C3/CCC Sermon Transcript for March 9, 2008
Yesterday I hiked in Pigeon Creek with my 8 year old son. It was truly beautiful; crisp, clear and very calm. At a certain point we stopped and listened. We stood in awe of the still scene. The only sound was the gentle rustling of leaves. It was a timeless moment. My son turned to me and said, “Where are the birds?” I suggested they were somewhere in Florida. He then said something very profound. He said, “I bet it would sound a lot different when the birds come back.” We plan to go back to the same spot in two months and listen for the difference Sometimes it takes the alertness of a young child to bring me back to the wise patterns of nature. If only more people would learn from nature, there would be less suffering in the world. The uncluttered stillness of winter takes you back to what is essential. Winter transitioning to spring reminds you that all things change; both the moments of joy and beauty and the moments of pain and hardship. So much human suffering would end with just that one shift in consciousness, that change is the nature of life. Ma’at and Nature’s Balance Cultures have always found ways of celebrating change and the patterns of nature. Early cultures created religions around gods and goddesses that reflected the patterns of nature. One of the early Egyptian goddesses was Ma’at. Ma’at was high up in the pantheon of Gods, maybe a little lower than the oldest and most universally revered Goddess Isis. Ma’at was the goddess of order and truth. She watched over nature’s patterns, ensuring that the sun rose each morning, passed overhead, and set at evening. Ma'at ensured that the seasons and time passed as they should. She ensured that people were born, lived, and died in an orderly fashion. The Egyptians believed that nature’s patterns manifested the balance of the universe, or Ma’at. The Egyptians also believed in a form of natural law, similar to the principle enshrined in the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Natural law emphasizes the rights of all individuals , regardless of gender, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Natural law is the foundation for the western justice system. For the Egyptians, natural law was Ma’at. Egyptians believed that all people could find guidance and meaning in the patterns or order of nature. Nature and Intuition Ma’at, the notion of order, truth and balance was later expressed both as Sophia and Logos. Sophia was intuitive wisdom and Logos was rational or learnt wisdom. Sophia is trusting your gut. Logos is verifying your assumptions. Ma’at is often depicted holding a feather. When the balance of nature is off, even by the weight of a feather, the earth suffers and people suffer. Both Sophia and Logos are essential, but the religious balance has tipped over the last several thousand years almost exclusively towards Logos, and being guided by external authorities. The result is a loss of trust in intuition. I want to call you back to your inner and deeply reliable wisdom. Reclaim your inner Ma’at. Men and women alike have access to the most exquisite wisdom if you would just trust your gut and be alert to the wise patterns of the universe. Today, I am joined by my colleague Toni Van Dyken. Our hope in this conversation is to reflect on the divine feminine and nature, and each express our unique balance of yin and yang, Sophia and Logos, feminine and masculine. So can I ask you Toni to talk a little about how you experience the divine feminine spirit through nature? Toni Van Dyken: I am grateful to Layne Redmond. Her book, “When the Drummers were Women” traces the Goddess as Earth in an unbroken chain from earliest humanity. The Goddess offers us that feeling of connection or belonging to the earth. Just as in a drumming meditation, we feel grounded in our bodies and grounded in earth consciousness. Beech Trees and Earth Connection I had a great experience this winter with nature in spite of or maybe as a result of the snow staying on the ground as long as it did. It began in December. As I drove back and forth to church, I became aware of small spots of color. They were on smaller lacy trees holding on to their ochre and caramel-colored leaves and other trees holding parchment or ivory-colored leaves. At first it was just out of the corner of my eye. These colors would flash by in my periphery. And then one day, during one of the thaws we had, a mist rose above the melting snow, the sun hidden behind layers and layers of grayed clouds, and these flashes of color captivated my attention. It was as if their luminescence – their colors shining without the sun -- were singing to me, calling to me. I was aware of the “singing underneath”, the One song, the Uni-verse and its connection to me. The “one song” of their colors began to appear in my dreams and meditations: rich copper, chestnut, caramel, toffee, beige, buckskin, and some ivory, butter, light gold, pale apricot, golden salmon – a variety of colors. I even found a poster by a Michigan artist who had photographed these very same conditions, and discovered they were beech trees. Now as I drove back and