 Where Lies the Soul of America?
Joe Biden, in announcing his candidacy for President and many times since, has explained his campaign as one to restore the "soul of America"? Have you wondered where it went and when did it go? Many of us are are quite certain that Biden is mistaken in his assumption... Are you? Can it even be said, that a nation, unlike a person, has a "soul"? Perhaps Biden meant his analysis metaphorically... By means of delving deeper into the idea of an American national soul, I'd like to propose a series of hypotheticals... First, Biden is elected President. Second, within days Trump resigns as President (Reasoning? He can't get his head around the idea of being civil and welcoming to the new President, and secondly, he knows that Vice President Pence sorely wants to become President... and, there could be a favor that would come his way...) Third, President Pence nominates Secretary of State Nicki Haley to the Vice Presidency (Reasoning? He hopes to diminish the prospects of her seeking the Republican nomination in 2024... And next, President Pence grants an absolute pardon to Trump for any and all crimes or potential crimes up to and through his Presidency...) And Biden is sworn in as President in January of 2021... So, these hypotheticals swings me back to the idea of an American national soul... and to the mystical supposition that soul is, or rather, has its abode in forgiveness... How could soul be anywhere if not in the everywhere of forgiveness: the practical application of empathy and compassion... For those of us who have either experienced or believe in a Cosmic Consciousness pervading, supporting, and evolving all consciousness, life, and matter, forgiveness in personal terms is an essential aspect of faith... We tend to imagine mercy as an integral / operating principle of the Divine Being... or at least, we are most hopeful that it is! If soul has its abode in forgiveness, and if it follows that there is an American national soul, can its place of residence be anywhere other than in forgiveness? That there is a tendency to equate soul with unquestioning patriotism, flag, and status, is the mere idea of forgiveness being the abode of our national soul too far of a stretch? Well then, I ask you to stretch: stretch like the tree-become-art-become-arm-and-outstretched-hand: s-t-r-e-t-c-h..... in meditation upon the above photo... stretch until you can feel the power in art, in nature, in passion, in beauty, and and, keep going, keep going all the way into your j-u-m-p into our national soul... It is (and will be) only in the will to forgive that we can seize the opportunity of this moment in time. Only a fool would not think that our nation is seriously @RISK... as our nation, so too, is our very Planet... So here it is, regardless of my list of hypotheticals, are you ready, willing, and able to forgive? Here lies soul: a motivating dream and a personal responsibility, and an unlikely, though possible, political reality... Can you forgive all that has occured in our national history that caused incredible harm, grief, and despair? Can you forgive all those who caused harm? Can you forgive the unbounded rage of all those who have been harmed or have been the descendents of harm's first, and many continuing, victims? Of course, this list is not one of hypotheticals: it is a short, very short, list or summary of harm, grief, and despair... But it is precisely here, right here in this exact place, that our national soul resides. We can either choose to embrace our soul and begin to practice the beauty of forgiveness, or we, of course, have the option of continuing to trash both the abode of, and our national soul... in which case, America will simply become another in a long line of sad myths...
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 To "catch" s-o-u-l with a definition is to attempt to shove into a box that which is pure magic, imbibed with wonder, and toxic to control: you may as well, as Donovan sang, try and catch the wind... On the other hand, you could approach s-o-u-l as a guest arriving by invitation to a traditional Japanese Tea House: there is a little door, about three feet square, at the left corner of the hut: to enter, one must remove Samurai sword or AR-15, and crawl on one's hands and knees to enter: now, properly called by Lady Humility, one must simply sit and wait: the Tea Master will eventually approach...
