The tides teach us that emotional lows will not last forever.

Isn't it amazing to think that oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface?

Perhaps if we contemplated more often the spiritual qualities of the seacoast, we would put more trust in the natural tidal cycles of our lives rather than falling so easily into the temptation of thinking that emotional lows will last forever.

Photos: (Top) Starfish, Patrick's Point State Park, CA; (Middle) Waves breaking below Palmer Point, Patrick's Point State Park, CA; (Bottom) Trinidad lighthouse, Trinidad, CA; July 30-31, 2014

He who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity's sunrise.

 

"He who binds himself to a joy
Does the winged life destroy . . .

"But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise"

William Blake

Photos: Sunrise in the Snowy Range, WY; August 24, 2014

In the mountains, each year's bloom season is different!

It's amazing to see Columbines still blooming en masse this late in the summer.  Because of our late Spring snows, the melt-out was also late, which delayed the bloom season as a result.  What a contrast this year is to our drought-and-fire season two summers ago, when the alpine wildflowers peaked in late June!

Photo: Columbines, Snowy Range, WY; August 23, 2014

When we experience being forsaken by God, strength and courage of soul are developed.

“After this came the state of Forsakenness of God and so surrounded my soul that it cried: ‘Welcome, blessed Forsaken-ness! . . . You bring me unaccustomed joy and inconceivable wonders and sweetness beyond what I can bear.  But Lord, You must take this sweetness from me and leave me only Forsaken-ness.  Well for me, that after the transformation of love, gall has been changed into honey in the palate of my soul . . .

"Now is God marvelous to me and His Forsaken-ness better even than Himself!  . . . Ah! Blessed Forsaken-ness!  You strengthen my will in suffering . .  . When You leave me, O God, it is a high and heavenly courage Your absence gives me.' "


Mechthild of Magdeburg
13th century German mystic

Photos: Snags in an old burn; Snowy Range, WY; August 22, 2014

Each of Us is a Mirror for One Another and for the Divine

The reason why we find ourselves so sensitive to the compliments and slights we give one another is because there is actually no such thing as an individual self.  In truth, the self only exists in being mirrored.  Accordingly, each of us - whether we want to or not - serves as a mirror for everyone else, and vice versa.  Knowing this fact at least subconsciously, we spend our lives searching for the mirrors most capable of revealing to us our best self.  Parents, family members, friends, a life partner, a community, or even a professional local sports team find themselves pressed into this kind of mirroring.  However, all of these eventually fail us, not because they are bad, but because the ultimate mirror can only be something much more cosmic.  Actually, all of these lesser mirrors are more like windows that serve to lead us to the true mirror.  We might also think of them as fragments or shards of the larger Mirror. For Buddhists, Gautama Buddha is one such mirror.  For Christians, Christ serves this capacity.  For many of us, The most beautiful aspects of Nature are the mirror that reflects back to us our true self.  Ultimately, however, even this sort of mirroring is incomplete.  For the process is meant eventually to flip around and reflect in the opposite direction! In other words, each of us is called to serve as a mirror for the beauty and grandeur of the DIVINE Presence - in both its God and Goddess forms!  Amazingly, through the mirror formed by our awe, wonder, love and appreciation, the Divine comes to realize its own beauty and lovability.  It is for this calling that we are ultimately placed on this earth!

Photo; Senecio flowers, the Sugarloaf, and Lewis Lake; Snowy Range, WY; August 22, 2014

No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved . . .

"Among the scenes which are deeply impressed on my mind, none exceed in sublimity the primeval forests undefaced by the hand of man . . . 

 

 

No one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body."

Charles Darwin

 

 

Photos: (L) Joanne standing between two redwood trees, Redwood National Park, CA; (R, Top) Hiking in the forest at Mt. Rainier National Park, WA; (R, Bottom) Bigtooth Maples draped with club moss, Redwood National Park, CA; July 24 and 29, 2014

One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin.

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

William Shakespeare

Photos: (Top) Two Western Red Cedar trees; (Middle)  Detail, cedar bark; (Below) Pipsissewa flowers with raindrops; Mount Rainier National Park, WA; July 24 and 26, 2014

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

 

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

John Muir

Yellow Paintbrush, Snowy Range, WY; August 22, 2014

Truly, water is divine!

