The first Calypso Orchids of the season are blooming!

"I crossed an ice-cold stream, and espied two specimens of Calypso . . . They were alone . . . I never before saw a plant so full of life; so perfectly spiritual, it seemed pure enough for the throne of the Creator. I felt as if I were in the presence of superior beings who loved me and beckoned me to come. I sat down beside them and wept for joy."

The Contemplative John Muir

Photo: The first Calypso Orchids are blooming in our mountains! I found these in Wild Basin, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; May 31, 2013

A paradise on earth!

I didn't pack my tripod on the 18-mile round trip dayhike into Coyote Gulch, and I really could have used it for shots like this in the low light of the canyon.  But I hope you can get a sense of some of the magic present in this hanging garden flourishing in a spring seeping from the ruddy sandstone cliffs. These beautiful Alcove Columbines are endemic to the canyons of the Colorado Plateau.  They are accompanied by lovely Maidenhair Fern and Helleborine Orchids.  Ten feet away from where I am standing, a two-inch deep stream flows through the canyon, its musical trickle echoing off the 1000-foot high alcove.  If this spot isn't a paradise on earth, I don't know what is!

Photo: Alcove Columbines in Coyote Gulch, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, UT; May 26, 2013

The life of adventure is the only life that makes sense.

"The life of adventure is the only life that makes sense.  Adventure interpreted broadly, of course - to include not only physical action, exploration, but also human love, ideas and ideals, the arts, and the common and daily motion and conflict and trouble of everyday people doing the world's hard work, making everything else possible."

Edward Abbey

Photo: A vast amphitheater looms at one of the bends in Coyote Gulch; Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, UT; May 26, 2013

May your trails lead to where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you beyond the next turning of the canyon walls.

"Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers . . . , and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you ­beyond the next turning of the canyon walls."

Edward Abbey,
"Benedicto"

Photo: Coyote Gulch, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, UT; May 26, 2013

In the desert, one comes in direct contact with the bones of existence, the bare incomprehensible absolute IS-ness of being.

"The significance of the desert: In the desert, a person comes directly upon a world that is NOT a projection of human consciousness, . . . that has no apparent connection to the indoor human world: In the desert one comes in direct confrontation with the bones of existence, the bare incomprehensible absolute IS-ness of being."

Edward Abbey

Photo: Coyote Natural Bridge; Coyote Gulch, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area; May 25, 2013

How do YOU interpret this rock art panel?

What are YOUR thoughts on the meaning of this pictograph? All of the animals are desert bighorn sheep, except for the one in the middle at the bottom, which looks like a coyote or dog. The two figures on the lower right are hunters with spears. How about the two anthropomorph figures at the top? Are they some sort of guardian spirit of the hunt?

Photo: The Great Gallery, Horseshoe Canyon, Canyonlands National Park, UT; May 24, 2013. This panel was painted in iron hematite as early as 5,000 B.C.E.

Learning to listen to the wisdom of each creature inhabiting the vast web of life.

Currently, there appears to be an epidemic of loneliness in our modern Western society.  Because the pace of life is so fast and stressful, we have a tendency to fall prey to distraction and often are therefore not truly present to one another. I wonder - is part of this loneliness a result of the fact that so few people know how to have a personal relationship with any element of creation besides other human beings, and perhaps pets? One of the things that indigenous cultures can teach us involves the capacity to rely on the counsel of the benevolent inner spirit indwelling each plant, animal and landscape.  In this pictograph painted up to 7,000 years ago in red hematite on the sandstone wall of The Great Gallery, we see an anthropomorph figure receiving counsel from two animal creatures, one at each ear.  

If I understand Navajo philosophy correctly (and here I hope that my Dineh friends will correct me if I'm wrong), each aspect of the natural world can become present to us in three different forms.  First is the "outer form."  Taking a raven as an example (because that is one of the spirit-animals that speaks to me most often in the desert), we can talk about the jet-black bird as an ornithologist or avid bird watcher might perceive it.  Thus, we can learn to understand the raven's eating habits, social interactions with other ravens, and capacity for extreme intelligence, for example.  However, eventually we learn to move beyond simply an awareness of the bird's outer form, and come into contact with its "inner form."  This involves a receptivity to the generalized raven spirit (or raven "archetype," perhaps) that indwells any individual raven we might encounter.  This might occur, for example, when we are engaged in a vision quest in which we are seeking answers to a particular question.  Suddenly, a raven might appear, speaking wisdom to us by enabling us to interpret its behavior or some other symbolic gesture at that particular moment  For me, the appearance of a creature's inner form is a rare occurrence, although it is common practice for a medicine person or shaman.  Finally, there is the ability of the raven to speak to us within our own feelings, desires and insights.  This is called the "secret form," the third aspect of the raven. For me, this is a more common occurrence.  Here, it is important that I remember to attribute my insights and feelings as coming from more than just myself.

