Wilderness Space Heals Afflictive Emotions

 

Thomas Keating, one of my spiritual mentors, used to remind his students that afflictive thoughts and emotions often surface from the unconscious mind when a person sits down to practice silence and contemplative prayer. It seems as though all hell is breaking loose, but in reality, the flood of thoughts has a purpose: the cleaning out of the psyche.

In my own case, this surfacing of afflictive thoughts happens when I'm out hiking and photographing alone in the wilderness. Today it occurred to me that when these troubling thoughts arise, they are begging me to transform them into something sacred!
 

For me, this means viewing them as echoes - however twisted and distorted - of a divine love-word arising as though out of nowhere. In terms of mystical Judaism, the thoughts want me to "sweeten" them by including them in my practice. Viewed in this way, I begin to see my painful thoughts and emotions as a necessary means toward understanding how much my help is needed!

Photos: (Top) Cliffs and Cottonwoods, Red Mountain Open Space, Larimer County, CO, October 18, 2014; (Bottom Left) Sunset at Red Mountain Open Space, October 18, 2014; (Bottom Middle) Aspen leaves at Bridal Veil Falls, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, October 17, 2014; (Bottom Right) Cottonwoods, prairie, and the peaks of The Snowy Range, near Centennial, WY, October 14, 2014