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Moments in the Sun - v.02

August 05, 2007

Skipper ~ Canon 30d

Gather ye cone flowers while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
For this same butterfly who smiles today,
Tomorrow could be dying.

The skipper butterfly above kicks off a series of images I shot a couple weekends ago while visiting my lovely friend Joan of Rivanna River Days.

Joan is a multi-talented, passionately gifted artist. Not only does she paint and write poetry, she's also an accomplished photographer. Before the digital age exploded, Joan created a body of work filled with some of the most beautiful macro flower photographs I've ever had the privilege to see in person. A true environmentalist, her love of nature continues to fuel a desire to cultivate and preserve the earth's resources. Currently, she's devoting her energy to learning herbology and carving out a home within her greatest passion ~ the preservation of Mother Earth.

You should see this woman's garden. If she weren't such a good friend, it would certainly make my jealousy bone ache, but I'm lucky... I get to visit from time to time and enjoy the bounty of her creative planting and tilling of the soil. Her front yard is literally ablaze with the glory of late summer ~ cone flowers, zinnias, black-eyed susan's, and flowers I've yet to be formally introduced to by name. Walk around the back of the house, and you'll find lotus flowers blooming in an enormous planter. Lotuses in Virginia? You bet. She's an earth-whisperer ~ an artist whose medium is sun, water and soil.

Do you sense how much I admire and respect her? I hope it's coming through, because there are few people I can sit down and talk to the way we do. We both embrace the creativity~spirituality connection and share a desire to be instruments of kindness and positive change in this world. How do we manifest it? Indeed, how do we embody what we say we believe... submit our hearts... challenge our selfish inclinations... dig deep into our souls and become masters of lovingkindness? How many reincarnations have we both gone through in just this one lifetime? How do we maintain a connection to Love in any given moment? How can I allow the beauty in her garden to simply flow through me while I'm visiting without selfishly wishing in my heart I had a garden of my own too? How do I live wide-awake, completely present... devouring each delicious, precious moment in the sun? All we have is this moment. The next moment will change. Will I go kicking and screaming, holding onto the past? Will I forge way ahead of where I am and miss what's right here in front of me? None of us knows when our last moment on earth will be, so we're training ourselves not to be absent, not to misuse or abuse the moments we're given.

It would be very easy for me to launch into a rant now about our collective lack of gentleness with the earth and the startling amount of greed and the force of narcissism that feeds it. I actually wrote and briefly posted a very different ending to this entry which did just that. It was a wake-up call of sorts that was fueled by my own frustration and anger over the level of complacency in my country, and widespread addiction to creating comfort for ourselves, no matter the cost to our communities or the environment. I pulled the post down after a couple of hours, you know why? The tone was incongruent with my metta, or lovingkindness practice. I've made what amounts to a kind of vow to myself to be an instrument of kindness and healing in the world, and an attitude of blame and anger is a direct enemy of it.

Sigh... but venting feels so damn good, doesn't it?

Yes, it does, but the "good" feelings created by complaining really don't persist, do they? It's one thing to discern the magnitude of the global catastrophes in the making and focus on ways to fix them and quite another to simply immerse oneself in anger and become consumed by it. Huge difference. That's not to say the post I wrote was all that bad, it wasn't, but the process of healing the world won't be accelerated by hitting people over the head with an angry two by four. Saplings respond to water, sunshine and adequate nutrients in the soil. If anyone's to "blame" for the destruction of the earth and the depletion of its resources it's all of us. I just keep coming back to "All is One" the deeper I go with this practice. Out of pure ignorance we've all sucked down the proverbial Happy Meal. All of us are desensitized by our pet addictions, whether they be substance-related or negative patterns of thinking. There's a reason for the level of complacency, greed, hyper-consumerism and ignorance ~ we're exhausted and scared, and we're grasping for ways to relieve the suffering we all experience. All of us feel the pain of living in the 21st century ~ none of us is alone in this.

