TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SCHIZOID MAN

Jul 04, 2025

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SCHIZOID MAN

My writing is something that makes me wish to aspire to something far greater than myself. I want to somehow, someway, some day make a difference in someone’s life. So I write it, post it, and for the most part it goes unnoticed. But if a writer is looking for affirmation, then it becomes redundant. Do you want praise, material gain, or ‘success’? If so, you should stop writing. So, I send what I write to Sub Stack like a prayer sent out into the world. And it is a painful experience, writing, at least to me it is.

Our work is to make ourselves visible in the world. This is the soul’s individual journey, and the soul would much rather fail at its own life, than succeed at someone else’s. I hold myself to priorities that cannot be discerned by others, because they reside in far too private a chamber of personal experience to be shared easily. To have faith in a foundation you have discovered in life, and which, though it is difficult to describe, even to yourself, you refuse to relinquish it.

CONFUSION WILL BE MY EPITAPH

The wall on which the prophets wrote

Is cracking at the seams

Upon the instruments of death

The sunlight brightly gleams.

Confusion will be my epitaph

As I crawl a cracked and broken path

If we make it, we can all sit back and laugh

But I feel tomorrow I’ll be crying.

=======================================================

Knowledge is a deadly friend

If no one sets the rules.

The fate of all mankind, I see

Is in the hands of fools.

Confusion will be my epitaph

As I crawl a cracked and broken path.

If we make it, we can all sit back and laugh

But I fear tomorrow we’ll be crying.

But I fear tomorrow we’ll be crying. Epitaph by King Crimson

TURN OFF THE SIGNAL: WIPE OUT THE NOISE : The world we live in has turned to noise: loud conversations, loud engines, loud music that speaks with a violent tongue, loud politicians, loud religious leaders, loud everything, the loud thud of a bomb that destroys your home, hospital and your children. It has become so pervasive, we are not even aware of it. We no longer have the capacity of listening to each other, and the person who shouts the loudest is the only one who is heard. The world, in essence, is turning to noise. How do we make ourselves heard above all this noise? More importantly, how do we find peace in silence?

ABSURDITY: The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all there is only absurdity and more absurdity. And maybe that is what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity. Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

‘A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost their sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who hasn’t acquired full the ‘having mode of existence’- briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing- cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, and isolated in present day society.

They cannot help doubting themselves and their own convictions, if not their sanity. They cannot help suffering, even though they can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of their ‘normal contemporaries’. Not rarely, they will suffer from anxiety and depression that results from the situation of a sane person living in an insane society.’ Erich Fromm.

Find a place inside where there is joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.. Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy! .

‘Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system for the attainment of human purposes? Life is meaningless. You bring the meaning to it. One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to it. The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.’ Joseph Campbell

Somehow, through thick or thin, I did manage to resist this world’s harsh need to make me into everyone else; a part of the human herd!

‘Are you prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you? Can you look back with firm eyes saying ‘This is where I stand!’? Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.’ David Whyte

In the darkest winter of my soul, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy, for it tells me that no matter how much the world pushes against me and attempts to turn me into everyone else, within me, there’s something stronger- something better, pushing right back.

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Marcus Aurelius

Don’t take yourself too seriously. You will soon break the bow if you keep it always stretched. Drop the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. The world would go on even without you. When the path is clear, why do you hurl stones before you?

‘There exists Only the present instant: a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday, and no tomorrow, but only Now as it was a thousand years ago, and a thousand years hence.’ Meister Eckhart 13th

‘Poetry soothes the soul and emboldens the heart to accept Mystery.’ Keats

There is no real aloneness. There is solitude and the nurturing silence that is the relationship with ourselves , but even then we are part of something larger.

SILENT LUCIDITY: Just remaining quiet, being attentive, requires a lot of courage and effort. Yet, it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover action without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity. In the final analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his life and ‘finding himself.’ If he persists in shifting responsibility to someone else, he fails to find the meaning of his own existence. My teacher once told me that sitting in meditation and embracing silence is an act of revolution against a soulless society. Colin Mac Rae

In meditation, it is possible to dive

Deeper and deeper into the mind

To a place where there is no disturbance

And there is absolute solitude.

It is at this point in the profound stillness

That the sound of the mind can be heard.

Silence is like a cradle holding our endeavors and our will; a silent spaciousness sustains us in our work and at the same time connects us to larger worlds that in the busyness of our daily struggles to achieve, we have not yet investigated. Silence is the soul’s break for freedom!

