April 2001 (Vol. XIV, No. 4)
BLESSINGS of the Spring season be with you all, dear friends!
Ponder this: if seeds in the dark earth can turn into lovely blossoms and fruit, what might our heartseed become on our journey to the stars?
My hope is that all children will become earth literate. That they will experience no separation of spirit and matter! That they will come to know the Story of the Universe as theor story! That they will have a deep sense of being a unique expression of the universe and that they are the universe celebrating itself in their songs, dances, and rituals! Finally, I hope that they realize they have a purpose to fulfill and that they are a gift for the whole web of life!
Each of us has the responsibility to protect sacred land and life in every country of the world, in whatever way he or she can. We must remember that lightning and wind are not controlled by human boundaries. A sacred breath unifies the divine web of life. Any part that is broken affects us all. May you walk in balance.
In our world, we need a clear awareness of the inter-dependent nature of nations, of humans, animals, and the world. Everything is of interdependent nature. I feel that many problems, especially man-made problems, are due to lack of knowledge about this interdependent nature.
Help us to be always helpful gardeners of the spirit who know that without the darkness nothing comes to birth, as without light nothing flowers.
Colin Fletcher, in THE MAN WHO WALKED THROUGH TIME, describes how from moments of peak awareness, there came at last after long solitude and silence, and for the time being, a continuous sense of being one with the rhythm of all life and all time, of being inside as well as outside the life of everything he saw – animals, insects, the living rocks, the wind, the river; and finally, most difficult of all, he could feel even the craziness of modern humanity as part of the unbroken pattern of eternity.
I just love silence. I love lying quietly in the afternoon with the sun streaming in through the windows of my cabin. Just being very quiet. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, when I climb the hill up to the cabin, I stop and either throw myself down on the ground or look up to the stars and say, "This is fabulous. I am so happy, happy, happy that I am doing this. It's so nice to live close to the earth." I just love silence.
When one views the planet Earth from outer space and sees no national boundaries, the prophecy of Teilhard de Chardin is compelling:
The age of nations is past. That task before us, if we would not perish, is to build the earth ... to help hear her wounds.
Silently a flower blooms,
In silence it falls away;
Yet here now, at this moment, at this place,
The world of the flower,
the whole of the world is blooming.
This is the talk of the flower,
the truth of the blossom;
The glory of eternal life is fully shining here.
Sacred hart in the blackening wilderness
stately deer, gracefully bounding,
holy vision of the Eternal Heart;
countless, unending blood memories,
surge like gold through your rhythmic veins,
ancient paths stir the soul's journey.
Sleeping titans stand on the edge,
disregarding the dark, grasping webs of life,
or silver antlers shining with white wisdom,
of pulsating pearls of poetry flowing
from open eyes of song,
as the saintly sculpture disappears
from its vanishing home into
a dying paradise.
Forests and fields, sun and wind and sky, earth and water, all speak the same language: peace, solitude, silence.
A week of silence had tipped the balance from the desire for external rewards to the intrinsic value of being. I passed the oak I'd sat on the day before. This was happiness: witting in a tree. Lying in the grass. Feeling the fog or the sunshine touching my skin. Watching a hawk circle. All anbition and seeking had fallen away. Even my desire to cling to the sensations of the moment had dissolved. I only wanted to live my life while it was happening, not enmeshed in the past of all that lives.
The unique saga of the whooping crane's struggle to survive as a species reminds us of how wonderful and precious are all God's creatures. In its fragility and its numinosity the whooper provides a needed symbol for a spirituality of creation that rekindles human reverence for the mysterious presence of God dwelling deep down within the beauty and splendor of all that lives.
May the harmony of sky and water,
leaf and rock,
Nourish the creation and growth
of your inner being.
The separate parts of humanity are coming together to form a whole that is greater than and unpredictable from the sum of its parts. Synergy feels like love, loving one another as ourselves. We are, in fact, one body! Our capacities as a whole are infinitely greater than we we are separate tribes and nations. Once our consciousness shifts from feeling separated to knowing that we are all members of one body, our vast technological genius begins to serve the growth of ourselves as one planet. And that consciousness shift an happen in the twinkling of an eye. Once our consciousness shifts collectively, we can restore the Earth, we can feed all peoples, we can emancipate unique potential We can!