Imagine what our lives would be like if we could learn to experience - on a regular basis - the inner and secret forms of the creatures that are most meaningful to us!  We would become less affected by the fickle nature and behavior of other human beings, and more present to the wisdom coming to us continually from the Creator through all of the various creatures inhabiting the entire web of life.  What would this kind of enhanced capacity for wisdom do to our economic and lifestyle practices?  If every element of creation could speak to us at any moment, wouldn't we learn to live more respectfully and less consumptively on the land?

Photo: The Great Gallery, Horseshoe Canyon, Canyonlands National Park, UT; May 24, 2013

All things seek to be reconciled within the loving space of an open mind and heart.

This is one of my favorite paintings from The Great Gallery.  I'm intrigued by the fact that two creatures are having a conversation WITHIN the body of the anthropomorph.  This reminds me that each of us is meant to serve as the space in which the various aspects of life are able to interact and reconcile. Action and contemplation, masculine and feminine, form and emptiness, personal and non-personal views of the Sacred, attachment and detachment, transcendence and immanence, imagination and fact, as well as the various cultures, religions and ethnic groups  - these all seek to be reconciled within the loving space of an open mind and heart.

Photo: The Great Gallery, Horseshoe Canyon, Canyonlands National Park, UT; May 24, 2013.  Archaeologists say the people who painted this panel were members of the Archaic Barrier Canyon culture, which existed as early as 5,000 B.C.E.

Canyon country brings a sense of timelessness and stability to a society fixated on its own frenetic self-importance.

Spending time in the canyon country of southern Utah, one begins to perceive that the rock itself is alive and communicative, bringing a sense of timelessness and stability to a society fixated on its own frenetic self-importance.

At the Great Gallery in the Horseshoe Canyon section of Canyonlands National Park, a rock wall containing pictographs - the largest of which is seven feet tall - add to the sense that these canyons are alive and enspirited.  The panel is 200 feet long and 15 feet tall, and contains a multitude of anthropomorph figures radiating a shamanic sort of aura.  Anthropologists tell us that these figures were painted as early as 5000 B.C.E. by the Archaic Barrier Canyon people.  However, some Native Americans say that human beings are not the source of these pictographs.

I reached these paintings by descending 800 feet into the canyon and hiking 3.5 miles. This particular group of figures is nicknamed "The Holy Ghost Panel." On the ascent back up to our campsite on the rim, I was greeting by a full moon rising.

May 24, 2013

Our bodies glow in beauty like trees in fire.

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

The Contemplative John Muir, p. 161

Photo: Backlit Ball Cactus flowers, with Horsetooth Rock in the background; Horsetooth Mountain Park, CO; May 21, 2013.  Muir was very unusual for a person - especially a male - living in late-nineteenth century America because of his keen capacity to experience spiritual realities in his body.

I address the stones as Tunkasila - "Grandfather."

"The stones come from Inyan, from the beginning, when Inyan completed creation and dried up and scattered all over the world.  Those stones remind us of that.  Tunkan Oyate - that's the Stone people . . . We address each stone as "Tunkasila [Grandfather] . . . I address them as Tunkasila, also because they represent the beginning of time until today.  And they are my relatives, and they are dear to me."

Albert White Hat,
Lakota chief

Photo: Badlands National Park, SD; May 17, 2013

How can we even think of asking to see divine glory when the whole Earth is already filled with it?

"Perhaps I do not understand the request of Moses, 'Show me Thy glory' (Exodus 33:18), but if he were here I would like to take him to one of our meadows, and after allowing him to drink the glories of flower, mountain, and sky, I would . . . inquire how he had the conscience to ask for MORE glory when such oceans and atmospheres were all about him. King David [in the Psalms] was a better observer: 'The whole earth is full of thy glory.' I think that if a revivalist, intoxicated with religion of too high a temperature for his weak nerves, were to awaken from his exhaustion and find himself in our meadows, he would, above such sheets of plant gold and beneath such a sky, fancy himself in heaven. Especially if a camp-meeting were going on at the time."