 

"Life in us is like the water in a river."

Henry David Thoreau

Yesterday, on my 15-mile roundtrip hike in the Rawah Wilderness, I found water everywhere!  The streams were busting full and roaring, the trail was filled with rivulets and pools, and there were three separate thunderstorms - with blue sky appearing in between - on a single afternoon.  Best of all, the alpine lakes were chock-full with the life-blood of us all.  Perhaps if we could tune in better to the substance running through our veins, we'd be more fluid in our mindset, more brimming with joy, and more patient in our attempts to create fresh channels in our lives.  Truly, water is divine!

Photo: Marsh-marigold flowers blooming on Carey Lake; Rawah Wilderness, CO; August 25, 2014

Silence and Solitude Offer Us a Sense of the Mutual Bliss of Sacred Masculine and Sacred Feminine

 

Silence and solitude offer us a sense of the mutual bliss shared between God - the Great Beyond, Father Sky, the Ultimate Mystery - and the Goddess - Sophia, Mother Earth, Gaia, Sacred Earth Woman.

The sacred masculine contribution to this bliss is the sense of being lost in spacious awareness, and the ability to penetrate all solid things in order to find transparent awareness there, as well as the underlying presence of the sacred feminine, who ties all individual things together within her vast web.

The sacred feminine contribution to this bliss is the sense that our awareness is continually squeezed and held within the embrace of natural beauty and goodness, and the experience of all things continually shapeshifting into one another in the limitless flow of Life that is feminine energy.  Here, for example, flowers become the flowery aspect of lake water, while lake water becomes the watery aspect of the flowers.  Similarly, humanity becomes the personal aspect of a seemingly non-personal landscape, while the non-personal quality of the landscape becomes the cosmic aspect of human personality.

So where do WE fit in? We are the mutuality of the other Two, and we exist RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE between them!  For each of us is less an individual self than a unique way of relating and uniting God and Goddess to one another.  We serve as the swinging door that moves back and forth between emptiness and form, transcendence and immanence, masculine and feminine.  What a sacred calling we have in joining these Two cosmic realities!

Photo: Elephanthead, a pond, snags, and a stormy sky; Snowy Range, WY; August 22, 2014

Hermit Crabs Never Fail to Make Me Laugh!

 

Hermit crabs never fail to make me laugh! As soon as I leaned over this tidepool, every seemingly empty seashell in the pool started moving! It was fascinating to see how many different sized shells were serving as homes for the crabs - from tiny to huge. I especially loved the iridescent blue flashing from the legs of the crabs. We share this earth with such an amazing variety of creatures, don't we!

Photo: Hermit crabs in a tidepool; Patrick's Point State Park, CA; July 30, 2014

The persistent presence of noise interferes with what we are as human beings.

 

"By and large, silence is not a virtue or a valued commodity in our fast-paced world.  For us modern humans, especially those of us needful of, or immersed in technology, silence is virtually not an option.  We have swapped the natural sounds that have been part of human existence over eons of time . . . for artificially generated noises . . . More alarming than constant noise is that apparent sense of normalcy and perhaps the possibility that we NEED constant noise . . . I believe the persistent presence of noise interferes with what we are as human beings."

Joseph M. Marshall III,
"Returning to the Lakota Way"

Photo: Spirea and Grinnell Falls, Glacier National Park, MT; July 22, 2014

Our Imperfection is Actually Our Perfection!

Often we feel ashamed at the fact that we are imperfect, especially in a culture where we are constantly told that we can "have it all," "do it all" and "be it all." However, it is only in those places of the psyche where life seems to "eat away at us" that we are broken enough for the divine light to get through. Our imperfection is actually our perfection! As Rumi says: "The wound is the place where the Light enters you." Just think of it! We could never have an epiphany, an "aha!" moment, an experience of enlightenment, if we didn't go through a challenging time, a preceding suffering, or have to endure the difficulties created by our own flaws. Besides, it is our own lack, our own inadequacies, our own imperfections that bind us together with others in the great web of life. As Thomas Merton reminds us: "We all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and these limitations of ours play a most important role in our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself or herself for the lack in another." For in truth, the "self" we cling to so tenaciously is actually a WEB of presences. Is it any wonder then that we naturally feel incomplete and flawed when we identify ourselves only with the individual self? We are so much BIGGER!