It is like the sea breaking on a far-off reef,

And it lulls the being into extreme calm.

Like the sea, it is primordial

And here is no storm.

Only the silken waves soughing.

When I listen to the sound of this sea,

I sense that I am a voyager

And this sound is a wind in the sails of a ship.

But this sound is not of this world:

For other sounds are heard distinctly

And cause this sound to die-

Though it returns with the silence.

All journeys have a secret destination of which the traveler is unaware. Solitude is the place of purification. Silence is a great source of strength. To the mind that is still, the whole Universe surrenders.

The Wise Person believes profoundly in silence- the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit. The person who preserves her selfhood, is ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence; not a leaf, as it were, not a ripple upon the surface of the shining pool. Silence is the ideal attitude and conduct of life. Silence is the cornerstone of character. Silence is the soul’s break for freedom.

Sometimes I think of it as a transcendent sound-

Which speaks of unknown powers,

Of cosmic storms and sun winds

Sighing in the brain.

This is no earthly voyage

And I see visions of ships that

Sail on no earthly sea.

Our ships sail on upon a silent sea;

No wind, there is no sound-

But we move on.

The dream of my life is to lie down by a slow river and stare at the light in the trees - to learn something by being nothing. You must not stop being whimsical and you must not ever give anyone else the responsibility for your life. We shake with joy. We shake with grief. What a time, they have these two, housed in the same body

Silence is a great source of strength

To the mind that is still

The whole universe surrenders Zhuang Zhou

One person’s peaceful presence is the source of an inner strength and calm, and people feel that presence and respond to it. We all have to support and love one another during these chaotic storms in our lives! There is still a lot of good in this world. But we have to look for it. We’re alive!

Tears have a purpose. They are what we carry of the ocean, and perhaps we must become the sea, give ourselves to it, if we are to become transformed.

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story. There are ways in, journeys to the center of life, through time, through air, matter, dream, and thought. The ways are not always mapped or charted but sometimes, being lost, if there is such a thing, is the sweetest place to be. And, always in the search a person might find that they are already there, at the center of the world. It may be a broken world, but it is glorious nevertheless.

Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. ‘Be still’ they say, ‘Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.

OCEANS

I have a feeling that my boat

Has struck down there in the depths,

Against a great thing.

And nothing

Happens! Nothing…. Silence…. Waves.

-Nothing happens? Or has everything happened?

And we are standing quietly

In the new Life? J.R. Jimenez.

We find ourselves adrift on an ocean of suffering. But if you turn around, you can still see the land. Everyone in the boat may be panicking but can be kept from despair by one person’s peaceful presence, who slowly and methodically rows the boat towards the ‘others’ clinging desperately to what is left of their shipwreck. He then gets everyone on the boat to move to one side, so that he is able to pull the ‘others’ into the boat without capsizing and then slowly and calmly rows everyone back to land, to safety.

Ships that pass in the night

And speak to each other in passing-

Only a signal shown and a distant

Voice in the darkness;

So on the Ocean of Life we pass

And speak to one another;

Only a look and a voice;

Then darkness again

And silence. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“What is the appropriate behaviour for a man or woman in the midst of this world where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood? The Buddha

No peace lies in the future

Which is not hidden in the present moment.

The gloom of the world is but

A shadow. Behind it, yet within

Reach is Joy. There is radiance and

Glory in the darkness, could we but see,

And to see, we have only to look.

I beseech you to look. Fra Giovanni

Mystery is part of each life and maybe it is healthier to uphold it than to spend a lifetime in search of half- made (half-baked) answers.

And that is just the point- how the world, moist and beautiful, calls each of us to make a new and serious response. That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning: “Here you are alive! Would you like to make a comment?

‘I would say that there exists a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one . In the same the farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency and no sense in honouring one thing or a few things and then closing the list. The pine trees, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves- we are at risk together or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny.’ Mary Oliver

THE SOUND OF SILENCE : The beauty of the Earth is a bell of mindfulness. If you can't see it, you must ask why. Maybe something is blocking the way. Or maybe you’re so busy looking for something you can’t hear the call of the Earth. Mother Earth has much to offer you: the rays of sunshine, the singing birds, clear streams , the cherry blossoms and the four seasons. Every flower is a smile. The fruit in your hand is a gift from Earth. If you don’t feel grateful, it’s because you are not there for the Earth, for the gift of life.