Like the rocks in the above photo, the best that we can do, in regards to s-o-u-l, is to color it with fantastical intentions, humble sincerity, and the enveloping vistas of an activated compassion... this is the point of life... to contribute our thoughts, words, and lives to the gathering of Sacred Meaning for the Divine Itself... This s-o-u-l-f-u-l intermingling of our passions with the Initiator of Passion is the eternity worthy of Us and It... How do we learn what it is that we are supposed to learn? One can meander through life thinking that this or that is a lesson, but the real lesson might be how we put on and take off our shoes! Big things like big events might be the stuff of legends, but how many of us are on a big legendary path? Most of us live as little fish in a humungous ocean... so it isn't about the shark we might face, but rather, it is really all about what happens in our own mind and heart... Are we beginning to release our mind from every attempt to dominate or control the other "fish" in our lives? And are we beginning to release our heart from the limitations or restrictions under which we have been living? This is the School of S-o-u-l... to stop running away from ourselves is all the education that we need... Naturally... Wisdom begins to attach itself to us, sort of like barnacles to the sides of whales or ships at sea... by cultivating a certain way of ambling... when once we have stopped running away from ourselves, purpose increasingly becomes apparent... help rendered is help that is received... planting seeds and garden-caring is righteous endeavor... massaging one's loving partner is spiritual gifting... ambling reduces fear... a reduction of fear liberates into delight and wonder... sort of like, beginning to recover one's child-heart... Mistakes... Once there was a man who, while walking and lost in thought, accidentally dropped his house key... he came from that direction, from a dark alley... but now he was here on this street... he got down on hands and knees under a street-light, probing in the grass and flowers for his lost key... Someone walking by asked, "What are you looking for?" He answered, "I dropped my house key in the alley." The stranger, perplexed, asked, "If you dropped your house key in the alley, why are you looking here?" "Because this is where the light is," was the answer... Like the man in the story, we all make mistakes... we oftentimes probe the wrong places for some sort of means of recovery... but unlike keys, we never actually lose the love that is our secret identity... Sometimes all that we need is the flashlight of sacred remembrance... First off, as Erich Fromm wrote, love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an orientation of character... If I truly love one person I love all persons, I love the world, I love life. If I can say to somebody else, 'I love you,' I must be able to say, 'I love you in everybody, I love through you the world, I love in you also myself.' This orientation of our character is the flashlight of our secret identity... Remembrance is prayer of the heart... for millennia in the East, prayer of the heart, linking the Divine Name with our breath, has been essential religion and a living spirituality... This science has been studied and applied, in significant depth, especially in Sufism and the Orthodox Church... This orientation of our mind is the floodlight of our daily re-birthing... It is all about cultivating your place... Place is about scanning your environment: how much is enough is always a legitimate question for the spiritual practitioner... S-o-u-l develops in simple living, intentional community, meaningful work, joyful play, and the mystic arts: creativity, contemplation, and sacred intimacy (practiced or in vowed celibacy)... Place is supposed to be deeply sensual and intensely intimate: music, poetry, literature, and conversation: a place for the greening (see St. Hildegard) of mind and heart... a place that brings life to each of your sacred senses and frees you for sacred exploration: life is not meant for boredom... we are supposed to be able to give steady example of loving in action and an increasing capacity for erasing the boundaries we have placed upon our hearts... How do we live s-o-u-l? Plato said that love is the pursuit of the whole... And the Dalai Lama has said that the purpose of life is to increase the warm heart. Think of other people. Serve other people sincerely... and that if we cannot do that, at least do not harm... Henry Miller, of course, has had much to say about our human condition, to make life more beautiful, more wonderful, more deep and satisfying, we must gaze with fresh, clear vision upon every contributing element of life... All of this is s-o-u-l... welcome home is the call and response of s-o-u-l... welcome home... it really is about an honest, intentional, practice...  How Do You Spell Soul?
