By Our Very Nature

When I decided to leave Salt Lake City, I lamented.  I thought I would be giving up Nature and the deep connection I had cultivated with it, surrounded by the mountains and canyons of Utah.  But being here in Springfield, I do not feel a loss.  In fact, I feel at home here in this natural environment that I was born into. 

I am surprised to see that there is so much Life here!  It’s green and lush.  The grass is a thick dense carpet standing with pride in its own prairie roots.  Even in this suburb, the trees have reached a new maturity that they display like teenagers ready to be out in the world on their own.  and there are lots of earthworms – thick, juicy and writhing.  and of course loads of fish and birds.  I am still in awe wondering, “what is this world I have entered into?”  I watch and listen carefully to the story these living beings are telling me.  I wait to define my own place in it, but I am sure it will be the same as it was before — the place of my birth.  the site of my emergence.

Home is here for me — in Nature.  I now know and can be sure that wherever I decide to move to I will be called to Nature.  Like a bat that sends sound waves to hear for the presnce of snakes and caves and water.  It is not that I put out a call.  I am the call.  and by our very nature, so are we all.

 

excerpt from Dwellings: The Spiritual History of the Living World by Linda Hogan:

     The intention of a ceremony is to put a person back together by restructuring the human mind.  This reorganization is accomplished by a kind of inner map, a geography of the human spirit and the rest of the world.  We make whole our broken-off pieces of self and world…

Within ourselves, we bring together the fragments of our lives in a sacred act of renewal, and we reestablish our connections with others.  The ceremony is a point of return.  It takes us toward the place of balance, our place in the community of all things.  It is an event that sets us back upright.  But it is not a finished thing.  The real ceremony begins where the formal one ends, when we take up a new way, our minds and hearts filled with the vision of earth that holds us within it, in a compassionate relationship to and with our world.

Goals Change

What goal are you striving towards now? What does it mean to you really?

Last week I hit a writing block with my dissertation.  My piriformis muscle is finally healing and I’m about 80% back to strength and flexibility with my yoga practice.  And I’m still in a quandry about if I should stay in Salt Lake City or the West or move back to Chicago, be an academic or a yoga teacher.  All this and talking to some very wise friends and colleagues brought me to a meditation on ….duhduhduh – Goals!!  Right…here it goes…

Goals are external achievements like a new job, making a million dollars, running a marathon, completing a dissertation, losing weight or mastering a handstand.  we work towards these goals and seldom tend to the changes within us that must occur in order to achieve these goals.  So we dedicate time and effort, make sacrficies, learn new skills, create a new lifestyle, try a new diet…with a mindset oriented entirely towards the external achievement of …you fill in the blank.

At some point we may find that when we finally achieve the goal, we are burned out, exhausted, lifeless because we gave everything we had just to get there.  and then found out there was not enough of us left to really enjoy the accomplishment.

Or we find that once achieving the goal, our passion and drive vanishes.  We wonder how we could have accomplished so much success and then immediately thereafter suddenly lapse into an unproductive, lethargic, cynical state.  This may lead us to doubt our innate abilities, thinking that our success was a fluke.  This damages our self-esteem.

At other times we may find that the goal loses its importance. We start realizing that its not worth the sacrifices we are having to make.  “maybe spending time with my son is more important to me right now that squeezing in that 15K practice run.” Then our goal changes because we have changed by allowing our internal guide to organize our priorities.

Or perhaps we surrender so completely to the Change required to meet our goal that we are transformed.  Then we discover that in fact, it was this transformation we sought, not the goal at all.  The goal was a means of initiating alchemy.

According to Buddhists and Yogis, the right relationship to goals is to become detached from the successful achievement of the goal and the fruits of our labor.  We are urged to instead become intrigued, concerned and studious about the process of growth, change and expansion.  Any goal holds inside it the promise to stretch you beyond where you are now.  Put your attention and effort on to this inner growth and simply observe the material results as they unfold.  Put effort into expanding your subtle body to be a capable container

…so that you are flexible and confident enough to change your goals.

….so that if you do not attain your goal, you are not disappointed and do not begin to see yourself as a failure. 

…so that when you meet your goal you are able to be fully present.

….so that when you arrive, you can recognize your own spirit and be able to carry on your passion and self-esteem regardless of any external achievement.

p.s. I did not take this picture

Living from the Inside Out

taking flight

Do you have the courage to live life from the inside out?

I have been listening to audiorecordings about what it means to be a healer, empath, etc.  and when this question came up about living from the inside out it seemed to stare me in the face.  Do I?  haven’t I been tip-toeing towards it and encouraging others to go balls out into it.  What if there is a direct relationship between the extent to which I am willing to allow my intuition to guide my life and the manifestation of all those good “things” I want in my life?  well, I think there is a direct correlation. check around…alot of people think so.

If I am 75% committed to what Don Miguel Ruiz refers to as domestication, then probably only about 25% of my deepest desires are going to be able to unfold.  the rest is caught up in crap – the crap of the world, no less!  I think it’s time to get unstuck. 

although the other idea these healers are talking about is that there is no such thing as being done healing.  instead its a matter of choosing a healing lifestyle.  I think that’s an important distinction.  Its what will keep my feet on the ground as I seek to propel myself towards new heights, deeper depths –i’ll always be screwed up somewhere, somehow.  to me living a healing lifetsyle means that I promise to take the best care of my body, mind, spirit and heart as I possibly can.  I promise to say no to anything toxic whether its a relationship, toxic foods, a shitty job.  and I promise to say yes to my intutive guidance that constantly tells me what to do.  I have to admit that when i do hear it, I only obey it about 50% of the time.  sometimes I act like its not even talking to me.  can you imagine? a voice from inside me and I am acting like,”who? me?”  Bananas!!

so, I’m gonna give this try. but Im already hedging some. my intuition is way more assertive than my personality is sometimes.  and already she has me poised to take great leaps.  Would you jump if your intuition told you to?