forth I began to look for them. Always in stands of taller trees, the smaller trees held onto their leaves or the leaves on their lower branches, probably growing in shade the rest of the year. Why were these leaves holding on? Compelled and impelled I had to have a few of those leaves, so I stopped. The sides of the road hadn’t been plowed. I hoped there wasn’t something under the snow that would damage my car or that I wouldn’t get stuck in the deeper snow. Now, sheriffs frequently travel along my route home. What would I say to them if they asked me what I was doing? Was there a rational explanation? Would it suffice to say I wanted to paint a room in my house that caramel/apricot color and I just had to have them? I stepped into the woods, a thin crunchy top to the snow and walked up to the stand of trees. They were much taller than when I was flying by at 50 or 60 miles an hour. I looked back. Even though I had only taken a few steps into the woods, my car seemed much smaller. I seemed a long way off from where I had come. I took in the sky, the snow, the branches, the leaves and felt in a place without time. I felt totally at One in the heartbeat of Mother Earth... Knowing some shamanic principles I asked permission to take some of the leaves. It was tough to pull them off! I noticed they were weathering, chemically altering even while they were holding on. I took the leaves home. I put them in my journal. I wrote about them. But it wasn’t enough to hold them. There was something More. The “singing underneath” wasn’t complete. What amazed me was that in all the 20-plus years I have been driving back and forth, why hadn’t I ever noticed these beech trees before? They had been there all along. New Expressions of Ancient Knowledge In a discussion with a friend I told her about the experience with beech trees. A week later she gave me some information on beech trees from a book on Celtic spirituality. Another spirituality based on the earth as Goddess. The Celtic meaning of beech trees is to experience a re-discovery of an old book, to re-experience an old teaching, old place, or old writing. An ancient teaching? An old tradition? You mean, like getting a theology degree from a Roman Catholic college? Like researching where Christianity had come from? How could beech trees know this about me? Could the Celtic meaning of beech trees simply be part of the “collective unconscious” which Carl Jung taught and now I was ready to see the connection? Were beech trees an archetype for me? I also looked up the Native American shamanic teaching about beech trees and it was worded a little differently: beech trees signify the time is right for new expressions of ancient knowledge. Sounds progressive to me! It felt as if the colors of the beech leaves and their luminescence were an affirmation for my journey. I can’t explain those compelling, impelling feelings or knowing about the “singing underneath” but over the weeks and months I stayed with them. In those moments I felt connected to the earth, connected to the Goddess, felt instructed by her, and deepened my understanding of who I am. Ian, what is your experience with nature and the Divine Feminine? Ian Lawton: Toni, you spoke powerfully about your experience of beech trees. I want to speak just about the beach. The element of nature I relate most strongly to is water. I was born a Pisces, and grew up in a beach culture. As a youngster, it would be nothing for me to spend 5 or 6 hours at a time in the surf. The only thing that could drag me out of the water was extreme hunger. Swimming in the ocean has always restored my spirit. The ocean is both cool and refreshing, and also wild and dangerous. I learnt to respect the power of the ocean from an early age. When I was back in Sydney at Christmas, there were some wild seas and the beaches were closed for almost a week. You wouldn’t believe the agony of waiting that long, traveling that far, and then not being able to reunite with the ocean. It did give me a chance to consider how significant the ocean is for me. The Ocean and Spiral Flow The first thing about the ocean that I find powerful is that it flows in circular, spiral currents rather than in predictable and linear movements. The Logos based religion most people grew up with was presented as linear. Truth was given to you by external authorities like railway tracks. If you follow the tracks, you get to the destination. The problem is that life is rarely like that. Life moves in swirls and spirals, and the principle of Ma’at is that there is no one path and there are no tracks that fit all people. There is just the boundless ocean of human experience. It is unchartered. You live well to the extent that you merge with the movements of the ocean. Ma’at is closely relate to what Taoism calls “the way” or “the Tao”. There is a Taoist story that relates here- An old woman accidentally fell into some river rapids leading to a high and dangerous waterfall. Onlookers feared for her life. Miraculously, she came out alive and unharmed downstream at the bottom of the falls. She was asked how she managed to survive. This was her answer- "I accommodated