Tag: Nature

Our roots are deep, despite the wind

Karl Duffy8 Comments

The strong winds on Sunday night blew the last leaves from the trees and they stand bare in the garden, clearly seen against the grey sky. Snow fell on the tops of the nearby Jura mountains. I was involved in a retreat over the weekend where we reflected on Kabir’s beautiful words “Throw away all thoughts of imaginary things and stand firm in that which you are“. However, as we all experience from time to time,  that firmness does not always seem so near, and we can be blown by winds of doubt and self-criticism. It feels cold and we think we are alone.  In moments like these we have to be patient. We cannot see the whole picture or understand why things are happening. When moments seem dark we can identify with what is going on in our emotions and get fixed there. We settle quickly into the negative feelings about ourself or our life,  turn in on ourselves and close down. However, the theme of the weekend,  and the weather outside,  remind us to keep our roots deep in the goodness underneath, and not in what passes through the mind.  We do not need to hold on to what is happening. Some kinds of unknowing are right. We trust even if we cannot see.  In waiting,  even in difficult moments,  what is coming to pass is gradually revealed.

I prefer winter …… when you feel the bone structure of the landscape  –  the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.

Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.

Andrew Wyatt,  American Painter

A winter grace

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Authenticity is the expression of what is genuine and natural. It commands great respect because, unfortunately, it is so rare. The desire to be accepted, or to engage in competition and comparison, drives us to limit our behavior to what falls within narrowly prescribed, predictable norms. Ridding ourselves of old patterns and accessing the authentic self are entry ways to freedom and the domain of wisdom. In fact, as we discover how to befriend these processes, ageing and renewing our character can be what Carl Jung called, “A winter grace.” Jung believed that if we do not develop inner strength as we age, we will become defensive, dogmatic, depressed, resentful, and cynical. Our homeland of authenticity is within, and there we are sovereign. Until we rediscover this ancient truth in a way that is unique for each of us, we are condemned to wander, seeking solace in the outer world where it cannot be found.

Angeles Arrien, The Second Half of Life

Trusting and falling

Karl Duffy1 Comment

If we surrender
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things
because they are in God’s heart
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall patiently,  to trust our heaviness
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.

Rilke, Book of Hours, II, 16

Setting time for deep listening

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I trust the mystery.  I trust what comes in silence and what comes in nature where there’s no diversion.  I think the lack of stimulation allows us to hear and experience a deeper river that’s constant, still, vibrant, and real.  And the process of deep listening with attention and intention catalyzes and mobilizes exactly what’s needed at that time.

Angeles Arrien.

The winds in the trees, the sound of the stream

Karl Duffy1 Comment

No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees. These pages seek nothing more than to echo the silence and peace that is “heard” when the rain wanders freely among the hills and forests. But what can the wind say when there is no hearer? There is then a deeper silence: the silence in which the Hearer is No-Hearer. That deeper silence must be heard before one can speak truly of solitude.

Thomas Merton, Preface to Japanese translation of Thoughts in Solitude

What if I knew I would never see it again?

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Exploring nature with your child is largely a matter of becoming receptive to what lies all around you. It is learning again to use your eyes, ears, nostrils, and finger tips, opening up the disused channels of sensory impression. For most of us, knowledge of our world comes largely through sight, yet we look about with such unseeing eyes that we are partially blind. One way to open your eyes to unnoticed beauty is to ask yourself, “What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?

Rachel Carson, Ecologist , The Sense of Wonder.