Open Path

Guest Post from Canada- Nature in June

A Word to the Spiritual Seekers

From: Don Murray

There is no green like the green of June. In spite of the cold and rainy spring, nature has managed to do her thing and bring the earth to lushness once again.

Each morning at breakfast we marvel at nature’s unfolding as we watch the tree in front of our deck awaken from the slumbers of winter. At first the buds appear, bravely announcing their presence in the face of the chill winds that remind us that the cold snows have only recently departed. Then, through the month of May, the buds swell and grow until the tiny leaves appear and by June have grown to their fullness.

Since the dawn of consciousness humankind has been awed by the cycle of nature. Deep within our souls we have always known that we are creatures of nature and absolutely dependent upon her fecund vibrancy for our survival and well-being. We have also known that nature could be capricious and violent. Wind and rain could bring immediate death and destruction and diminish or destroy the crops bringing a slower demise through famine and starvation. With tornadoes, floods and fires we are being keenly reminded of the destructive power that is, for us, the dark side of the wondrous creativity that is the aliveness of the earth.

These creative and destructive forces were long worshipped as goddesses and gods. They were honoured, but also placated in order to make sure that the earth would bring forth abundantly.

For good or ill we ceased worshipping the nature divinities. We can blame this on the Judeo/Christian tradition. With the awakening of the idea of one God there was a fierce struggle to push aside the worship of the nature divinities. The wonderfully dramatic and vivid stories around the confrontation between Elijah and Jezebel initiated the contest. The prophets carried it on with a vitriolic viciousness.

There was a good reason for this, which often eludes us when we see the devastating results accompanying the patriarchal takeover; the denigration of women, and the present-day denial of nature. The arrival of Yahweh meant that a new awareness had come into being. Life was now seen as more than the continuous round of the seasons. It is going somewhere. Being human is a work in progress. It is something that we have, hopefully, been learning throughout the ages.

Those prophets did more than attack the nature divinities. They laid down the moral values which are the foundation of civilization: "Do justice, love compassion, walk humbly." And they were the visionaries who saw what life could become: "the desert shall blossom as the rose," "they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and no one will make them afraid."

But they went too far with a good thing. We are now learning that to be really human we must also honour those ancient goddesses and gods, those energies and forces that represent the living reality that is nature. In the last five hundred years we have accepted the idea of progress. Unfortunately we have thought that it meant material progress. We are enamoured with stuff and imagine that more and more of it is the goal of life. We have lost sight of the fact that the progress those prophets of old had in mind was in the quality of our humanity.

Scientific and technological progress has given us marvellous things. No one of us would wish to give up what our modern world has provided. It is easy to overlook the fact that we of the western world have acquired much of our luxurious life on the backs of the have-not world, some of it being in our own midst, and by the squandering and degradation of nature. We have turned the earth into a thing to be used for our benefit.

But the earth is not a thing. She is a living reality, the womb and sustainer of life And we are "of the earth earthy." We are not set apart from the natural world. We are a part of it all. Without the sun shining on those green leaves we could not live, indeed there would be no life on earth.

May the sun shine that the tree in front of our deck may get on with her wondrous work of giving us life.

Letting Go

Leaves descend with only a whisper

telling the tale of transitions

the fall through the narrow neck

of the hour glass.

As nature does,

so do we.

Time and time again,

defined by our slipping through

into something unknown,

grasping, clinging.

Free falling is never easy

and the landing only sometimes soft

but monotony is worse.

For think if the leaves were only green

and no buds ever appeared

if they desperately held on

and decayed as they are

brown and uninspired.

We must shift

We must transform

We must let go

and fall into the unknown

 

By Deshna Ubeda

Spiritual Ecology

By: Deshna Ubeda

We just sent out our latest eBulletin on Spiritual Ecology- The Environment in Progressive Christianity.  My job is to gather all the articles, books, reviews, music, and other material and lay out the eBulletin with all the photos and links.  Often, depending on the subject, I have to go asking and searching for articles or books- progressive Christianity is still relatively new and undiscovered so not a whole bunch of literature is being produced.  However, with this ebulletin, we were overwhelmed with submissions and choices.  That certainly makes my job easier!  Obviously, the environment is a hot topic right now and for good reason. 

Much of what was sent my way was the darker side of the picture with estimations, studies, and predictions of the end of a safe earth.  Those of us that are not in denial know that these are critical and scary times, that we have grossly mistreated our planet and that we are now rapidly seeing the negative affects of such selfishness.  I included a couple of those scare you into action pieces, but the articles and perspectives that really touched me and inspired me the most were the ones like: Oneness.  Just a blog that I found while looking around.  Simple yet beautiful, in which the author is filled with gratitude for the gift of nature, of life, of breath, touch, smell and thought. 

"As my eyes opened this day..and again awakened into a new morning, the thought arose in my mind: ''I am part of all of this''....and I smiled! My heart is most grateful...for every experience lived, I know Love and its living Source. I can walk, run, dance and hop,...I can breathe...I can breathe..not only that! I can smell and detect the exquisite fragrances and scents of flowers...my favorite magical children of the earth...they are children in disguises ..you know?"

Yes, we need to drastically change our ways in regards to the environment.  Yes, we are seeing the moment in history when our actions are exponentially coming to fruition and it does scare me, especially when I think about my daughter and the life that she will have.  And what about her children?

But I think it is just as important to teach our children to be in awe of nature each day, to be filled with gratitude for the beauty and gift of the earth.  To remind them to take deep breaths, to slow down and look around, to look up, to listen and feel.  How blessed are we to be able to feel the warmth of human touch, the tickle of the wind on our skin, the drops of life that fall from the sky, to lay in the sun-warmed grass, to squish our toes into moist sand, to taste the richness of the fruits whose juices dance in our mouths, and to be nourished by the rainbow colors of the vegetables that the earth gifts us!

When you wake in the morning, do you say thank you?  Do you take a moment to fill your lungs with sweet breath?  Are you filled with a sense of wonder at it all?  Yes, there is reason to fear for the future of our planet and sometimes we need fear to drive us to change, but isn't it possible that instead of fear, we can use our gratitude and appreciation of the earth as a healthy alternative to fear?  That we can teach our children to love and care for the earth because of how thankful they are rather than how afraid they are of what might happen if they don't?  And what would your day look like if you woke up each morning and said a prayer of thanks, if you noticed each sensation, each color, each breath... at least for a few minutes?

You can sign up for our free, once a month eBulletin here