The Still-Point of the Spirit

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