Foggy Mountain Morning
As above, so below; as within, so without; as the universe, so the soul. Hermes Trismegistus (quoted in Terry Tempest Williams newly published The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary)
The focus and heading came and quickly words followed. A flow I didn’t expect, and I’m left wondering whether and how the narrative weaves …
It is hard to keep up with the flurry and pace of events that are changing our world, and much of what the media reports is all too often hardly worthy of our attention. At the same time much of what is changing our world and changing in our world goes unreported, unnoticed. We are called to hone our skills of discernment and to find sources that we trust. Not an easy call.
Yet something in that call calls me to the sacred, to being present to what is and to acknowledge all that is with gratitude. To be fully present and grateful requires a level of meticulous care for where I place my attention, my presence. But gratitude? Surely, I am not grateful for the horrors being perpetrated against Life, yet those very acts invite me to open to the deeper meaning of what they reveal and what needs to shift in me so that I’m not snared by the focus that would have me look the other way. To disregard (capital ‘L’) Life so that I can get on with my (small ‘l’) life.
I pause, take a few breaths as I wonder at and about the words. Ah, the sacred. Follow the call to the sacred for that is where the weave of presence and gratitude play. What is sacred in the minute details of life? Life? In both the seen and unseen?
While Every Thing is sacred, I think of place. The sacred land on which I dwell and of all the creatures whose visits bless me. I think of the visible life here, the soil, the grasses, wildflowers beginning to bloom, the pines, the birdsong, and deer that saunter through. Of The Mountain. Of the invisible microscopic beings and networks of underground communication and communion. And I think of the much-needed sacred moisture, forecast and yet to fall.
I think of each breath, mine and these beings, and how they are intertwined. Each with its role in the greater function of Life. I wonder about all that I don’t grok about that intertwining and of my role in the unfolding.
Gratitude as Presence, Presence as Gratitude – a starting point of deeper listening to step more fully into the reciprocity that keeps Life and life flowing. A place to begin again to more deeply align with that sacred flow. Of weaving. Of Life.
First Bloom - A Touch of Color on the Dry Landscape