, archeologist

Photo: Last light on red Indian paintbrush, purple larkspur, yellow sneezeweed and white cow parsnip, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO, August 12, 2011

Perhaps rather than calling ancient goddess religions "fertility cults," we should call modern religions "sterility cults"

 

“Rather than calling the earliest [goddess] religions, which embraced such an open acceptance of all human sexuality, 'fertility cults,' we might consider the religions of today as strange in that they seem to associate shame and even sin with the very process of conceiving new human life. Perhaps centuries from now scholars and historians will be classifying them as 'sterility cults.' ” 

Merlin Stone, "When God Was a Woman"

Photo: Last light on the fertility organs of purple lupine, orange sneezeweed, and white cow parsnip, West Elk Mountains, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderenss, CO, August 12, 2011

Sometimes it's better to HOLD ON to Divine Union than to TALK about it!

My love hides on the path where the Love-thief goes

and catches that One by the hair with my teeth.

"Who are you?" the Love-thief asks, but as I open

my mouth to say, he escapes into the desert!

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Trickster-Raven in the desert, Arches National Park, UT, April 16, 2011.  Sometimes it's better to hold on to Divine Union than to talk about It!

Astonishment is the root of philosophy

 

"Astonishment is the root of philosophy."

Paul Tillich, theologian

Photo: Bull elk in a snowstorm, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, February 10, 2012

Become crumbled soil, so wildflowers will come up where you are

 

There's a necessary dying, 

and then Jesus is breathing again.

Very little grows

on jagged rock.
Be ground.

Be crumbled,
so wildflowers will come up
where you are.

You've been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender.

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Spring Beauty blooming in crumbled rocks, Denali National Park, AK, June 24, 2010

In springtime we begin to recall our own greenness

 

"We began as a mineral.  We emerged into plant life and into the animal state, and then into being human.  And always we have forgotten our former states, except in early spring when we slightly recall being green again . . . Humankind is being led along an evolving course, through this migration of intelligences.  And though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are."

Jelaluddin Rumi, 13th Century

Photo:  Springtime in Moab, Utah; LaSal Mountains in the background, April 17, 2011

Give up excessive wealth, and you will be sweet and fragrant and wild and fresh and thankful for any small event.

"Once in the city of Saba, there was a glut of wealth.  Everyone had more than enough.  Even the bath-stokers wore gold belts . . . Everyone was fat and satiated with all the extra.  There were no robbers.  There was no energy for crime, or for gratitude.  And no one wondered about the unseen world.  The people of Saba felt bored with just the mention of prophecy.  They had no desire of any kind . . . This over-richness is a subtle disease . . . The city of Saba can not be understood from within itself!  But there is a cure, an individual medicine, not a social remedy: Sit quietly, and listen for a voice within that will say, 'Be more silent.'  As that happens, your soul starts to revive.  Give up talking, and your positions of power.  Give up the excessive money.  Turn toward the teachers and the prophets who don't live in Saba.  They can help you grow sweet again, and fragrant and wild and fresh and thankful for any small event."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Tiger lilies at sunset, Redwood National Park, CA, August 1, 2011.  This rich lighting lasted only about one minute.

Be melting snow; wash yourself of yourself

 

" 'Lo, I am with you always,' means when you look for God,

God is in the look of your eyes,

in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self,

or things that have happened to you.

There's no need to go outside.

Be melting snow.

Wash yourself of yourself."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Lichen-covered rock in a snowstorm just before dusk, Lory State Park, CO, February 3, 2012

Without ignorance, there could be no learning

 

"The Beloved needs both good and evil, but only welcomes and blesses the good . . . God is like a teacher who wants to teach; what can he teach if the pupil is not ignorant?  To desire something is also to desire what makes it possible. The teacher does not, however, bless the pupil's ignorance, otherwise he would not teach him.  Doesn't a doctor need people to be ill for him to be able to heal them?  Yet he doesn't bless the fact that people are ill, otherwise he wouldn't attend to them with such care.  A baker requires people to be hungry, otherwise how would she sell her bread and support her family?  But she doesn't bless hunger and want it to continue, otherwise why would she sell bread at all?"

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: A spot of sunlight illuminates a dark mountainside, Mummy Range, CO, September 16, 2011

The prophet's duty is to concentrate and condense a divine Splendor which is invisibly diffused throughout the world

 

"Everything visible is visible because of concentration.  The breath in hot weather cannot be seen; in cold it can.  Cold concentrates it.  A prophet's duty is to concentrate and so manifest the splendor of God."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Concentrated water vapor appearing as snow on Mills Lake; Long's Peak, Keyboard of the Winds and Pagoda Peak in the background, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, February 5, 2012

Quit being sad; hear blessings dropping their blossoms all around you!