Do you spell "soul" ... s-o-u-l ? Of course you do, and, on the one hand, you are exactly correct... but, on the other, not so much... Because soul is not a thing, nor is it an it... and it is more than person... S-o-u-l is not something that a human possesses... rather, it is more like our secret, unfolding, identity which we build, form, and unleash with the assistance of the Divine Beloved... There are quite a number of ways in which we can spell "soul"... like, eye-gazing, forest-walking, gardening, music, poetry, sexing, praying, and playing... S-o-u-l is a moveable feast, centered in our heart-mind, that exists as an open invitation into the being-ness of the Beloved, and the joining in the loving-action of that same Beloved... S-o-u-l is not something that we have as an add-on to our bodies, nor is it an invisible thing that pervades our mind-body-being... S-o-u-l is the very delight and wholeness that is ours for the building... S-o-u-l is the hunger of the Divine for a Divine Mutuality... Or, as Simone Weil said, "We have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love"... This is not a "little thing"... It is, instead, something truly extraordinary! We have been invited to "become Love"! This is soul-making, our truly great human purpose and meaning... David Hinton, in his extraordinary book Existence, explains the insight of the Tao Te Ching and of Taoist philosophy as the no difference between empty awareness and expansive presence... Here in the beginning, there is this existence-tissue open to itself, miraculously and inexplicably aware of itself, when there might just as well be nothing but opaque existence, existence blind to itself! Vast and deep, everything and everywhere -- the sheer presence of materiality is open to itself through our eyes, aware of itself here in the beginning. The story of existence is a self-portrait... (Existence, pg. 9) S-o-u-l is our personal contribution to the self-portrait of the Existence Beloved... Obviously, this begs for some clarity on the how? My preference is to boil my thoughts down to a fine, clear, broth and then to work backwards from there: I define that "clear broth" as a Rule, or Way, of Life: 1) Cause no harm; 2) Because that is a virtual impossibility, cause as little harm as possible; 3) Be available to inspiration; 4) Be open and vulnerable to life (the Divine); and 5) This is not a test... but a lifestyle... And lifestyle is always a beginning with the Kingdom of God is within you (Yeshua bar Alaha), or as I might rephrase, the Home of the Beloved is within you... Chopping wood, carrying water is the way an ancient Chinese Zen Master put it: in other words, it is precisely in your daily life that the Home that you seek is located, and at least occasionally found... Spiritual development is not going to church, temple, mosque, forest, or hot tub... It could very well include any or all of the above, but it is not other than your everyday life... So the essential question is how to make the everyday part of your path and to experience the holy right there? This business of living is not unique to you: whew! There has got to be some liberation in that awareness! But, there are a number of threads common to nearly every human life, and these threads are: family, intimacy and sex, work, play, prayer, body-care, mind-care, community action, and community building... Henry David Thoreau seriously suggested that we read well... so I guess that that means, in the context of this blog, to read folks like Rumi, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, along with a favorite Sacred Scripture source... Perhaps not too much, but certainly enough to intentionally cultivate open eyes... The opening of your hands and hearts, into limitless expansion is the work of a lifetime... Intentional, gifted service to others, especially to folks who have been marginalized by poverty, injustice, harm, and addictions (response to harm), is of great importance! Thoreau famously wrote Simplify! Simplify! Simplify! And I would add Service! Service! Service! Free service to / for / and with folks in need is essential spirituality... So that your heart will begin to experience an expansion of its boundaries... (which can be limitless! after all, you have been made in the image and likeness of the Divine!) Finally, s-o-u-l means the intentional cultivation of thoughts that are directed to compassion, kindness, nonviolence, and contemplation... Prayer without ceasing is the shared wisdom of the Masters, regardless of the particular spiritual path that they trod, male or female, it matters not... The easiest way of such prayer is to link it to your in-coming and out-going breath (you do breathe in your every moment, don't you?)... Select a Holy Name of the Beloved, and link it with your breath... Sit, several times a day, for contemplative re-charge... And, as often as possible, say I love You and I thank You, to the Beloved whom you adore (as to the beloveds of your life): this is, as it were, the Golden Thread of Soul...  Making it sacred... but, isn't it already?