The Contemplative John Muir, pp. 57-58

Photo: Golden Banner, Arthur's Rock, and a vast sky; Lory State Park, CO; May 20, 2013. Muir is poking fun at the revivalist camp meetings he attended in the late 19th century midwestern frontier.

Beauty is a relation between perceiver and perceived.

Beauty is not simply an attractive object that the perceiver senses "out there."  Rather, it is a profoundly relational reality.  When I see the beauty of a landscape - like the rainbow colors of the Badlands, for example - the thing that often goes unnoticed is the fact that I am also having an experience of being WORTHY to perceive such beauty.  After all, the beauty of the landscape makes me feel good inside on a truly deep level.  And what is that good feeling if not a perception of being lovable and worthy to inhabit this earth at this particular time and place?

This means that I don't have to try to possess the beauty I see, for it is already a part of me.  After all, beauty is an innately relational reality - the balance or harmony between perceiver and perceived.  Beauty is an experience of coming alive; in visual terms, a "luminosity." As the medieval Persian Islamic philosopher Alhazen once put it, "The highest pleasure is when a luminous object encounters the luminous nature within us.  This pleasure is based upon the proportions among things, in particular the adaptation of mind and world to one another.  It is based ultimately on the metaphysical love which binds reality together."

This realization can make us less possessive in our experience of other people.  When we find ourselves attracted to a person we consider "beautiful," our first impulse is to want somehow to possess them.  But what if we realized that the reason why they appear beautiful to us at all is because our very act of PERCEIVING is itself beautiful?  As Irish mystic John O'Donohue says: "Only if there is beauty in us can we recognize beauty elsewhere: beauty knows beauty.  In this way, beauty can be a mirror that manifests our own beauty . . . There is a profound balancing within beauty."

Abbot Joseph of St. Benedict's Trappist Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado once put it this way: "When I find myself attracted to a woman, my first impulse is to somehow want to possess her.  However, I find peace in realizing that - from a spiritual perspective - I ALREADY possess her, and am possessed by her. For at the deepest level, both of us are truly One in God."  Beauty is never contained in an object "out there."  Instead, it is always already a profoundly relational experience occurring between perceiver and perceived.  This realization enables us to relax, let go, and allow the beautiful "other" to be the sacred reality which they truly always are.

Photo: Yellow Mounds Section, Badlands National Park, SD; May 17, 2013

It's important to ask WHY a particular spiritual practice is always done a certain way.

"Once I heard a young boy ask an older friend of his why a certain [spiritual] practice was done a particular way, and the older one said, 'Because that's the tradition.'  That statement really struck me, and I wondered why - why is it tradition?  If you don't know the history behind a practice, then the living meaning is lost, and it becomes an empty tradition.  There's no feeling or connection except to the form, and it continues only because it's the way it's always been done.  It's important to ask WHY a practice or ritual is done, why it's a tradition, and then to go further and learn how it came to be."

Albert White Hat, Sr.
Lakota chief

Photo: Ponderosa Pine and Bear Lodge, Devil's Tower National Monument, WY; May 18, 2013.  Bear Lodge (Devil's Tower) is the site of many ceremonies.

Is the Ultimate Reality a singular Higher Power or a whole web of beings who are all relatives?

"Today there is the term 'Wakan Tanka,' which translates as 'powerful being.'  It's widely used, and I think it's a recent term that came out of the church, a description of the Christian God.  Our 'Mitakuye Oyas'in' phrase means something much different; it describes our relationship with all of creation, that we are all relatives.  When the church arrived, we were taught that Mitakuye Oyas'in was evil, a pagan belief, so over the past few hundred years we began to rely on Wakan Tanka.  Some might disagree with me on this, but I hope you'll think about it.  So the difference between religion and spirituality is very central to these teachings.  We do not have religion, at least as I understand it.  We have spirituality. See what you think of this . . . We don't worship a higher power.  There is not a Supreme Being above us as there is in the Christian church.  The spirit(s) that come into our ceremonies, it's the same as if you came to visit me.  If you did that, we would sit and talk and share, and I do the same thing with that spirit.  He comes in as a relative.  He didn't come in to control my life.  He came in to say, 'What do you need?'  And you tell him.  You say, "Here's my need, and this is what I will do in return' . . . In Lakota thought, when you put all creation on the earth and in the universe together and include yourself, then that is Wakan Tanka."

Albert White Hat,

Lakota chief

Photo: Camass Lilies swaying in the breeze; Badlands National Park, SD; May 17, 2013.  I wonder if Chief White Hat - and others like him - don't worship a higher power because that power (Inyan) completely emptied Itself out in the world in the act of creating?