Photo: The sun illuminates a Sword Fern eaten away by insects, with Redwoods in the background; Humboldt Redwoods State Park, CA; August 1, 2014

Awakening the sleeping God in those who practice discrimination.

One of the most challenging aspects of life is maintaining a position against an unethical attitude - like discrimination against gay marriage - yet at the same time holding a non-dualist view, which understands that the Divine Presence indwells ALL of reality, including those who hold the position we oppose. Accordingly, I like to envision that when a person practices this sort of discrimination, it is as though God is STILL SLEEPING within them, at least as regards this particular issue.

This makes sense from a Process Theology perspective, which has a dipolar view of God. Here, one aspect (the primordial nature of God) is boundlessly and infinitely perfect, thereby serving as a lure that is effective in awakening human seekers from their spiritual sleep and prodding them on to deeper growth. The other aspect (the consequent nature of God) is always evolving, for it is that part of God that WE are meant to embody. Here, whenever we persist in remaining unevolved in our thinking, we can say that GOD in his consequent nature is still asleep within us. Our task as spiritual guides then is to help awaken the sleeping God present within those who still practice discrimination.

However, if we hold this sort of view, it is important to realize that those whose position we oppose - in this case, those who discriminate against gay marriage - are ALSO able to see those places WITHIN OURSELVES where God is still sleeping.  In addition, it is just as important to realize that future generations will discover the fact that ALL of us living in the current age are discriminatory in one way or another. May we all retain the grace to open to the Divine present within ALL of reality to ever greater degrees.

Photos: Sunrise at the Snowy Range, Medicine Bow National Forest, WY; August 24, 2014

All things address us as "Thou."

Running water sounds to me like it is addressing me in a long, drawn-out "Thou" (Thaaaaaa-www"), reminding me that ALL things grasp and hold our attention with their own subjective presence.  Only when we perceive the subjectivity present within all things - including even rocks, mountains, skies, lakes and streams - will we begin to care for them as our brothers and sisters, and as embodiments of the Divine.

Photo: Parry Primrose and the stream flowing from Cirque Lake; Comanche Peak Wilderness; August 15, 2014

A climb up the Rockies will put one in touch with the Infinite

"A climb up the Rockies will . . . put one in tune with the Infinite . . . The Rockies . . . stir one's blood and strengthen and sweeten life."

Enos Mills,
Father of Rocky Mountain National Park

Photos: (L) Elephanthead and Mt. Alice, near Thunder Lake; (R) Alpine Sunflowers and Lake of Many Winds; Both photos were taken in Rocky Mountain National Park; August 18, 2014

Beauty Causes Divine Union Through a Volcanic Eruption of the Heart

I consider Mount Rainier to be the most beautiful mountain in America. Its massive size, multitudinous glaciers, stunning wildflower gardens and lush old-growth forests make it the stuff that wilderness dreams are made of. In fact, "The Mountain" is so beautiful that I find myself compelled to drive 1200 miles each summer to camp, hike and photograph there for the better part of a week.

However, Mount Rainier is also one of the most dangerous mountains in America. It is, after all, a volcano - a fact that becomes evident when we recall that the next volcano south - Mount St. Helens - erupted violently in 1980. Rainier also happens to contain the most glacial ice of any mountain in America. The havoc that lahars - volcanic mudflows that consist of a mixture of ash, gas, ice and heat - would wreak on nearby towns in the event of an eruption could be utterly devastating.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/which-us-volcanoes-are-likely-to-erupt-next

How can so much beauty and so much potential danger occur in the same place? As the poet Rilke once wrote, "We are so awed, because beauty just barely disdains to annihilate us." On a spiritual level, intense beauty - like that of Rainier - possesses the ability to "melt" our individual identity in the heat of desire we feel for it, enabling us thereby to attain union with the Divine Reality of which that beauty is a part. Here, of course, it is the ego-self that is momentarily destroyed, allowing us to attain to a much more expansive and liberating identity. We might, in fact, put our ego-annihilating response to beauty in terms of intense JOY. John Muir once spoke of it in this way:

"We are now fairly into the mountains, and they are into us. What bright, seething white-fire enthusiasm is bred in us - without our help or knowledge - a perfect influx into every pore and cell of us, fusing, vaporizing, by its heat until the boundary walls of our heavy flesh tabernacle seem taken down and we flow out and diffuse into the very air. Now I am no longer a shepherd, but a free bit of everything!" It sounds like a volcanic eruption of the heart, doesn't it!