myself to the water, not the water to me. Without thinking, I allowed myself to be shaped by it. Plunging into the swirl, I came out with the swirl. This is how I survived. I became one with the water’s movement." This is what I mean when I say to trust your gut. Stop over thinking life, and trust the flow of your own intuition. Allow it to lead you to great wisdom. Its one of the first lessons of the beach- if you get caught in a riptide, swim with the undertow rather than against it. Follow the current until it takes you out past the riptide. Then you can swim parallel to the shore, past the riptide and safely back to shore. Most deaths in riptides are caused by exhaustion. Choosing not to follow your gut can be dangerous and exhausting. Go with the flow for a fuller life. Rivers Become One with the Ocean The second profound lesson from water is the relationship between rivers and the ocean. The beautiful thing about rivers is not so much that they meet the ocean, but rather that they merge with the ocean. They become one with the ocean. The river is moving and growing to BE the ocean. It’s not an easy journey, and it’s often dangerous. You make errors and often lose your breath, but water is a symbol for your inner consciousness that connects you with all things. Become one with your intuition. Some of my favorite moments in life have taken place in the ocean. I can spend hours surfing, and lose all track of time. I even lose some sense of separate self as I become one with the fluid movements of the water. Water is Universal My third point about water is that water is universal. The ocean has long been related to the Divine Feminine, as well as being related to the vast subconscious inner world. More than 70% of the earth is water. Ocean waters flow from pole to pole and return in reverse currents in what is called the "Global Ocean Conveyer Belt." More than two thirds of the human body is water. A person can’t live for more than a week without water. Water is life force and life flow. Water has a message for men and women alike. Think of the water in your bodies, and the flow of waters in the earth as Ma’at- your guiding principle. It wants to teach you if only you would be alert and trust the flow. You have been told for so long and so often by religion that you need some external guidance. Ma’at reminds you that you have all that you need within, and that nature offers the patterns for intuitive living. Trust your inner wisdom. It is vast like the ocean. Become one with the ocean of life. Toni, how can the divine feminine make a difference in people’s lives? Toni Van Dyken: I really like your image of fluid oneness – of fluid intimacy. The Divine Feminine offers us a connection to the earth. Not every nature experience offers us deep meaning but it does offer us deep connection, that feeling of being “One”. Gerry May, a psychiatrist and spiritual director for over 30 years called these experiences in nature, “unitive experiences”. He claimed all people have them. Most of the time, they happen in fleeting moments and are lost because we haven’t been trained to stay in them, to ride with them. Relying on a male sky god, we haven’t learned to value them or value nature itself. Meditation and contemplative practices are considered to be feminine due to their receptive posture. They prepare us and teach us about staying in the present moment, extending the present moment by going deeper into that moment. Intimacy and Autonomy Another reason the experiences in nature get lost or are fleeting is that we are not free or vulnerable enough to stay in the intimacy of that moment of self-discovery. In my training on human development and stages of growth, I learned that growth is the interplay between intimacy and autonomy. Here again we have masculine and feminine values in balance. Autonomy is the masculine value of independence and a sense of our self as differentiated. Intimacy is the feminine value of becoming transparent and vulnerable in our relationships. Intimacy and autonomy are both necessary to our development. That interplay between intimacy and autonomy is like the harmony of the masculine and feminine, the balance of earth and sky, the yin/yang, Logos and Sophia. If you would, imagine the yin/yang as a three-dimensional ball constantly tumbling and rolling around, allowing feminine here and then masculine there. Consider how important a yoga practice is which flows between yang -masculine and yin-feminine postures in balance and ease. Could progressives take the next step into the dance with the Divine Feminine by letting beech trees, dogs, and sunsets sing to us, by riding the waves of fluid oneness, by listening for the rhythms of Mother Earth, by engaging in her lunar cycles, experiencing all of her seasons? As you become more fully yourselves, find ways to re-balance your lives to include the Divine Feminine – to find ways of belonging to the Earth, ways of being One? The rock band U2 has a song called “One” and it goes something like this, “We are One, we are not the same, but we carry each other. We carry each other.” May it be so.
close window | ^ top | home |