‘To understand the deep content of the mind, the deep layers of the ‘me’, the self, with all its fears, anxieties, troubles and agonies, you can observe it only when the superficial mind is extremely quiet. Not making the mind quiet, but to see the truth of it. When you see the truth of it, it happens. When you look with the quality of mind that is very quiet, there is no verbalization, no comparison, no justification, or condemnation- just watching. ‘ J. Krishnamurti

‘And to watch the mind, the daily activity of the mind must completely end. If you see the truth that to understand anything, the mind must be completely still- especially when you are observing yourself, your fears, loneliness, despair, your demand for pleasure and all the rest of it-to observe that completely, at great depth, the superficial mind must be completely still.’ J. Krishnamurti

I have learned that to handle difficult moments when I am lost in the wilderness and overwhelmed by anger, fear and despair, I come back to my breathing and dwell only on breathing, from within. In this way I can be my best: I can be still and give rise to a clear mind. Only then deep awakening and compassion can manifest, right in my heart. Breathing in: Thank-you for the gift of life- Breathing out- compassion for all beings.

One person’s peaceful presence is the source of an inner strength and calm, and people feel that presence and respond to it.

‘To the wise person who truly understands the nature of reality, there is no place for complacency or arrogance. There is no time for that! The wise person lives with utmost humility and gratitude, and in constant awe and wonder at the miracle of existence. Life is full of miracles. That is why the Tao can’t be described. All life is a mystery. Embrace the mystery of life. Be silent and look around and pay attention and you will begin to experience the utmost gratitude and humility for the gift of life and live in a sense of awe and wonder.’ Lao Tzu

The birds have vanished into the sky

And now the last clouds drain away

We sit together, the mountain and me

Until only the mountain remains. Li-Po

We all have to support and love one another during these chaotic storms in our lives! There is still a lot of good in this world. But we have to look for it. We’re alive!

The most powerful prayer, one well nigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all Is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is, the more powerful The work, the worthier, the deeper, The more telling and more perfect the prayer is. To the quiet mind, all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, free from ties and from all self-seeking. Meister Eckhart

‘When I am liberated by silence, when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life, but in the living of it, I can discover a form of prayer in which there is effectively no distraction. My whole life becomes a prayer. My whole silence is full of prayer. The world of silence in which I am Immersed, contributes to my prayer.’ Thomas Merton

YOUR ORIGINAL MIND: When you are so busy that you feel perpetually chased, when worrying thoughts circle your head, when the future seems dark and uncertain, when you are hurt by something someone said, slow down, even if only for a moment. Bring all of your awareness into the present and take a deep breath. What do you hear? What does your body feel like? What does the sky look like?

Only when we slow down can we finally see clearly our relationships, our thoughts, our pain. As we slow down, we are no longer entangled in them. We can step out and see them for what they are.

The faces of our family and friends, the scenery that we pass by every day but fail to notice, our friends’ stories that we fail to pay attention to- in the stillness of the pause, the entirety of our being is revealed. Wisdom is not something that we have to strive for to acquire. Rather, it arises naturally as we slow down and notice what is already there.

As we notice more and more in the present moment, we come to a deeper realization that a silent observer is within us. In this primordial stillness, the silent observer witnesses everything inside and outside. Befriend the silent observer.

Find out where it is, and what shape it has assumed. Do not try to imagine it as something you already know. Let all your thoughts and images merge back into silence and just sense the observer already there in silence. If you see the face of the silent observer, then you have found your original mind. Who is the silent observer? It is you.

Peace of mind is to be found both in silence and in our own hearts. When we live all the time in our own minds, we set up an impediment to our connection with all of life and to genuine connection with others.

Almost every wisdom tradition believes in the power of silence and that silence is usually found in nature. That seems to be the ideal place for the heart to be at rest. This is perfectly natural, since we, like all creatures and life on this earth come from the same source. However, it appears that humankind has separated itself from nature as well as the healing power of silence. We have separated ourselves to such an extent that we are destroying the very planet that is our home.

Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present and unless you look for it in the present, you will never find it. We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real self. We do not exist for ourselves alone, and it is only when we are fully convinced of this fact that we begin to love ourselves properly and thus also love others.

‘All journeys have a secret destination of which the traveler is unaware. Solitude is the place of purification.’

May the stars carry your sadness away.

May the flowers fill your heart with beauty.

May ‘hope’ forever wipe away your tears.