Every cell in your body

If you look at your body, you will find billions of living beings who depend on you.  Every cell in your body is a living being that depends on you.  You are responsible for all those beings.  For all those living beings that are your cells, you are God.  You can provide what they need; you can love all those living beings, or you can be so mean to them.

                                                                –Don Miguel Ruiz, THE MASTERY of LOVE

This is the first time I heard someone identify our treatment of our own body as the foundation of Love.  It makes alot of sense.  our bodies are the vessel through which we enter into relationships.  and our bodies house our spirits.  so this is where the cycle begins of learning how to love oneself before loving someone else.  if I abuse myself, how am I going to love another person in the way their spirit deserves?

This, of course, reminds me of Yoga.  Yoga scholar-practitioners have taught us that practicing yoga postures with deep, ryhtmic breathing effects both the physical and subtle bodies.  I heard of this first in a workshop with Master Yoga Teacher, John Friend…that yoga effects you on the cellular level.  This means that by practicing asanas we are participating in our own transformation.  we are co-creating with our physical and subtle body the change we seek: improved health, more vitality, the release of negative patterns and an increase in our availability to life-giving ones.  Yoga can not be underestimated folks – don’t blink!

I practice yoga regularly.  This summer I applied myself seriously to building a home practice.  One of the first things I noticed was that there was a strong force of resistance within me that had to be confronted.  One evening I had to pick myself up and put me on the mat.  and like a puppy I kept crawling away – literally.  until I got back on and just held on tight.  Low and behold the tears came rolling down my face.  I wept. on my mat. in child’s pose.  I realized then that there was a pain inside me that I was trying to suppress.  It was unconscious I guess.  It never told me WHY it had showed up.  But it seemed to be welling up to the surface in hopes that my yoga practice would release and heal it. 

My point is that I needed yoga practice so bad, which is exactly why the resistance tried to bully me from the mat.  So who is that bully anyways?  Who is the bully inside me who wanted to keep me from healing?  Who was the warrior who fought for my soul and won?

So I notice that the resistance is rising up within me again.  No coincidence that it comes as I am entering into another phase of Growth.  and the bully is standing in the doorway.  my body needs me.  I am calling for the Warrior!

Winter is coming folks.  If you’ve got some Growing you want to do, don’t delay.  Autumn is the time to gather in all those things you want to take with you into hibernation.  Do you really want to take all that rubbish with you?  What are you gathering to you this Autumn?  What do you want to take with you into Winter?

What happened to us?

the ocean

Last year I spent a weekend with Omar and Kate who live in California.  We spent the day exploring tide pools at the ocean beach near their home.  It was WONDER-ful!  Literally, full of wonder.  All the creatures.  their legs, their shells, their rythyms syncing up with the ocean’s tide.  We saw dozens of crabs, sea slugs, and a big jellyfish that had washed up to shore.  we stood in the water up to our knees and held onto each other, bracing one another aainst the force of the wave. 

at one point a huge wave came in and I turned to Kate and said, “hold me!”  We grabbed onto each other and laughed. but we both were a little scared by the immense size and miraculous force of the Ocean.  when it was time to go home, I walked backwards to the car.  I did not want to turn my back on the Ocean. It felt like turning my back on God.

None of us knew what time we arrived or how much time we spent there.  we were completely absorbed in the moment, in wonder, in Nature. 

I wish that I could Love another person that same way – without pretense.  To be able to express whatever it is being felt in that moment – without the fear of rejection.  To be all the way in the moment which is Joy -without my mind rushing to the realization that it might dissolve or never really existed. 

Romantic love seems so volatile. and why?  because most of us are so wounded.  At least I am.  Wounded by family, friends sometimes, strangers.  And then society which pours all kinds of toxic matter into our open, unacknowledged wounds.  It’s quite a disaster really.  So those moments when the pain subsides long enough to connect, to plug our heart into what is Good and True and Beautiful… are precious, precious, precious.  I find that Nature is one of the safest places to do this – plug in your heart, that is.

Meditations: the Nature of Love

in the womb of the mighty wasatch mountains

I started this blog thinking that I would write about identity or revolution or social justice.  It turns out that all I want to write about is Love.  But the truth is that it’s all the same subject really.  Somewhere deep inside we all know this.

To introduce myself, I am a Lover.  Love is my motivation for most things. except when Fear is the motivation. and when that is the case only Love can get me out of those messes. 

There are many people in my life whom I love and who offer love to me – family, friends, colleagues, sometimes strangers.  and as my name -BlackNature- suggests, I witness and experience Life and Love in Nature.  The mountains, ocean, sun, moon, trees, animals, plants are all living expressions of the real reality – Spirit.  Ironically, I see, feel, breathe and live love in action but have not found my life companion.  Where do you think he is?…(shrug).

At the same time that I am growing into the realization of Love, I continue to search, long for, and otherwise trouble myself over finding romantic love.  This is the recent theme of my meditations.  Here I offer my meditations on Love to you, for Us.

All photos displayed in this blog by BLACKNATURE

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