While I pray that we might escape the physical danger that the beauty of a mountain like Rainier embodies, I also ask that we - on a deeper level - might allow our passion and enthusiasm for the intense beauty of life - including the beauty of other people and cultures - to aid us in the quest for divine union! Indeed, that is actually a major motivation for shooting and posting THIS continual lahar-stream of Photo-Quotes!

Photos: Reflection Lake, Magenta Paintbrush, and a Pasqueflower, with Mt. Rainier in the background; Paradise area; Mount Rainier National Park, WA; July 26, 2014

Every person and being is composed of an endless number of ever-deepening layers.

 

One of the most important spiritual principles is the realization that every person we encounter - as well as every daily event and every creature in Nature - is composed of a never-ending series of ever-deepening layers. In Nature, for example, everything we encounter is symbolic of a deeper reality. The sky embodies the meditative principle of vast awareness, for example, and a flower speaks of the inner beauty of the soul. With people, especially those whom we find challenging, it is important always to search for an underlying suffering in the person's history that is the source of the behavior we find challenging. However, spiritual vision teaches us that DEEPER STILL lies a divine core - call it the true self, Buddha-nature, the indwelling Christ, God within, untapped human potential, or a thousand other names. Living a spiritual life means always searching for this deeper layer of sacredness, especially in those places where we least expect to find it. Indeed, that depth is precisely what we hope OTHERS will see in us, especially when we aren't on our best behavior! In fact, this kind of search for deeper meaning is, according to the Muslim Hadith Qudsi, founded in the deepest reality of all - the Divine Presence - who excitedly exclaims: "I was a Hidden Treasure, and I LONGED to be known." That treasure is hidden in each of us, and it is our sacred calling as human beings to uncover it, both within ourselves and in others!

Photo: Forest Fire haze makes for beautiful mountain layers; Crater Lake National Park, OR; July 27, 2014

Mutual Seeing Between the Landscape and I

I visit vividly-hued lakes in part because their eye-like quality reminds me that the landscape is alive with sacred subjectivity.  I am seen just as much as I see! 

And this mutual seeing - when motivated by a desire to find the best in the one seen - is ITSELF beautiful, as these amazing lakes so wonderfully express.  In fact, the landscape's seeing is able to occur - at least in part - because it borrows MY seeing. 

To paraphrase that famous phrase of Meister Eckhart: "The eye through which I see the landscape is the SAME eye through which the landscape sees me!"  This insight enables me to realize that I AM NEEDED to help make the seeing landscape conscious!

Photos: (Top) Iceberg Lake, (2nd) Grinnell Lake and  (3rd) Lake Josephine, all in Glacier National Park (MT) The closeup photo (Bottom) is of a part of Crater Lake, OR;  All photos taken in late July, 2014

During meditation, the interior lake of awareness remains vast and calm regardless of the hue of our particular emotional state at the time.

Like Crater Lake at different times of day, the particular "color" of each meditation session is bound to be different than any of the others. 

But through it all, the interior "lake" of awareness always remains expansive and peaceful, 

regardless of the changing hue of our particular emotional state during any given session.

Photos: Crater Lake from sunrise through early evening; The red flower is Pumice paintbrush; Crater Lake National Park, OR; July 28, 2014

What attitude should we take toward those whom we love who practice discrimination?

 

While camping in the Pacific Northwest, I spent a lot of time contemplating an issue that has been bothering me of late.  Here, I'll summarize the issue in a question: "What attitude should I take toward people I know and love who discriminate against a whole other group of people (including a family member) who are different than they are?  After letting my position be known to those with an opposing view, do I need to put up a relational wall, or should I carry on with the relationship, trusting that THE DIVINE will speak to their hearts about the issue, convincing them they do indeed need to change?" 