We are all related because we were all formed from the blood of the Creator.

"Inyan drained its blood to make each creation and kept getting weaker and weaker as this went on . . . When creation was complete, Inyan was dry and brittle and broke apart and scattered over the world . . . Then the phrase Mitakuye Oyas'in came into being . . . Mitakuye Oyas'in means 'all my relatives' or 'we are all related.'  This is the most fundamental belief in our Lakota philosophy, that we are all related to everything on earth and in the universe.  We were all formed from the blood of Inyan: humans, animals, trees, water, air, stones . . . Our word for stone is 'Inyan.'  A stone tells me about Inyan, and that spirit of Inyan is in that stone.  That spirit or energy in that stone is Inyan.  That's my belief.  In English when we talk about a rock, pebble, or stone, it describes a lifeless object, so that's what it becomes.  It becomes just an object.  But to us it's a living relative."

Albert White Hat, Sr.,

Lakota chief

Photo: Bear Lodge glowing in sunset light; Devil's Tower National Monument, WY; May 18, 2013

Native religion and Native spirituality are two different things.

"In our [Lakota] philosophy, individuality is very important.  Individual dreams and visions are very important, and they have a purpose.  They always say that everybody is different.  Everyone is unique and has a purpose.  It's interesting today when I talk to the young people who are coming back to our traditions.  Sometimes I worry because they are all coming back from a very structured view of religion, the religion of the church, and so they bring that structure and form back to our ways.  They take Indian spirituality and make it into Indian religion, with all the usual . . . religious laws.  They will tell you that if you don't do things a certain way or if you do something wrong, then something bad will happen to you . . . I think this comes from the idea of committing a sin.  This is something we learned from the church.  It's not part of our traditional philosophy . . . A lot of the time, what the church calls sin is simply a mistake.  It's not evil and wasn't meant to be.  To the Lakota a mistake is simply a mistake, and it's one of the ways we learn.  We learn from our mistakes and go on."

Chief Albert White Hat, Sr.

Photo: Bear Lodge and Helianthella; Devil's Tower National Monument, WY; May 18, 2013

The Thunder Nation may be a little hard of hearing?

"The sun and the moon are relatives.  The wind is a relative because it's part of creation.  So you talk to the wind.  That tree is a relative.  The water.  Everything around you is a relative . . . They are all relatives, and we speak directly to them.  The only exception to this is when I talk to the Thunder nation, the Wakiyan.  Then I usually ask the eagle or the coyote to translate my prayers because I might make a mistake.  If you are praying for health, the Wakiyan will hear sickness . . . So I ask another nation to translate my prayers to the Wakiyan.  They are still relatives.  I just don't address them directly."

Albert White Hat, 
Lakota chief

Photo Storm clouds, Badlands National Park, SD; May 17, 2013.  So - the Thunder Nation is a little hard of hearing?

I have lost my way many times in this world, only to return to these rounded, shimmering hills to see myself recreated more beautiful than I could ever believe.

"If you look with the mind of the swirling earth . . . you become the land, beautiful . . . I have lost my way many times in this world, only to return to these rounded, shimmering hills and see myself recreated more beautiful than I could ever believe."

Joy Harjo,
Muskogee tribe
"Secrets from the Center of the World"

Photo: Vista in the Yellow Mounds section of Badlands National Park, SD; May 18, 2013.  Harjo was writing about the landscapes of the Four Corners region, but I find her words equally true of the Badlands country, which have similar coloring.

Creation occurs when some part of us is drained away into the thing we are creating.

This past week, I took three days to go up to the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota. On the way, I paid a visit to the bookstore at the Oglalla Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation. There I picked up a recent book written by Lakota Chief Albert White Hat, Sr. One of the fascinating things I discovered in this book is White Hat's description of the Lakota story of origins. As he puts it, Inyan, the Creator, "began creation by draining its* blood, and from this blood created a huge disk around itself. Inyan called this disk Maka, the earth." The story goes on to say that "Draining its blood for each new creation, Inyan became weaker and weaker . . . When creation was complete, Inyan was dry and brittle and broke apart and scattered all over the world." As I drove and hiked across the Badlands, I imagined I could see Inyan's blood in the beautiful reddish-colored features of the landscape. In the story, Inyan's blood is described as blue. But I still found myself imagining it as red in color because that is the hue of my own blood.

