The Bushman doctors I know… know that understanding the mysteries of God’s creation is less important than participating in it. What they say to others is inspired by a desire to motivate them into the heart of God’s love. They want us to dance more and talk less. They want to feel and see us open our hearts rather than fill our minds. The Bushman way is more polyphonic, improvisational, performative, playful, and biological  than the textually ruled world that anthropologists inhabit. They prefer shape-shifting in and out of a polychromal and polyphonic universe over word-shifting onto monochromal academic paper. Their truths mirror the truths of the sky, earth, plants, and animals that surround them. When they dance forth the dots, lines, and shapes, they marry them to a  heart bathed in the tears of longed-for relationships with the ancestors they love, the remembered mother who scratched their head, and the missed father who brought home meat. Deep emotions of the heart  guide the steps of the Bushmen, and their dance celebrates how they are inseparable not only from the living creatures of the present, but from the living presences of the past.

… imagine standing up, moving, and awakening to the biological verities that are within and around all of us.

— Bradford Keeney, Ropes to God: Experiencing the Bushman Spiritual Universe

This morning I went outside at the moment of dawn for my daily nature meditation. As my feet touch the porch it is my practice to take a deep breath and to follow a series of steps to quiet the mind, which involves watching the breath. I am still fresh from the night’s sleep, which makes this easier to do than later in the day.

I felt as if I were entering a living painting. I saw tiny nuthatches in silhouette flitting from branch to lacy branch in the birches in the yard next door. The whole scene was in silhouette against the sky, which was pale and luminous. The sounds of the nuthatches were soft and sweet. A raven soared by silently. I could feel the rising energy of spring from Mother Earth responding to the widening and heightening arc of the sun. I felt this tender arising in my own body and being. I felt immersed in this tenderly arising power as a fish is immersed in the sea.

When the mind is silent, and we put our attention on nature, nature can inform us about how to be one with her. We can then learn from her about how to live rightly in the world.

As all things in nature are connected, it is also true that all humanity is connected. What we think, feel,  and do contributes to the fabric of humanity and creation. One of our greatest challenges in this life is to understand this.

When we do understand this, when we know it in our hearts, it is a sign we have become more conscious, more awake. We long only to think and do that which brings joy and eases the suffering of all beings. We lose the arrogance of looking down on any of our fellow human beings and we welcome all into the circle.

When we forget, as we do, we are offered another chance to remember.

As the dawn of a new chapter in our global awareness rises, we look upon what happens in the private, public, and political arenas, and we remember that the opening of the human heart brings balance.  As this balance is increasingly activated, we see the teachings of the Masters manifested in the world. We do what our unique personal nature leads us to do for the upliftment of humanity.

There is a road in the hearts of all of us, hidden and seldom traveled, which leads to an unkown, secret place. The old people came literally to love the soil, and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. Their teepees were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The soul was soothing, strengthening, cleansing, and healing. That is why the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of propping himself up and away from its life giving forces. For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and to feel more keenly. He can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him.

― Luther Standing Bear

Cold at Dawn (4.3.14, Anchorage, Ak)

This morning, standing on the front porch at sunrise, I became aware of the play of opposites as heat and cold that create the form that the snow takes through melting during the day and refreezing at night.

It is the play of opposites that governs change in the world of nature, which includes humans.

When we remain in the Witness state, we can enter consciously into this play. We are “in the world but not of it.” We transcend being trapped in polarity. If there was no polarity there would be no manifest world.

As we remain aware of this play of opposites, we can continually create balance. We are also able to be of true service to the world. When what we call service comes out of entrapment in the opposites rather than transcendence of them, we are unconscious of what is really needed in any situation we are in.

This morning, I saw a strange object standing in a neighbor’s yard. It seemed to be some sort of rabbit with a heart on its belly. I have never seen anything like it, and I thought to myself, “You are imagining things.”

Then, as I looked at the way the snow was piled at the sides of our front walk, I imagined these forms to be ocean waves. Indeed, they looked just like ocean waves. I scolded myself that I was “imagining things.”

I have an aversion to imagining things; when I draw I try to draw what I see and not allow fanciful forms to come in; if they do, I want them to be “real” on an energetic plane. This produces a sort of inner conflict. I have a kind of prejudice against the completely “fanciful.”

As I reflected on this, I was reminded of what I have learned (through teachings and meditative experience) about the primordial “substance” within which the entire world dances.

The entire manifest and unmanifest world is made of Divine Light, including every aspect of our own being. Whatever forms, thoughts and sensations we behold are comprised of this Light.

When we see the world in this way, we are seeing from the highest perspective. This seeing is possible for humans to attain.

When we imagine, we are creating forms within this Light and comprised of this Light. When we return again and again to remembering this Light, experiencing this Light, we are living from the highest perspective. We have the experience that we are dancing with the Divine.

The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.

— Julia Cameron

When I am not present to myself,
then I am only aware of that half of me,
that mode of my being which turns outward to created things.
And then it is possible for me to lose myself among them.
Then I no longer feel the deep secret pull
of the gravitation of love which draws my inward self toward God.
My will and my intelligence lose their command of the other faculties.
My senses, my imagination, my emotions,
scatter to pursue their various quarries all over the face of the earth.
Recollection brings them home.
It brings the outward self into line with the inward spirit,
and makes my whole being answer the deep pull of love
that reaches down into the mystery of God.

During a healing session last evening, I “remembered” how my ancestors were “torn away” from their home ground (by choice, but it was still a tear). As I “went” to the place they left (Ballymoney, N.Ireland) and then to the place they migrated to (DeSoto, MO), I felt a sort of mending going on. It felt as if I were part of that mending. There seemed to be something more needed, a kind of reconciling force. This turned out to be New Mexico and the healing properties of that land, in its wildness, the quality of the earth, and the practice of forming homes and vessels from the earth. The pueblo homes never wear down, as they are always being mended right from the earth. New Mexico pottery (Acoma Pueblo) is formed entirely from the earth and is returned to the earth from whence springs new pottery.

The land can heal us and our ancestors, and it seems there is a force in this direction, when we open ourselves to it.

This morning as I looked out of the window, I saw a ridged texture in the melting snow. I wondered how this had come about, and why the ridges were angled southeast/northwest. In this wondering, there was a sense of “something missing.” So I went outside and spent time keenly observing the snow in the yard, imprinting the images in my mind. As I gave myself plenty of time to explore, I discovered the first bulb shoot under the window. I also discovered a package under the mailbox! If I hadn’t taken time to really observe, I would have missed so much!