After quite a bit of agonizing, I've come to the conclusion that I must adopt the latter position.  After all, do I like it when OTHERS put up a wall against me when THEY believe I have an attitude that needs changing?  Of course not!  But then, of course, a little voice inside my head starts saying: "Oh, but YOU are the one who is right in this case!"  This may be true, but those whom I love who hold the opposing view of course believe THEY are the ones who are right!  After all, that is precisely the reason why there have been so many conflicts throughout human history.  Each side always believes THEY are the ones who are right! The only solution, I believe, is - yes, to restate my position whenever the issue comes up in the future - but then to LET GO OF MY RESISTANCE TO THE PEOPLE I LOVE WHO HOLD THE OPPOSING VIEW.  If there is to be any change in the heart of the other person, it must come from within them, not from me or from my ego.

However, there is a price to be paid for adopting such a live-and-let-live attitude.  I sometimes imagine that in my relationship with others who take the live-and-let-live attitude with regard to MY shortcomings, I may never know whether THEY are being honest with me when they act as though I am OK, or whether they are actually having to work continually to reconcile themselves to MY flawed attitude. How do I know when they are being REAL with me, or when they are simply being tolerant of me,  taking the moral high ground in moving beyond MY flaws?  I really don't know.  Thus, as with EVERYTHING in life, no matter what position we take, it will always contain a disadvantage, a shadow side.  But then again, the nature of divine perfection is - I believe - never to be "right," but always to be in a state of growth and evolutionary flux in relationship to the Truth.  In fact, in admitting that we are always at least partially WRONG, we are - paradoxically - actually IN THE RIGHT!  For perfection is knowing that every position we take in life always possesses BOTH positive and negative aspects!

This of course does not mean that I should discontinue working to change the general societal attitude of discrimination that - I'm convinced - desperately needs to go.  But in relation to those whom I know and love who hold the opposing view, I must learn to LET GO of my own sense of rightness. As the well-known slogan says: "To be kind is more important than to be right."  This means I must practice kindness both towards those who are discriminated against (by working to change oppressive societal attitudes) AND at the same time practice kindness toward those whom I love who take the opposing view. 

Some may of course accuse me of being wrong in taking this stance.  So be it. I - and all of us - will ALWAYS be wrong no what position we take.  I simply choose to take the position I believe also includes a small amount of  "right" as well :)  Ironically of course - and somewhat humorously - this is precisely the very attitude that those family members who oppose me ALSO take! Ah, what an interesting journey this life is :)  The best thing to do, it seems, is to work for justice as we see it, practice kindness toward those who oppose us, and then leave the results to Something Bigger who goes beyond BOTH sides of the conflict :)

Photo: Stephen having a retreat at La Wis Wis Campground; Mount Rainier National Park, WA; July 24, 2014

The plant people are standing preaching by the wayside.

 

"The plant people are standing . . . 

preaching by the wayside."

John Muir 

Photos: Red Columbines blooming near Owyhigh Lakes, Mount Rainier National Park, WA; July 24, 2014

Spiritual beauty is enriched and increased when the various religious traditions cross-fertilize with one another.

 

 When Rosy Paintbrush (Castilleja rhexifolia) interbreeds with Yellow Paintbrush (Castilleja sulphurea),

all sorts of beautiful hybrid colors are produced. 

The same is true of spirituality. Pure forms of spiritual tradition - whether Buddhist, Native American, Sufi, Pagan, Hindu, Jewish or Christian - can be beautiful insofar as they go deep in one particular direction or set of insights. However, when each of these interbreeds with the best aspects of other traditions, the beauty is increased as each tradition is thereby broadened and enriched. In our own culture, this is especially true of Christianity. When Christian insight is enriched and balanced by that of the other traditions, it becomes much more liberating than it otherwise would have been. 

Photo: Rosy and Yellow Paintbrush and various hybridized variations; Silver Creek Basin, Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, CO; August 9, 2014

I want to disappear down in the grandest canyons of the soul.

 

"[I want to] disappear, from everyone, myself included, down in the grandest canyons of the soul."

Edward Abbey

Photo: Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, CO; August 10, 2014