And above all, may silence make you strong. Chief Dan George Salish

‘Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe. It is everywhere. All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name. Behold this day. It is yours to make. There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which… is in the souls of men.’ Chief Black Elk Lakota First Nations

Resting in silence, allows my spirit to slip the surly bonds of earth, and soar skyward and gaze into the face of heaven. Silence soothes my wounded soul. I can move past my incessant chattering negative inner-dialogue that I have been carrying for most of my life, because I never knew there was an alternative path: a path of just ‘being’ without thinking and only listening to the music of my wounded heart and the sensation of just breathing.

Music in the Soul is heard by the Universe! At the center of your being, you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. I have just three things to teach- simplicity, patience, and compassion. These are your three greatest treasures. He who is content is rich. Mastering yourself is true power.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the heart beat of the world; to match your nature with Nature. The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. Your sacred space is where you find yourself again and again.

To love is to discover and complete one’s self, an act impossible of general realization on Earth so long as each can see in the neighbor no more than a closed fragment following its own course through the world. It is precisely this state of isolation that will end if we begin to discover each other not merely the elements of one and the same thing, but of a single Spirit in search of itself. The existence of such a power becomes possible in the curvature of a world which is capable of creating something new.

‘Love is something you and I must have. We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it. We must have it, because without it we become faint and weak. Without love our self-esteem weakens. Without it our courage fails. Without love we can no longer look out confidently at the world. Instead we turn inwardly and begin to feed upon our own personalities and little by little we destroy ourselves. You and I need the strength that comes from knowing that we are loved. With it we are creative. With it we march tirelessly. With it, and with it alone, we are able to sacrifice ourselves for others.’ Chief Dan George Salish Nations B.C. Canada

‘Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination- calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, over and over announcing your place in the family of things.’ Mary Oliver

‘In our culture we are not so familiar with the notion of ways or paths. It is a concept that comes from China, the notion of a law of being, called the ‘Tao’, or simply ‘the Way’. The Tao is the world unfolding according to its own laws. Nothing is done or forced, everything just comes about. To live in accord with the Tao is to understand non-doing and non-striving. Your life is already doing itself.

The challenge is whether you can see in this way and live in accordance with the way things are; to come into harmony with all things and all moments. This is the path of insight, of wisdom, and of healing. It is the path of acceptance and peace. It is the path of the mind-body looking deeply into itself and knowing itself.’ Jon Kabat-Zinn

It is the art of conscious living, of knowing your inner resources and your outer resources and knowing that fundamentally there is no inner or outer. There is little of this in Western education. Schools do not emphasize being. We are left to sort that one out by ourselves. It is ‘doing’ that is the currency of modern education.

Sadly though, it is a fragmented doing for the most part; divorced as it is from any emphasis on who is doing the doing (or why) and from what we might learn from the domain of ‘being’. So often the doing is done under the pressure of time, as if we were being pushed through the world, without the luxury of stopping and taking our bearings, of knowing who or what is doing the doing. Awareness itself is not highly valued, nor are we taught the richness of it and how to nurture it and use it.’ Jon Kabat -Zinn

Many of us, have memories where we were in nature, usually alone, and been simply overwhelmed by the One Beauty of Nature, of Mother Earth; on top of a mountain, deep in the woods, sitting beside a flowing river or stream, or by the ocean watching and listening to the waves lapping up on the shore. In these times, it appears that time simply stands still. Why?

Because the thinking mind is temporarily suspended or ceases to be active, and has stopped planning, scheming, and thinking ahead to the next moment or moments far removed in the future, or the past. Beauty allows us to stop planning and thinking, and it feels so good.

Moments of joy and suspended thought remain with you forever, whether you realize it or not. This literally happened to me today. And I will keep what little solace within me and go back again. Over the years, no matter where I lived I sought out and found the one place where I could rest.

An essential condition to hear the call of the Earth and respond to her is silence. If you don't have silence in yourself. you can’t hear her call: the call of life. You don’t have time to listen to your heart.

WE ARE ALL TOO BUSY TO NOTICE THE GIFT OF LIFE -TOO BUSY TO SPEND TIME IN NATURE

‘As for me, I have a choice between honoring that dark life I’ve seen so many years ago moving in the junipers, or of walking away and going on with my human busyness. There is always a choice for humans.’ Linda Hogan, Dwellings

We sabotage our creative possibilities because the world revealed by our imagination may not fit well with the life we have taken so much trouble to construct over the years. Faced with the pain of that distance, the distance between desire and reality, we turn just for a moment, and quickly busy ourselves.