The obviousness of isn't it already is lost to most politicians, economists, religionists, and yes, to most of the rest of us... but to the very honest teenager, looking forward into a future of Planetary eco-destruction, isn't it already is a rEvolutionary insight... And given that most adults are cowards, it leaves us unmotivated to much of anything: which is exactly what conspicuous consumption is all about... we are addicts to a culture of rabid nonsense... Isn't it already is the rEvolution of the Word made flesh... Flesh, not pristine air, not raging fire, but animal... but human... To be human is to be of the Earth, of the Earth, and only then, of the Spirit... Flesh births soul / spirit / consciousness: flesh is the vehicle for the self-realization of Primal Oneness... of the Word that issues forth from the Primal Source... Word of Time and Space... Word of sacred Place... Word Here and Now... Isn't it already means something... Here is a version of the Word according to Wendell Berry: We must achieve the character and acquire the skills to live much poorer than we do. We must waste less. We must do more for ourselves and each other. It is either that or continue merely to think and talk about changes that we are inviting catastrophe to make... The great obstacle is simply this: the conviction that we cannot change because we are dependent on what is wrong. But that is the addict's excuse, and we know that it will not do... We can read Jesus' Parable of the Good Black Panther, the Good Illegal Immigrant, or the Good Samaritan (take your pick) and still refuse to change... But, the very honest teenager sees (and knows)... We fucking do not believe in the Word made flesh... And so we stay the same... Isn't it already sees the sparrow and knows that it is sacred: sees a cow in a field and knows that it is sacred: sees a naked human body and wants to believe that it is sacred, too... but we adults let thousands of kids die of hunger and malnutrition every day: we build for profit weapons of mass destruction: we prioritize gun rights over children: we enjoy the profits of oil at the cost of the hundreds of species that slide into extinction every day... and on and on... On every level we live lives of proof that the human body is not sacred: we make children and don't actually revere them enough to adore the Word made flesh in them!!! We shop the grocery stores, malls, and internet in a stunning dullness of proof that the bodies, souls, and spirits of our children are fundamentally meaningless: certainly not the Word made flesh... So, making it Sacred is about making change... if not for us adults, then at least for our children and for the children they will have: and the Word made flesh is our starting point. And the Word is not a demand. Neither is it a correct belief. Rather, it is a declaration of intention: We give our word, we announce our sacred intention, to live in such a way that we will make a kind and good human future possible: we dedicate our flesh, for the remainder of our days, to this sacred cause... We, too, might look out upon the sparrow and the cow as sacred, as integral, to the interconnectivity of all life on this precious blue Planet... Heretofore, religion has seduced too many of us into belief (the easy path), instead of love in action... It is true, as Dostoevsky wrote, Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams... Love in action is the harsh and dreadful realization that we, all along, have been walking the path of global suicide in our cowardice, our policies, and our consumptive lust... But the teenager is pleading: Will you not wake up from your horrible dream, for our sake, if not for your own? Will you not save this Planet, our Home? And the Word was made flesh... is the option we can choose... or not...  One would think, if objectively observing us humans, that we are quite sincere in our finding pleasure in pain. We cultivate pain, indeed, we have made of pain a science, a religion, and an economics... I remember a coach shouting to us, that motley crew of seventh grade boys in physical education class, "No pain! No gain!"
If you might have an inkling for exploring the relationship between "pain" and religion, I very highly recommend the writings of Riane Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade and Sacred Pleasure). Sacred Pleasure, especially is a masterly book, replete with extraordinary insight and wisdom. I am wondering if you have already made the connection between "pain" and domination and the basic structures of human relationships and society? The co-opting of Jesus (Yeshua bar Alaha) by the evolving, yet already dominant, human social structures (male) -- from radical, nonviolent and feminist, Rabbi, to Authorized Savior and Judge -- is both stunning and bizarre (well, not really: dead and twisted heroes always make for good copy). It worked, right? Christianity became the primary and dominant social force and the "curator" of Western Civilization. Now weakened as an institution by international and competing forces, it nevertheless is cemented in powerful perspectives, attitudes, and actions (policies). Men continue to dominate women: humans dominate the environment: and violence, or the threat of violence, lurks around every corner. Ah, but the mystics! Yes! There is a vigorous flow in that underground river... Every religion has birthed its share of mystics (indicating a likewise vigorous essential unity of