"Don't ask questions about longing.  Look in my face.  Soul drunk, body ruined, these two sit helpless in a wrecked wagon.  Neither knows how to fix it.  And my heart, I'd say it was more like a donkey sunk in a mudhole, struggling and miring deeper.  But listen to me: for one moment, quit being sad.  Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you.  God."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Wild Plum Blossoms against a backdrop of red rock, Lory State Park, CO, May 9, 2011

Don't say "Yes" or "No"; let bewilderment guide you

 
                                     "Have you seen beyond duality what is before and behind?
                                      How could a clay bird soar into the heaven of Vision?
                                      The highest place it can soar is still only air . . .
                                      Stay, then, astounded and bewildered; don't say 'yes' or 'no.'
                                      Then Mercy can stretch out Its hands to help you.
                                      How could you begin to understand His wonders?
                                      If you said 'yes' glibly you would be lying,
                                      And if you say 'no,' that 'no' will behead you
                                      And force severity to slam shut your soul's window.
                                      So stay in bewilderment, in wonder, so God' succor
                                      Can run to you from every side and direction.
                                      When you are really bewildered, maddened and annihilated,
                                      Then your whole being prays, without words, 'Guide me!' "

                                      Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Limber Pine and a finger of rock in the mist pointing to the sky, beyond "yes" and "no"; Emerald Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, January 28, 2012

The body is a just a shadow of a shadow, yet it somehow contains the entire Universe!

 

"An invisible bird flies over, but casts a quick shadow.  What is the body?  The shadow of a shadow of your Beloved, that somehow contains the entire universe."

"The heavens cannot contain Me, or the void,

Or winged exalted intelligences, or souls;

Yet I am contained, as a guest, in the heart of the true believer.

And without any qualification, definition, or description,
From this blazing mirror, every second spring
Fifty wedding feasts for the spirit."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Tree shadows on frozen Zimmerman Lake, Mummy Range, CO, December 16, 2011

We can only find true salvation by giving up our own personal salvation!

"Really to experience the day of Resurrection
You have to die first, for 'resurrection' means
'Making the dead come back to life.'
The whole world is racing in the wrong direction
For everyone is terrified of non-existence
That is, in reality, the only certain refuge
How should we try to win real awareness?
By renouncing all knowing.
How should we look for salvation?
By giving up our personal salvation.
How should we search for real existence?
By giving up our existence.
How should we search for the fruit of the spirit?
By not always greedily stretching out our hands."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Oregon Holly-grape poking up through the snow, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, January 20, 2012

Self-Death in exchange for the Divine Kiss; what a bargain!

I would love to kiss You.
"THE PRICE OF KISSING IS YOUR LIFE!"

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
"What a bargain, let's buy it!"

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Dead Bristlecone Pine, Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, White Mountains, CA, July 25, 2011

God is a servant: he will appear within whatever images we form of him!

"It is essential to make as rich and beautiful and comprehensive as possible whatever inner image you may have of God; for God comes to you in whatever image you have been able to form of Him.  The wiser and broader and more gorgeous the image, the more the grace and power can flow down from the Throne into your heart.  God says to all of us: 'I am where My servant thinks of Me.  Every servant has an image of Me; whatever image my servant forms of Me, there I will be.  I am the servant of My servant's image of Me.  Be careful then, My servants, and purify, attune, and expand your thoughts about Me, for they are My House.'"

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Wildflowers on the trail up Medicine Bow Peak at sunrise, Lookout Lake in the background, Snowy Range, WY, August 28, 2011

When you dwell in a space that feels like non-existence, the Creator of Existence can truly work!

 

 "The Absolute Being creates out of non-existence; what other workshop but non-existence could the Creator of Existence have?  Do you write over what is already written?  Do you plant a sapling where there's one growing already?  No!  So look for a piece of paper no one has written on; search for a place where nothing has ever been sown.  Be a place unsown, a white paper no writing has stained, so the Pen of Mercy can ennoble you, and the Merciful One can sow in your blindness the seed of Pure Vision."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: A Snow Buttercup blooms from within a snowfield, Never Summer Range, CO, June 30, 2010

Whoever walks into the fire appears suddenly in the stream!

 

                        "God’s presence is there in front of me, a fire on the left,

                        a lovely stream on the right.