‘ If the only prayer you say in your entire life is thank- you, it will be enough’. Meister Eckhart, 13th century

Just remaining quiet, being attentive, requires a lot of courage and effort. Yet, it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover action without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.

In the final analysis, everyone is responsible for living their lives and ‘finding themselves.’ If they persist in shifting responsibility to someone else, they will fail to find the meaning of their own existence. My teacher once told me that sitting in meditation and embracing silence is an act of revolution against a soulless society.

MEDITATION

You know the spout is hidden inside the seed.

We are all struggling; none of us have gone far.

Let your ego go and look around inside.

The blue sky opens out farther and farther,

The daily sense of failure goes away-

The damage I have done to myself fades,

A healing light seeps through cracks,

When I sit firmly in that world. Colin Mac Rae

Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit. The person who preserves their selfhood, is ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence; not a leaf, as it were, not a ripple upon the surface of the shining pool. Silence is the ideal attitude and conduct of life. Silence is the cornerstone of character.

Yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow only a vision,

But today well-lived

In the present moment

Makes all of our yesterdays

Full of beautiful memories,

And all our tomorrows

Visions of Hope Colin Mac Rae

THE SILENT WATCHER We like to talk about things external to ourselves because our minds are accustomed to flowing out into the world. Spiritual practitioners, however, reverse the flow and look inward. They stop talking about external matters and train themselves to look and become intimate with the mind. -Within each of us there is an inner witness quietly observing what goes on inside and outside of us.

Born from a place of silence and wisdom, even when the world churns up a storm of emotions, the silent and kind witness sits calmly in the eye of the storm unharmed, luminous, and all-knowing. If you wish to clear away the clouds of thoughts, simply keep your mind in the present. The clouds of thoughts linger only in the past and the future. Bring your mind to the present moment and your mind and your thoughts will rest.

When the mind looks outward, it is swayed by the heavy winds of the world. But when the mind faces inward, we can find our center and rest in stillness. People ask, ‘How can I clear my head when I meditate? The more I try, the more my thoughts seem to arise.’

This is completely natural-because trying to clear your head is also a thought. Don’t try to get rid of your thoughts. It won’t work. Instead witness the emergence and disappearance of a thought. The moment you become aware of it (the impermanence of thoughts and emotions) the mind becomes quiet, still and clear.

Sustain as long as you can moments of joy and bliss. Stop to look at something beautiful and take your time. The longer that you can sustain moments of wonder at the beauty of nature and suspend the ‘thinking’, busy mind or stop and really take in moments of joy, the better. They will sustain you as you go through the drudgery of life.

We don’t dishonor the suffering in the world by living in the present moment and experiencing gratitude and joy. How can we help others if we are miserable and full of despair 24/7? Find a secret place inside yourself or find a quiet place in nature that you can go back to for healing your wounds. We all have our own traumas and wounds, and often we feel alone. Meditation helps, but it really helps to talk to a friend or family member who cares enough to listen. Listening is very much a lost art these days.

‘I don’t ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing. It doesn’t have to be the blue iris: it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones. Just pay attention. then patch a few words together, and don’t try to make them elaborate.

This isn’t a contest, but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. Mystery is part of each life and maybe it is healthier to uphold it than to spend a lifetime in search of half-baked answers.’ Mary Oliver

‘The true journey of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having fresh eyes.’ Marcel Proust

MOTHER EARTH: ‘All the time I was getting closer to animals and nature, and as a result, closer to myself and more and more in tune with the spiritual power that I felt all around. For those who have experienced the joy of being alone with nature there is really little need for me to say much more; for those who have not, no words of mine can even describe the powerful, almost mystical knowledge of beauty and eternity that come, suddenly, and all unexpected.’ Jane Goodall

To drop into ‘being’ means to recognize your interconnectedness with all life, and with being itself. Your very nature is being part of larger and larger spheres of wholeness.