This story helped me relate to a challenging experience I've had over the past year, a situation where I am apparently no longer allowed by the Creator to be convinced that I possess and feel and hold on to the spiritual insights I've been given. In fact, it seems I've entered something of a dark night of the soul. However, this situation bears positive fruit in my life, for it teaches me I can only know an insight when I GIVE IT AWAY to others. For me, this kind of self-emptying turns out to be a sort of participation in Inyan's act of creation through LOSING a part of Itself with each new creature. In my case, the part of myself that appears to be drained away is my feeling of certainty and ecstasy that at one time was part-and-parcel of any insight I received. Now, by contrast, a spiritual insight only appears convincing and attractive to me when I find the grace to let it go and GIVE IT AWAY to others. I find consolation in knowing that this sort of experience turns out to be my own way of participating, in a small way, perhaps, in the self-emptying of the Creator.

Photo: A vista in Badlands National Park, SD; May 18, 2013

*The origin story refers to Inyan as neither male nor female.

Rocks have a kind of life perhaps not so different from ours as we imagine.

"Rocks have a kind of life perhaps not so different from ours as we imagine."

The Contemplative John Muir

Photo: Pasqueflowers and a rock outcrop at sunset; Vedauwoo Recreation Area, Medicine Bow National Forest, WY; May 10, 2013

Living is more important than getting a living.

"Living is more important than getting a living."

The Contemplative John Muir

Photo: Buttercups, Vedauwoo Recreation Area, Medicine Bow National Forest, WY; May 10, 2013

All of God's universe is glass to the Soul of Light.

"All of God's universe is glass to the Soul of Light. Infinitude, mirrors reflecting, all-receiving . . ."

The Contemplative John Muir, p. 163

Cub Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; May 11, 2013

Grateful living: an alchemic operation of converting "dis-graceful" things into grateful events.

"Grateful living: an alchemic operation of converting 'dis-graceful' things into grateful events."

Raimon Panikkar

Today is the one-year anniversary of the start of the Hewlett Fire.  It began when winds pushed flames from a camper's alcohol-fueled stove into the surrounding grasses.  The fire ended up burning 7,685 acres.  This Spring, the pasqueflowers blooming in the burned area are amazing!  I'm so thankful for the abundant snow we've received this Spring, making an active forest fire season a little less probable this year.

Photo: Pasqueflowers, Hewlett Burn, Roosevelt National Forest, CO; April 29, 2013

The Earth is prickly enough to make you tough.

"Wide enough to keep you looking

 Open enough to keep you moving

 Dry enough to keep you honest

 Prickly enough to make you tough

 Green enough to go on living

 Old enough to give you dreams"

Gary Snyder, "Earth Verse"

Photo: Ball Cactus in bloom, with the Lumpy Ridge in the background; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; May 13, 2013

One of the fascinating things about life in this world is the fact that every person has a different slant on the truth, a unique window through to Ultimate Reality.

One of the fascinating things about life in this world is the fact that every person has a different slant on the truth, a unique window through to Ultimate Reality. This variety is not meant to lead to an anything-goes relativism, or to a naive pop religion that believes "everyone is really saying the same thing." Rather, such a plethora of views is meant to challenge us to sift through each view - including our own - in order to find the best aspects, while setting the not-so-helpful aspects on the shelf. When I hear Jesus talk about "separating the wheat from the chaff," I don't think of some spiritual views as being wheat, while others are only chaff. The exception would be those views in which the destructive or hurtful elements predominate. I don't think any honest spiritual seeker would consider those kinds of views to be truly "spiritual." In any case, every truly spiritual view is composed of both elements: the helpful and the not-so-helpful; the true and the not-so-true. Our task as spiritual seekers, I believe, is to liberate the helpful from the not-so-helpful within each view, and then to work creatively to fit the best of each into a grand puzzle that contains an endless multitude of different puzzle pieces. Obviously, each of us will do this sifting in a slightly different way, and each puzzle will therefore contain its own unique perspective. But when we compare the various grand puzzles with one another, we will begin to see common patterns of agreement running through each. Indeed, this task will take all of eternity to complete. What an adventure!

Photo: Skyline Arch with storm clouds behind; Arches National Park, UT; April 20, 2013

We in America are being systematically robbed of the most elementary decencies of life.

"We in America are being systematically robbed.  Robbed of the most elementary decencies of life - clean air, sunlight, pure unmedicated water, grass & woods to play in, silence, solitude and space, even time, even death, Instead . . . ?  Insanity.  Tee Vee. Hi-Fi. Super-Duper.  Glittering shit. And, finally, morphine."