spirit)... Streams of mystic practice and thought pervades the world: the Tao; yoga, and yogis like Ramakrishna, Yogananda, Aurobindo, Mahatma Gandhi, Anandamayi Ma, Neem Karoli Baba, and Amma; Islam, Sufism and practitioners like Rumi, Hafiz, Kabir, Lal Dal, Irina Tweedie, and Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan; Judaism, the Kabbalah, and Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel; Buddhism and saints and practitioners like Thich Nhat Hahn, the Dalai Lama, and Pema Chodron; and, of course, Christianity and saints like Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Martin Luther King, Jr., William Stringfellow, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, and Dorothy Day, ... Inspired by the mystics and saints, countless numbers of human beings have let their light shine in the darkness of domination, exploitation, injustice, and violence. And here's the essential thing: alternatives to domination abound in the minds, hearts, and lives of these Leaders of a New Earth and Spirit! Small groups and intentional communities are the yeast of global transformation, leading inevitably to an approaching tipping point... We are now everywhere: we are where Women are ordained and organizing; we are where a Soup Kitchen opens and the hungry are fed; we are where friends meditate, conversate, and read poetry together; we are where one person or crowds march for science, gun control, and peace; we are where Black Lives Matter; we are where children are free and adored; we are where women are demanding and living equality; we are where LGBTQ lives are equal and cherished; we are where Earth is cherished, honored, and regenerated as our home; and we are where there are circles of prayer, contemplation, gardening, loving, and re-creating the meaning and heart of community... We are Church-Temple-Mosque! Yeshua bar Alaha (Jesus) is the prophet of our human possibilities and future. Imagine the extraordinary possibilities seeded within the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and the stunning revelation of human meaning and purpose as revealed in Jesus' Parable of the Last Judgment: I was hungry and you fed me: whatsoever you do to the least person among you, to every person and to the Earth itself, you do the very same to me! (Matthew 25). Jesus, Master-Mystic, has given humanity a Tao, a Way, a Gospel meant to guide us in our active participation in the un-folding of divine life on Earth: we are not meant for the exploding shit of violence, cruelty, injustice, and exploitation (the dominator paradigm): but instead, we are meant for beatitude, the natural bliss of awakening into loving and neighborliness... Don't you think so? What are you going to do with your one precious life? (Mary Oliver)  A nation that cannot accept complications and contradictions is ripe for the simple answers of an authoritarian.
And so here we are... but I begin with myself: I love the study of history! I actually revel in the contradictions that each person before me has lived. Most of us humans live our normal lives of small circles: we are born, we live, we study to varying degrees, we work, we want intimacy, maybe we want a family, we hope to stay as healthy as we can for as long as we can, eventually we all suffer, and, of course, we do stop breathing... But, a few from our number live in big circles: impacting perhaps, generations and nations... Thomas Jefferson lived a big circle: writer of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States. He also founded a University. More American streets are named Jefferson than with any other name... But, he was also a slave owner. Had sex with one or more of his slaves. And had a slave family... How is it that the man who penned the words all men are created equal could not free himself from the contradiction of owning other human beings? It is likely now that most Americans know some of the secrets of many of our national heroes (and international one's as well). Obfuscations, distortions, blunders, and lies are part and parcel of our national history. Indeed, of our human condition! We can't do anything about Washington, Jefferson, Fr. Serra, Lincoln, Roosevelt (Teddy or Franklin), Kennedy, Johnson, King., and on and on... And it is equally clear that we can even do very little in managing our own complicated lives and contradictions... To one degree or another, though, we prefer to be around people who, at the least, give the impression that they respect us and, again at the least, are relatively honest. Most of us, if we were a boss on a job site, would fire an employee who was a frequent liar, overtly disrespectful, or was simply failing to honor and support the team. This is pretty much across the board, isn't it? But what about institutions of power that obfuscate, distort, or lie? And what about individual persons who ascend to positions of power but who, as a matter of course (if not of policy), indulge in similar behaviors and tactics? Any analysis, even a superficial one (like this one), of our history, our current events, and our climate of information-knowledge-sharing and dialogue (both lacking), inevitably must wrestle with all of the obvious complications and contradictions: not giving them a pass, but engaging in the requirements of a rugged honesty is a beginning. But there is still more! And this more really gets to the crux of the matter. Our sense of community has been all but lost: we no longer