‘The more clearly we focus on the wonders and reality of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for its destruction. It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties, to know a sense of wonder and humility.’ Rachel Carson

‘The beauty was always there, but moments of true awareness were rare. They would come, unannounced; perhaps when I was watching the pale flush preceding dawn; or looking up through the rustling leaves of some giant forest tree into the greens and browns and the black shadows and the occasionally ensured bright fleck of blue sky; or when I stood, as darkness fell, with one hand on the still warm trunk of a tree and looked at the sparkling of an early moon on the never still, softly sighing water of Lake Tanganyika.’ Jane Goodall from A Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey

TRUE SEEING: When the veils of our opinions and ideas are thin enough so we can see and know things as they are, rather than staying stuck in how we wish them to be or not, our vision becomes generous, healing, and peaceful. And it is felt by others instantly. It is felt, it is known, and it brings us peace of mind. And not just by humans. Many Ancient Traditions believe that the world feels our seeing and sees us right back, even the trees and the rocks. To be seen by nature and to be seen as we truly are, we become an intimate part of the sensuous world.

This body is a form destined to the world; it ensures that my body is an open circuit that completes itself only in things, in others, in the encompassing earth. Immersed in the natural world we only know it through the senses, and we are known through the senses of other beings, and not only humans.

We are part of this landscape, evolved in it, grew up in it, and still the possessor of all its gifts, although compared to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, ours may have atrophied from lack of use. But the sensation of being wholly connected with what Rachel Carson refers to as the ‘Repeated Refrains of Nature’ is no further than the sound of rain, the feel of the wind on my face, the warmth of the sun or sensing the sacrosanct relationship between me and a belted kingfisher.

At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, to the world, ‘Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive.’ You empty yourself, and wait, listening. After a time, you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, holding or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding or ebbing, standing or spread.

You feel the world as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. We rest, we just “be” because we are an inherent part of this Beauty of Mother Earth. We evolved on this planet. It is in our genes, our DNA, in every cell of our body.

This is it: this hum is the silence. The silence is all there is! It is the alpha and the omega. It is God’s brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blended note of the ten thousand things; the whine of wings. You take a step to pray to this silence, and even to address the prayer to ‘World’. Distinctions blur. I become the World. I become one with Mother Earth

The more clearly we focus on the wonders and reality of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for its destruction. It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties, to know a sense of wonder and humility.

Unfortunately, modern man has become so focused on harnessing Nature’s resources that he has forgotten how to learn from them. If you let them, however, the elements of nature will teach you as they have taught me. To encounter the sacred is to be alive at the deepest center of human existence. Sacred places are the truest definitions of the earth; they stand for the earth immediately and forever; they are its flags and shields.

Let me keep my distance always from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company with those who say, ‘Look!’ and laugh in astonishment and bow their heads. Mary Oliver

Gratitude is an appreciation of all that sustains us; an acknowledgement of blessings great and small. It is confidence in life itself and confidence in ourselves and our ability to manage our own lives. The same force that causes all things to grow on this planet are within us. We exist because every single one of our ancestors from the beginning of the first man was a survivor and cared and nurtured their young and passed down to us valuable knowledge that would sustain us in life.

Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. ‘Be still’ they say, ‘Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.’ There is a way that nature speaks, the land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story. There is no real aloneness. There is solitude and the nurturing silence that is the relationship with ourselves , but even then we are part of something larger. Mystery is part of each life and maybe it is healthier to uphold it than to spend a lifetime in search of half-baked answers.

There is a still place, a gap between the worlds, spoken by the tribal knowledge of thousands of years. In it are silent flyings that stand apart from human struggles and the designs of our own makings. At times when we are silent enough, still enough, we take a step into such Mystery. The place of Spirit and Mystery, we must remember, by its very nature, does not wish to be known.

Perhaps there are events and things that work as a doorway into a mystical world, the world of first peoples, all the way back to the creation of the universe and the small quickenings of earth; the first stirrings of human beings at the beginning of time

‘Sometimes I hear it talking. The light of the sunflower is one language, but then there are others more audible. Once in the redwood forest, I heard a beat; something like a drum or a heartbeat coming from the ground and trees and wind. That underground current stirred a kind of knowing inside me, a kinship and longing, a dream barely remembered that disappeared back into the body. There are occasions when you can hear the Mysterious language of the Earth; in water, or coming through the trees, emanating from the mosses, seeping through the undercurrents of the soil, but you have to be willing to wait and receive.’ John Hay from The Immortal Witness

Silent friend of many distances, feel

How your breath enlarges all of space

Let your presence ring out like a bell

Into the night, what feeds upon your face

Grows mighty from the nourishment

Thus offered. Rilke

Ancient Wisdom Traditions & The Lost Art Of 'Being'

Discussion about this post