Edward Abbey,

1957

Photo: Professor Creek and Castle Valley, near Moab, UT; April 21, 2013

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We are all meant to be mothers of God, . . . for God is always needing to be born.

"We are all meant to be mothers of God, . . . for God is always needing to be born."

Meister Eckhart,

14th century 

Photo: Pasqueflowers and Buttercups at Vedauwoo Recreation Area; Medicine Bow National Forest, WY; May 10, 2013.  Apparently, "Veduawoo" is an anglicized version of the Arapaho word "bito'o'wu," meaning "earth-born".

The number three is quite important in the spiritual life.

The number three is quite important in the spiritual life.  Things cannot be known with having their opposite present as well.  Emptiness and form, union and non-union, enlightenment and ignorance, longing and fulfilment, question and answer, ego and the Greater Whole, masculine and feminine, thesis and antithesis.  But with a third term, we find surprise and sudden joy in discovering that opposites can shapeshift into one another.  Emptiness suddenly manifests as form, non-union as union, longing as fulfilment.  The question becomes its own answer; the burning of ego gives forth the fire of enlightenment.  LGBT people teach us that gender shapeshifts as well.  And this ability of all things to become one another IS the third term, the synthesis.  In the West, this synthesis is traditionally viewed as a personal presence - the "Holy Spirit" - to show that the third term is not just an idea; it is alive.  How amazing is this spiritual journey we are all on!

Photo: Three Mountain Buttercups; Vedauwoo Recreation Area, Medicine Bow National Forest, WY; May 10, 2013

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

Leonardo da Vinci

Photo: A burnt tree, new grass and red cliffs after the Galena Fire; Lory State Park, CO; May 7, 2013

With beauty may I walk.

Today may I walk out in beauty.
With beauty may I walk.
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty below me, may I walk.
With beauty around me, may I walk.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.

Version of a Navajo (Dine') Prayer

Photo: Desert Paintbrush and "The Windows" at sunset; Arches National Park, UT; April 19, 2013

There is no real certainty until you burn.

"Don't abide in borrowed certainty.  There is no real certainty until you burn; if you wish for this, sit down in the fire."

Jelaluddin Rumi

Photo: Trees blackened by the Galena fire frame emerald meadows, red cliffs and a stormy sky; Lory State Park, CO; May 8, 2013

Our own personal wound and the World's Wound are one.

"Recognizing the World Wound turns us away from a sense of exclusiveness.  If we work to heal the wound in ourselves and other beings, then this part of the body of THE WORLD is also healed.  Each of us carries or has carried suffering.  This suffering is personal.  But where is it that we end and the rest of creation begins?  As part of the continuum of creation, our suffering is also part of the world's suffering.  Its causes are more complex and ramified than the local self . . . Going into the wound, we can see that the suffering of others is our suffering.  It is not separate."

Joan Halifax,

Zen Buddhist roshi

Photo: A Ponderosa Pine burned at the bottom in the Galena Fire; Lory State Park, CO; May 7, 2013.  The black section under the tree is not a shadow; it is burned soil.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear.

"Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear.  If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today."

Thich Nhat Hanh,

Vietnamese Zen monk

Photo: A Yellow Violet blooms in the ash of the Galena Burn just after a rain; Lory State Park, CO; May 7, 2013

The key to transcending suffering is the practice of identifying with a more expansive Reality.

The key to appreciating a burn is to focus on the spacious expanse of the overall landscape, and the general process that occurs when new life (new flowers, etc.) emerge out of death and devastation.  

In our own lives, suffering is intensified because we identify so heavily with our individual skin-encased self.  In other words, we usually think of ourselves as being like an individual tree that has been destroyed in a fire.  But what if we identified ourselves instead with the larger expanse of awareness, which - as it turns out - is a participation in that of the Divine?  Then we would begin to think of ourselves more as an expansive, regenerating landscape, rather than as an individual dead or dying tree.  

And that, of course, is precisely the point of meditation - learning to take the more expansive view.  But  it takes awhile for us to ingrain the larger perspective into our being.  That's why we call meditation a "practice."  Like practicing the piano or guitar, it's something that we need to do over and over again.  In the beginning, we don't seem very successful, but eventually, the larger view starts to become second nature :)

Photo: Lory State Park after the Galena Fire; Larimer County, CO; May 7, 2013

Our sense of self is a total gift, mirrored to us by the Divine in every moment of our lives.

