WOODS AND WATER
by contemplativeinquiry
Yesterday, Thursday 18 February, was the first that felt like spring. The recent cold was gone. The rain that followed largely held off. I went out for a longer walk than for some time, and I felt a natural bubbling up of joy. It doesn’t take much, and I was able to open up to the renewing light and a sense of latent growth and possibility in the world around me. There are two months starting about now that have a sense of equinoctial wonder for me, with light and dark roughly in balance and a lot of change in the land. Yesterday felt like the beginning of this loved and valued time.
A good deal has been happening for me internally, which is influencing my spiritual practice and understanding in subtle but important ways. I will write about this in the weeks to come. But yesterday’s walk was a chance to be out in a woodland, as one being in the web of life connecting with others. Experiences like this are both simple and profound for me, and I feel grateful for the opportunity to have them.
Ah spring! We search for signs of it a little more eagerly than any other season, I think. Despite being considerably to your south, we are still in the depths of winter here in New Orleans. Hope to feel the turning soon.
Thanks Bart. I like your phrasing “we search for signs of it more eagerly than any other season”. That is certainly my sense of spring as well. Best wishes for the turn in New Orleans!
You are fortunate to have that pleasant woodland nearby. Nature has a calming effect.
For 16 years we lived 10 miles north of San Francisco. We took daily walks along the canal which fronted our building. It had a wide variety of waterfowl. I used to feed the ducks and geese by hand. We now live in Los Angeles adjacent to Beverly Hills. We walk to a small city park which has a pond with koi and turtles, but we are not allowed to feed them.
The weather here is quit constant similar to what you would have in early summer. My sister in my hometown in Wisconsin asked “don’t you miss the seasons?” I replied “not the snow and ice.”
Thanks for this comment Ron. I hope that you continue to enjoy the park as the year rolls on. I have read your pdf once, which isn’t enough. But I can say that I am very impressed with what you have done and that I have specific takeaways from the first reading. Gratitude for the gift!
James, I’m glad that you like my ebook. I look forward to your comments after you have read it again.
It was written for a general reader who has a personal interest in mysticism. Students like it because it is short and it is free.
I find your ebook very valuable. You have used your access to distinguished people, to say the very least, along with excerpts from key texts, in a way that makes their wisdom widely available. You have also made important observations of your own. I like your title and the division into two main sections. The whole is a powerful presentation of what Aldous Huxley called the perennial philosophy, alive within five key traditions of Eurasian origins, with enough interior diversity to make it clear that mystics in these traditions are not all the same, though there is are common core understandings within the traditions. Your discussions of direct experience and your definition of gnosis describe a gold standard for what the greatest achievement actually is.
I believe that the cultural moment in which you offered this is significant. Perennialism’s ideas have been popularised and repackaged over the period since World War II at an ever increasing rate. There is now an extraordinary global spiritual market place. This is wonderful and also has its downside. Your work reminds people, or indeed, tells them for the first time, what this tradition is and why it is so valuable. The book is short, and it is free, as you say. But the content is very rich. I will go back to sections of it, or statements made in it, time and again as a resource and also as a challenge. In fact I found reading it at a sitting, even twice, almost too much – with much of the value lying in the fact that I now have an overview and know where to find things. Many of the short paragraphs – even lines -could be pulled out for full contemplation as a lectio divina. Much gratitude Ron. Peace and Blessings, James
We were on the migratory flyway between Canada and Mexico. One year a flock of geese landed behind a pizza restaurant. Customers and staff fed them daily so they decided to stay. When we passed through 20 years later the geese were still there.
Thank you for sharing – lovely words and sentiments. I’m so glad you can follow the call of spring and enjoy walks in such a beautiful place. I completely empathise with your ‘bubbling up of joy,’ there has been a definite shift in the season here in Mayenne this week and I just can’t stay indoors! It’s tempting to spend another day busy in the garden but a seven-mile walk beckons today, the chance to go further afield and really feel part of that web of life. It is indeed a loved and valued time.
Thanks Lis. It must feel good to step out from a new home and embark on a wider and deeper exploration of your surroundings.