As
every photographer knows, patience is one of the virtues most needed in
the craft of picture-taking. This means waiting for the light to be
"just right," waiting for the sunlight to reappear or for the clouds to
softly filter the sun, waiting for a bull elk to place his head in just
the right position, etc. During my mountain outings yesterday and the
day before, I found that an extra dose of patience was needed with the
wind. Up on the tundra, a still day is a generally a luxury because the
wind is almost always blowing. In any case, when I hiked up to a
mountain pass in the Rawah Range yesterday and began taking photos of
meadows chock-full of Snow Buttercups, the wind was blowing at about
thirty miles per hour. I spent a full hour lying on the ground -
waiting, waiting, waiting for that one-second break in the wind when the
Buttercups were still enough to shoot. The day before, up in the Snowy
Range, I waited seemingly endlessly for that split-second pause that
enabled me to shoot the prolific Globeflowers blooming in the marshes
and puffs of Purple Sky Pilot spread out across the tundra meadows. I
didn't think I would be successful with the latter, so when I got back
to the car and reviewed my photos, I could hardly believe how perfectly
STILL the flowers were in one of the frames!
Yesterday as I was
reflecting on my experience with the Buttercups, I realized that that
one second "pause" has important implications for the spiritual life.
Over decades of spiritual practice, I've realized that that I often have
to exercise considerable patience in waiting for a groundbreaking
insight to occur. Then, when it does appear, it generally leaves
immediately, to be replaced by the stiff winds of doubt, disillusionment
and the mundane nature of everyday reality. I used to bemoan this
fact, but recently I've come to rejoice in the whole process. I now
understand that the reason why we can never HOLD ON to an insight is
because - in the very moment it occurs - it immediately is "stolen away"
by the Larger Reality of which we are a part. After all, both God and
Goddess seek to know their own beauty and goodness through OUR
perception, and they often seem voracious for this knowledge. Thus,
kenosis - self-emptying - is an innate part of any insight, for in the
very moment when it occurs, it immediately empties itself into the
Larger Whole.
In the fifth century, St. Augustine bemoaned the
fact that whenever he had a mystical experience of God wherein he
momentarily touched "That Which Is," he was immediately "pushed away"
from the experience. He interpreted this as occurring because he
existed in a mortal body, and because (he imagined) he possessed a
corrupt nature. However, I've come to realize that the reason why he
had to endure this frustrating experience was not because of any
personal flaw, but because the presence of God - by its very nature -
immediately self-empties into the depths of the human soul in the same
moment when It is contacted. Because this movement within occurs at a
level too deep for experience, doubt and disillusionment are the natural
result. Margarete Porete, a thirteenth century Beguine mystic, called
this reality "The Blessed Far-Nearness." She said that it occurs
because of God's "movement" away from being a momentary object of
experience into an intimate part of one's soul. Accordingly, she
sometimes spoke of the "aperture" that manifests itself when this
appearing and disappearing occur simultaneously in the experience of the
contemplative.
In any case, what is left when this sacred
movement happens is a kind of "flash" of experience that is inaccessible
to possession by the grasping mind, but which - when seen for what it
really is - nevertheless brings a sense of deep fulfillment. Meister
Eckhart called this flash "the still desert into which no distinction
ever peeped." St. Francis de Sales spoke of it as "the POINT of the
spirit," and Thomas Merton referred to it as "Le Pointe Virge" - the
Virgin Point. Even Jesus referred to this reality when he spoke of the
virtues of the "mustard seed" of faith and the "single eye." This is
also, I believe, what Buddhists speak of when they refer to "suchness."
Thus, what began as a lesson in patience with the wind yesterday, turned into a profound spiritual lesson!
Photos: (Top) Snow Buttercups and the Diamond Peaks up on Montgomery
Pass, Rawah Range, CO, June 22, 2015; (Middle) Globeflowers, Snowy
Range, WY, June 21, 2015; (Bottom) Sky Pilot, with Medicine Bow
Peak in the background, Snowy Range, WY, June 21, 2015