The more time I spend in the burn areas, reveling in the new plant life sprouting from the ashes, the more I'm reminded that our human sense of self is always a total gift, arising as though out of the ashes at each moment and then disappearing back into them, only to reappear yet again.  Far from being a permanent reality that we might be tempted to take as solid and substantial, the self only comes to be as the Creator mirrors us back to ourselves, enabling us to become who we really are.  Because this occurrence happens so continually, we often have the illusory sense that our identity is solid and permanent.  But in reality, our identity is constantly moving in and out of existence and is thus always a total gift from the Creator.

For me, the natural world - especially the silence, solitude and vastness of wilderness - IS that mirror, enabling me to uncover a whole host of sacred wilderness qualities in myself as well.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner puts it this way: "God IS our sense of self, our innermost essence, encountered throughout all creation . . . This means that this awareness, this sense of uniqueness we feel, cannot possibly have come just from ourselves.  It is bigger than us and must be in everyone else.  In all living things.  In stones and water and fire.  Everywhere.  Indeed, this sense of self is so holy we correctly intuit that it has created us."

Photo: Bluebells sprouting in the midst of roasted wild plums, growing in a thicket of blackened bushes; Lory State Park; May 7, 2013

The Creator's greatest gift to us is our own self.

Lately, I've been meditating on the realization that WHO WE ARE as a person - that is, our character - is much more important than the pleasures we experience, the material goods we are able to buy (or produce) or even the insights we gain. The Creator's greatest gift to us is our very self. As the author of the medieval spiritual classic "The Cloud of Unknowing" says, "Whenever you experience sweetness and consolation" in the act of loving, "it is because God breaks open the fruit and gives you a part of your own present." How amazing! A portion of our experience of the Divine is knowing the beautiful aspects of our own core personality of which God gives us a tantalizing taste! When the fires of challenge come into our lives, many of the things we had grasped as possessions begin to burn up in importance, leaving us to flower in all of our inner goodness and beauty. For the expression of that sacredness - together with the process of allowing our true self to serve as a mirror for the sacredness of others - is the point of our being alive.

Photo: Vaseflower (Sugarbowl) springing up from the ashes of the Galena Burn; Lory State Park, CO; May 6, 2013

It is my faith that every flower enjoys the air it breathes.

"It is my faith that every flower enjoys the air it breathes."

The Contemplative John Muir, p. 118

Photo: Pasqueflowers at sunset, with Greyrock in the background; Roosevelt National Forest, CO; April 29, 2013

Journaling helps us trap the heat of insight that wells up from our innermost being.

Pasqueflowers have several adaptations which enable them to sprout and bloom before most other wildflowers in the Rocky Mountains.  First, they possess hollow stems that catch and store the metabolic heat they produce, similar to the way the loft in a down sleeping bag is able to store our body heat.  Second, the pasqueflower is covered with thick hairs, which form a protective layer of insulation.

These plants can teach us that it is important for us as well to catch and hold the spiritual warmth which arises from within the center of our being.  One important way to do this is through the practice of journaling, which records the various insights we are given by the Spirit. Our journal becomes a sort of sacred scripture that preserves our own experiences of wisdom rather than those merely given to others.

Photo: Pasqueflower detail, Hewlett Gulch, Roosevelt National Forest, CO; May 4, 2013

In the wilds, we are made captive to the fresh wildness and beauty.

"[In the wilds,] all hard, money-gaining, material thoughts loosen and sink off and out of sight, and one is free from oneself and made captive to the fresh wildness and beauty, obeying it as necessarily as unconscious sun-bathed plants."

The Contemplative John Muir, p. 228

Photo: Desert Paintbrush and the Courthouse Towers; Arches National Park, UT; April 21, 2013

Only the fire of challenge can produce the radiance of enlightenment.

"Only the fire of challenge can produce the radiance of enlightenment."  For me, this is a continual life lesson, learned on ever new levels of awareness.

Photo: Pasqueflowers springing up in the Hewlett Burn, with Greyrock looming in the background; Roosevelt National Forest, CO; April 29, 2013  

The phallus represents the ability of spiritual vision to penetrate through appearances in order to find the Divine Presence hiding there.