live as much for our neighbors as for ourselves... Neighborliness (yet not forgetting the complications and contradictions) was the foundational principle of Jefferson's democratic idea: as it was for Fr. Serra, Mahatma Gandhi, and other now vilified thinkers and activists. Their faults and failures notwithstanding, they have something important to say, especially to struggling democracies... Neighborliness requires an open and honest relationship... Relationship always means a sharing of neighbor-to-neighbor-interest-and-regard... Neighborliness conveys itself through the daily evidence of caring... Indeed, the "creed" of a good neighbor is I care, therefore I am... In other words, the good neighbor finds her core identity in the continuing good of her neighbor... I can hear someone from the back row muttering, "Well, who is my neighbor?" At the very least, an American who aspires to good citizenship will say, "Everyone who lives in my country is my neighbor!" One could say that the perfection of our common humanity lies precisely in this neighborliness... Simply put, if I genuinely care for my neighbor, I will listen, I will learn, and I will apply what I have learned to better our relationship: when needed, I will forgive: when I have wronged, I will with gratitude accept forgiveness... Further, I will actively pursue the conditions that will improve the lives of my neighbors! Surely, you can imagine all of the possibilities inherent in neighborliness! And if you have not yet made the connections, neighborliness is the solution to racism, sexism, systemic injustice, greed, the eco-destruction of our neighborhoods (world), policing, violence, etc. And note: no authoritarian will plead for an increase in neighborliness. Rather, he will inevitably amplify every possible complication and contradiction: because it suits his basic lust for profit and for power. And note again: neighborliness is loving our neighbor (our neighbor is our "other self")...  Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk, Writer, Poet
I suppose by now it is an evident axiom that in every spiritual study and practice to pray means to change... could that be the reason why we, individually and collectively, create the conditions which very nearly make change impossible? If, as William Blake said, we are put on earth for a little space that we may learn to bear the beams of love, shouldn't we wonder at our perpetuating wheel of uncontrollable fears, hatreds, violence, and greed? Isn't it increasingly obvious that we are, individually and collectively, in dire need of an interior climate change? I do not subscribe to the idea that prayer begins with either our sufferings or our desires. Instead, I am certain that prayer actually begins with wonder and celebration... oh, we do tend to "throw up" a prayer before a job interview, if there is an accident involving a loved one, or we are in a "church, temple, mosque, or forest"... Emergency or "required" prayers can be likened to the lowest rung on a ladder... But we only enter genuine prayer when we have already forgotten ourselves and are simply jumping for joy or exploding with the delight of wonder... The revolution of Jesus is that horrible! thought / conviction: the kingdom of God is within you... and, obviously by extension, the kingdom of God is among you... And there I was -- and you are -- wanting the safety of a completely different time and place! The very last thing that any of us want is to have to look into the mirror of our mind and see, looking back at us, the truth of our lazy cowardice: we have likely become the very antithesis of the One Whom we have claimed to love... How many years, now, have we gone faithfully to Mass, to Temple, or to wherever, and we are still filled to overflowing with a will-full refusal to become a saint? To be "saved" is a lousy theology and a lousy response to the absolute wonder of being alive! Our absolute astonishment to the wonder of life should / must absolutely convince us to create the conditions necessary for every human being to thrive and reach her / his full development (read Matthew 25)... Whatsoever you do to the least among you, you do to me, because the Kingdom is always right here, right now... This whatsoever you do is the Works of Mercy, the Works of Peace and Justice... But we only see this, and only to the degree, that we are intentionally cultivating an interior climate change... We need a ruthless honesty: the world situation sucks! Predatory capitalism is raping the entire Planet: greed is consuming resources, species, and human beings: violence is justified, especially by Right-Wing governments and Neo-fascist groups: religions are the opiates of the people (to either shut us up or create rabid fanatics): women are still not equal: racism is rampant: children are kidnapped and sold as sex slaves: and the world is, all at the same time, burning, flooding, drying up, and scaring the shit out of scientists and thinking people... Our existential situation requires a rugged commitment to prayer, change, and a new kind of sanctity. Rabbi Isaac the Blind taught the inner, subtle essences can be contemplated only by sucking, not by knowing... This is fundamental to the rungs on the ladder of prayer! Each step is a step into the "sucking" of lover-to-lover... (Now would be a good time to go back and read The Song of Songs in the Hebrew Scriptures.) Sucking is the kingdom of God within you... All sorts of "knots" have tied us all up: fear of women, fear of God, fear of change, and the fear of death are at the top of the list: prayer is the un-tying of the knots that constrict our minds, hearts, and bodies... Genuine prayer liberates us from all those things that keep us living small, measly, and mean... Prayer is... Come my Beloved, this is the hour and the life of loving... Whew! This is getting a tad bit long! I'll try to bring this post to a close by way of a few suggestions... I need the "scaffolding" of certain regular "rituals" or practices -- you are likely the same, so, here goes: I use Celtic Daily Prayer by the Northumbria Community, Celtic Benediction by John Philip Newell, and Whispers From Eternity by Paramahansa Yogananda as primary "go to" guides into cultivating an interior climate change... A prayer rope, or beads, are almost always in my pocket: recite the Name of the Divine Beloved with the beads (often)... Learn and practice meditation: Thich Nhat Hahn has written excellent books on meditation and spiritual cultivation... Don't ever again listen to Rush Limbaugh (if you ever have!), instead, read the lives of the Saints, like Hildegard, Francis, Eckhart, Rumi, Abraham Heschel, Teresa of Avila, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., Thomas Merton... Read Mary Oliver and Rumi! Read Riane Eisler, Ram Dass, Andrew Harvey, and Matthew Fox: make the necessary connections between your liberation and the liberation of every other human being and this entire precious Blue Planet! Come, my friends! 'Tis not too late to seek either a new 'you' and a new world!  There are likely few persons who will have an inkling as to who the woman in the above photo is... do you? She is Tasha Tudor, the wonderful children's book illustrator, who, besides being an artist, also chose to live the tradition of an 1830's life... Eccentric, bizarre, crazed, and grandmother to the hippies? Why would anyone want to live an 1800's way of life?
A cabin in the woods, a wood stove, a large garden, a working barn, many animals, daily chores: and artistic, intellectual, and spiritual praxis besides... sort of a lay contemplative lifestyle... Are we getting somewhere now? Unraveling tradition leads to the understanding that it was in the Paleolithic, that humans began to be aware of themselves as separate from natural from natural process (David Hinton, Tao Te Ching)... Perhaps, as much as anything else, tradition is the conscious effort to recover the "lost" natural mind... For many, tradition equates with religion, politics, and economics (and so culture). Few look for the contemplative or the unitive, preferring to settle for the convenience of opinion... and a "tradition" that extends not much further than the ends of one's nose, or the lifespans of one's parents and grandparents... Conveniently, I suppose, this is considered conservative... when what we need is radical... But, from the perspective of the contemplative and the unitive, tradition is both revolutionary and evolutionary... Revolutionary in the sense of a fundamental rejection of the assumptions of contemporary society: greed as the basis for world economics: power as the justification for violence and oppression: sexism and racism as the key ingredients for social division: and religion as the sword of social control and domination... Evolutionary in the sense of a fundamental shift in perspective and consciousness: continuing along the current path is a social suicide. Tradition is the hidden wholeness that we intuitively seek. Tradition is the elemental realization that there can be no going forward without an integration of the values, the mystique, of a contemplative and unitive way of life... if you will, it is the everyday sacred that we are sorely missing... Go ahead and "Google" photos of Tasha Tudor: you might be both amazed and intrigued! Perhaps happiness (the most fundamental human desire) just might be possible -- by a not-so-subtle-shift in values... In other words, there is a spiritual ecology to a truly human culture and means of social organization... Organic doesn't just mean "without chemical additions", but rather the happiness of living well, sharing, and genuine community... If you are interested in exploring these ideas further, one place to start could be reading The Wisdom Jesus by Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault... Others sources would be The Hope by Andrew Harvey, The Rebirthing of God by John Philip Newell, and The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel... Of course, Fr. Richard Rohr OFM, Rev. Matthew Fox, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Arundhati Roy, Vandana Shiva, Alan Watts, Helen and Scott Nearing, Riane Eisler, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, and adrienne maree brown are essential... A little treasure of a book is, Prayers of the Cosmos, by Neil Douglas-Klotz (meditations on the Aramaic words of Jesus)... Finally, read poetry! Mary Oliver, Diane di Prima, Gary Snyder, Robert Bly, Allen Ginsberg, Pablo Neruda, Rumi and Hafiz... Oh, and, of course, Ram Dass: Be Here Now and Be Love Now... |
AuthorRobert Daniel Smith was privileged to serve the homeless and marginalized for 30 years in California. He is living now almost within shouting distance of the Twin Cities. He is a poet, artist, writer, and long-time Companion of the Way still dreaming... Archives
May 2022
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