My gifted meditation teacher, Tara Brach, has taught me something of great value, the wisdom of which is useless if I keep it up in my head and refuse to allow it to transform my heart. The practice of mindfulness isn't an exercise in running away from reality or zoning out and clearing my mind so I can temporarily feel better. In contrast, it's a calming of the fear-based, frenzied, pain-inducing thoughts that race through all of our heads so we can see our lives and the world simply the way they truly are, and this requires some courage. Most of us run like wild from what's going on inside of us and will do anything we possibly can to escape the bare naked truth. But when one approaches the truth with compassionate, full-on acceptance, a healing environment which is conducive to positive transformation is brought to life. Mindfulness practice is a creative practice which has the power to heal one's inner and outer environment. Listen to that again, please. Let me say it another way ~ the spiritual practice is a transformative, creative, and artistic practice which gives birth to freedom from suffering.

As I write these words, a few tears are welling up in my eyes, because it's so simple and true. We all have the power within us to transform our realities, but we first have to know what the reality is. Each and every one of us, all beings on this planet, wish to alleviate their suffering. The mistake we make is equating the elimination of suffering with creating our own personal "comfort" at any cost. Many of us don't stop to consider the means by which we pursue our zones of comfort and how our decisions affect the world. Fear-based thinking fucks us up in very damaging ways. When we lose site of our interconnectedness and define ourselves as "moi" vs. "other", cycles of blame develop and wars eventually erupt. Look at the planet. Simply stop and look at what we've all co-created.

Yes. It's frightening. Yes. We can do something about it, but our window of opportunity is closing.

To get to the bottom of this, I sat down on my meditation cushion this morning and honestly held the anger I was feeling about the destruction of the environment. I did what my teacher has repeatedly suggested and recognized that anger is never a primary feeling. Anger is reactive response that covers up deeper root-level emotions. As I began peeling back the layers of anger, a good amount of fear presented itself to me. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what's going to happen, not only to the earth, but to myself and my loved ones and their children. I experience so much happiness and fulfillment through my interaction with nature, and there's a genuine breaking inside of my heart at the thought it might be taken away from me.

After allowing and honoring the fear and heartbreak, I peeled back yet another layer to discover my basic underlying emotion was and is love. I love life, and I want it to be preserved so future generations will be able to be blessed by it and take breathtaking photographs too. I know through direct, personal, present moment experience that the beauty of nature is a gateway to god. The earth is a gift, and I don't want it to be destroyed or to lose it. None of us do.

As I allowed myself to dwell in the tender and compassionate feelings of love I have for the earth, she seemed to respond with a loving gift ~ a gentle breeze delivered through my open widow caressing my arms and neck... a direct interactive experience with Mother Earth... one of many in my lifetime which have inspired me to protect her.

An image came into my mind of my own mother, whom I love deeply. What would I do to protect her if she were in danger? How would I respond if she were being depleted and smeared with toxic substances? It's a normal response to become angry, but anger wouldn't solve the problem. The first thing to do would be to heal and assist her in any way possible.

So. I'm not here to blame, there is no one to blame, except maybe our collective unconscious. I'm here to ask you all to be present and mindful. Hold a vision in your hearts of the earth as your mother ~ a wise woman whose resources have been given so freely and so generously are now being dangerously depleted. Hold this image. Hold the feeling it gives birth to in the well of your deepest existence. What is the next step? It doesn't matter what I feel, or what Thich Nhat Hahn feels, or what anyone else thinks or feels. What does the Divine dwelling within your soul feel? Hold this sacred feeling, don't tuck it away or forget about it. Allow it to inspire your sense of creativity to make lasting changes in both your inner and outer landscape. If we commit to truly loving the earth and her gifts the skipper butterfly up there won't run out of cone flowers, but if we refuse to see our situation for what it is, real and present danger is lurking just around the corner.

With metta ~ Susan.

Posted by vincent at August 5, 2007 04:00 PM

Comments

Posted by: Joan at August 6, 2007 11:19 AM

Posted by: janet at August 6, 2007 04:20 PM

Posted by: Bob at August 7, 2007 08:03 AM

Posted by: Rick at August 23, 2007 06:57 PM

Posted by: Hauser at September 7, 2007 05:59 PM

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