Whenever I visit a rock formation in Arches National Park called "The Phallus," I'm reminded of the fact that in India, rock lingam carvings are common both in temples and in shrines spread out across the landscape. There, they symbolize the capacity of spiritual vision to PENETRATE through appearances in order to find the Divine Presence hiding there. We might also say that phallic energy represents the ability of the meditative gaze to SEE THROUGH the seeming solidity of form in order to find the transparent spaciousness of divine bliss present there. In any case, it represents a sacred masculine energy, something that is increasingly rare in our time.

However, many people have difficulty seeing the symbolism present in ANY creaturely thing, including especially realities like the phallus or lingam. For them, the lingam represents only the process of reproduction and the experience of pleasure and nothing more. Theologian Paul Tillich would trace this difficulty to the triumph of a philosophy of NOMINALISM in our day. This is the belief that universals - like the Sacred Masculine, the Ground of Being, or Mother Earth, for example - occur in NAME ONLY and thus have no actual reality. It seems in fact that most people only believe in the reality of particular things. For them, even God is an individual thing rather than a mysterious and loving presence that suffuses all creatures and all states of mind. They experience no universal Ground of Being that would give meaning to all things, no stream of divine Life that would connect all things together into a single, seamless Whole.

This nominalistic kind of mindset fosters a belief that a spiritual practice like yoga is only about "me and my body," with no innate connection to the divine energy coursing through all things. Similarly, meditation is interpreted in terms of "me and my thoughts," and fails to connect the meditator to a deeper level of awareness penetrating all phenomena. Is it any wonder then that young people growing up in our culture feel alienated from the universe, and often can't find anything Deeper to tie it all together? It is time, I believe, to recover the sacred symbolism of phallic energy; the capacity, that is, to penetrate all forms and appearances in order to find the universal Presence of divine Love dwelling there.

Photo: The Phallus, Desert Paintbrush; Arches National Park, UT: April 20, 2013 

We can use the memory of beautiful landscapes to make our ordinary lives more meaningful.

In many spiritual traditions, when people want to bring meaning to the rather mundane events of daily life, they call to mind passages from their sacred scriptures. They then make a practice of superimposing the joy and peace of those passages onto their daily lives, thus imbuing their surroundings with radiant vitality.

For me, it is similar with the "scriptures of Nature" I experience while out hiking and meditating in the wilderness. When I return home, I practice bringing up a mental image of the beautiful landscape, feeling the leap of joy it brings in my heart, and then perceiving the ordinary events of my life from that place of love and exuberance. In other words, I use the memory to open up the heart energy center of my being, and then begin perceive all of life from that place of love and joy.

I also practice imagining that I AM that landscape, and seek to embody its dignity and grandeur in my daily life by standing up taller, walking with purpose, and leaving brief silences in between my words. As John Muir says, sacred memories are living presences - "holy spirits," he calls them - and they seek to be embodied in our daily lives. When we practice in this way, we help bring the landscapes we love to life in a new way, enabling them to appreciate their own beauty and goodness through the vehicle of human consciousness. What a wonderful calling we have!

Photo: Desert Paintbrush and Double Arch; Arches National Park, UT; April 20, 2013

Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve upon the silence?

“Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve upon the silence?”

Shirdi Sai Baba,
Hindu and Sufi saint

Photo: Raven, Arches National Park, UT; April 20, 2013

What if we used the fire of suffering to enable us to become MORE showy, confident and energized?

I've been spending quite a bit of time lately hiking in the burn areas, marveling at entire meadows full of blooming pasqueflowers.  One thing I've noticed is the fact that fire seems to stimulate each plant to produce more blooms than usual.  Many - like this one - end up resembling bushes!  I wonder how our human lives would be if we started using the fire of suffering to enable us to become MORE showy and MORE confident and MORE energized than we already are?

Photo: Pasqueflowers blooming at the edge of Greyrock Meadow, in the Hewlett Burn; April 29, 2013.  This forest fire occurred the week of May 14th, one year ago.

The Navajo word for beauty - "hozho" - has both moral AND aesthetic connotations.

"The term 'hozho' includes everything that a Navajo thinks of as good . . . It expresses such concepts as the words beauty, perfection, harmony, goodness, normality, success, well-being, blessedness, order ideal, do for us. This is probably the central idea in Navajo religious thinking . . . In various contexts it is best translated as 'beautiful,' 'harmonious,' 'good,' blessed,' 'pleasant,' and 'satisfying.' As a matter of fact the difficulty with translation primarily reflects the poverty of English in terms that simultaneously have moral AND aesthetic meaning."

Anthropologists Leland Wyman and Dlyde Kluckhohm

Photo: Courthouse Tower, Arches National Park, UT; April 27, 2013