                        One group walks toward the fire, into the fire, another

                        toward the sweet flowing water.

                        No one knows which are blessed and which not.

                        Whoever walks into the fire appears suddenly in the stream.

                        A head goes under on the water surface, that head

                        pokes out of the fire.

                        Most people guard against going into the fire,

                        and so end up in it.

                        Those who love the water of pleasure and make it their devotion

                        are cheated with this reversal.

                        The trickery goes further.

                        The voice of the fire tells the truth, saying I am not fire.

                        I am fountainhead.  Come into me and don’t mind the sparks.

                        If you are a friend of God, fire is your water.

                        You should wish to have a hundred thousand sets of mothwings,

                        so you could burn them away, one set a night.

                        The moth sees light and goes into fire.  You should see fire

                        and go toward light.  Fire is what of God is world-consuming.

                        Water, world-protecting.

                        Somehow each gives the appearance of the other.  To these eyes

                                    you have now

                        what looks like water burns.  What looks like

                        fire is a great relief to be inside.

                        You’ve seen a magician . . .

How much more amazing [are] God’s tricks . . .

One molecule-mote-second thinking of God’s reversal of comfort

            and pain

is better than attending any ritual.  That splinter

of intelligence is substance.

The fire and water themselves:

Accidental, done with mirrors."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Midway Geyser Basin at sunset, Yellowstone National Park, WY, September 3, 2011

If God revealed himself a hundred thousand times, not one revelation would resemble another!

 

"What I know is this: if God revealed himself a hundred thousand times, not one of them would resemble another.  In God, everything is always new-minted, fresh-born.  You are actually seeing God this moment; every moment you are seeing God's thousand colors displayed in His works and acts.  Not one of God's acts resembles any other.  Joy is one of His epiphanies, so is grieving, so is fear, so is hope.  Just as the acts of God and the epiphany of His acts and works are infinitely varied, so the epiphany of His Essences is also infinitely varied . . . The real work of religion is permanent astonishment . . . I mean: blazing in blind ecstasy, drowned in God and drunk on Love."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: A meadow overflows with Rosy Paintbrush, yellow Senecio, purple Erigeron and yellow Parrot-Beak Lousewort, Silver Creek Basin, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO, August 13, 2011

You are not a single "you," but a Sky and an Ocean, a nine hundred times huge drowning place for all of your hundreds of you's

 

"You came from Non-existence into being.  How did that happen?  Tell me about it!  You were a little drunk when you arrived, so you can't remember exactly? I'll give you some hints.  Let your mind go, and be mindful.  Close your ears, and listen.  But maybe I shouldn't tell, if you're not ripe.  You're still in early Spring.  July hasn't happened yet in you. This world is a tree, and we are green, half-ripe fruit on it.  We hold tight to the limbs, because we know we're not ready to be taken into the palace.  When we mature and sweeten, we'll feel ashamed at having clung so clingingly.  To hold fast is a sure sign of unripeness . . . More needs to be said on this, but the Holy Spirit will tell it to you when I'm not here . . . You are not a single You, good Friend, you are a Sky and an Ocean, a tremendous YHUUUUUU, a nine hundred times huge drowning place for all your hundreds of you's.  What are these terms 'wakefulness' and 'sleep'?  Don't answer.  Let God answer.  Don't speak, so the Speakers can.  Not a word, so Sun-Light can say what has never been in a book, or said.  Don't try to put it into words, and the Spirit will do that through you, in spite of you, beside you, among you."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Gold Bluffs Beach at sunset, Redwood National Park, CA, August 2, 2011

Sorrow furiously sweeps your house clean in order that a new joy may appear from the Source

 

"Every day, and every moment a thought comes like an honored guest into your heart.  My soul, regard each thought as a person . . . If a sorrowful thought stands in the way, it is also preparing the way for joy.  It furiously sweeps your house clean in order that some new joy may appear from the Source.  It scatters the withered leaves from the bough of the heart, in order that fresh green leaves might grow.  It uproots the old joy that a new joy may enter from Beyond.  Sorrow pulls up the rotten root that was veiled from sight.  Whatever sorrow takes away or causes the heart to shed, it puts something better in its place - especially for one who is certain that sorrow is servant of the intuitive.  Without the frown of clouds and lightning, the vines would be burned by the smiling sun.  Both good and bad luck become guests in your heart . . . Adapt yourself . . ."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Shootingstar blooms proliferating after a forest fire, Wind Cave National Park, SD, May 22, 2010