Salvation Within Paradox

Sara Zaltash reviews FutureNOW – the pioneering Spiritual Ecology conference with Tim Freke, Chloe Goodchild, Joe Hoare, Peter Owen Jones and Satish Kumar.
We met there on a grey Saturday drenched with autumn rains, perhaps 120 of the West Country’s bright-eyed devout; activists and herbalists, healers and meditators, growers and thinkers, each seeking the sound and vision offered by the pioneering pilgrims on the panel. As I looked around and locked eyes with a neighbour over here or smiled at a stranger over there, I knew that I had personally been called by the promise of a community coalescing around a certain truth: “that unless you have some roots in a spiritual practice that holds life sacred and encourages joyful communion with all your fellow beings, facing the enormous challenges ahead becomes nearly impossible.”

Ecology. Economy. Humanity. Spirit. Challenges indeed for a consciousness that is making leaps toward to collective realisation everyday. The Internet, of course, has gifted me the above quotation from Joanna Macy’s contribution to the community-defining collection of essays Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, edited by contemporary Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee. At futureNOW I asked myself the same question as in present times: if all beings were truly to be given equal internet access, then why would some choose to become more enlightened than others? Perhaps because enlightenment is shrouded in mysticism, in mandala graphics and incense smoke, and social conditioning against such motifs is so strong that even a geezer like Russell Brand has to mind his patchoulis and quantum realities if he’s to get his meaning made. I confess that I am from another community too: I am an artist, an e’er-do-well and erstwhile academic. But that’s alright. Queuing up for morning tea I asked Will from Wiltshire, a university lecturer in environmental literature, whether he knew anyone else at this rock star convention of spiritual ecology leaders. “Not a soul,” he said, “But that’s alright. It’s important to be brave sometimes.”

Brave words indeed flowed from the radical Church of England priest and BBC TV presenter Rev. Peter Owen Jones, from stand-up philosopher and acclaimed author Tim Freke, and from the ultimate guru of this movement, the environmental activist, magazine editor and spiritual guide, Satish Kumar. These men spoke in turn about the need for humanity to relinquish its delusion of dominion over the planet and about accepting the ultimate mystery of existence. Kumar spoke about the loving sacredness of the soil, of society, of sacrifice – the necessary sacrifices of the mother, of the planet and of ourselves. Inspirational speakers, Rev. Jones and Kumar both upheld the twin peaks of land and spirit in their humbly ad libbed sermons, calling for the acknowledgement of the essential present-ness of our future responsibility to “eco”, our home. Bursting with insight, Freke offered paradoxological thinking as a salvation from the impotence that may come from abiding the mystery of all-being.  A proponent of love as a political act, Freke claimed “You Are The One” in a perfect paradox of consciousness consciously recognising itself, of humanity living its own dream.

As an artist-thinker, I enjoy a bit of practical guidance to usher in my cerebral shift. Noting that only in Western cultures does laughter need to be externally provoked, Bristol’s own laughing yogi, Joe Hoare, led us in several easy standing laughter practices. Stellar spiritual vocalist and teacher Chloe Goodchild was full of her own bright chuckles as she gathered us under the wings of her naked voice practice. Leading singing meditations throughout the day, Goodchild opened and closed the proceedings with her adaptation of Rumi’s well-loved verse: ‘Beyond ideas of right and wrong doing there is a field, I’ll meet you there.” Goodchild’s field is a singing field; in that field we met and she shared the seeds of various Eastern spiritual practices that combined with the voice carry our hidden gift for future generations.

Resounding from that day like the oft-rung meditation bell are some provocative unanswered questions from the closing Q&A session: when does mysticism first appear in children? How can we revere the earth? Are species other than humans involved in the evolution of consciousness? Perhaps the answer, as Hoare offered, is that ‘when you know how to listen, everything is your guru’. Rev. Jones spoke about the need to keep talking, to create space for conversations and community to bring about the changes we wish to be. For a novice pilgrim like me, practical guidance to walk in nature, to wash in the dew and to learn to bake my own bread were as comforting as the evolution of consciousness that is enacted by these actions towards personal, spiritual and environmental empowerment. The challenge of living a peaceful, respectful and unified future now is as real as our fields of land, of work and of energy. Let’s meet in that field, in the future, now.

FutureNOW was presented by Conscious Frontiers and took place on Saturday 8th November 2014 at Trinity Centre, Bristol. For more information visit FutureNow

Sara Zaltash is a British-Iranian live artist and performer. www.sarazaltash.com

Future Now

Taking place in the run up to Bristol's year as Green Capital 2015, this groundbreaking spiritual ecology conference calls for Consciousness Revolution.

Satish Kumar will be a keynote speaker for an exciting conference taking place at the Trinity Centre in Bristol on Saturday 8th November called Future NOW, which aims to raise the debate about the future and explore urgent solutions and mindful steps for sustaining the Earth so we can secure sustainable future lives for our children and grandchildren on this planet.

Co-organised by Conscious Frontiers, a leading edge speakers, communications and events agency, and Laughter Yoga expert/author Joe Hoare - Future NOW was inspired by the burgeoning Spiritual Ecology movement which seeks a spiritual response to our current ecological crisis, urging us to reconnect with Mother Earth as a sacred living being to which we all belong, and to recognise Her as the source of all life, not a resource to be plundered.
 
The compelling line up of eco-spiritual presenters for the conference includes Peter Owen Jones, Tim Freke, Chloe Goodchild and Joe Hoare and the day will include interactive breakout sessions exploring and reflecting on the question, “What can I do differently?”

50% of the proceeds from Future NOW will be shared between The Resurgence Trust and other charities and causes of the key note speakers - The Life Cairn Project, The Naked Voice and The Alliance for Lucid Living - all of which further the event’s aim to create a happier and more harmonious future for our planet.

Future NOW is a call to become more mindful, more peaceful, more connected and more loving to ourselves, to each other and to the Earth. It’s an invitation to take an active role in shaping a more sustainable and harmonious future.

Event details:

Date: Saturday 8th November, 10am-5pm 

Venue: Trinity Centre, Trinity Road, Bristol, BS2 0NW
Tickets to Future NOW cost £55 (£65 on the door). For bookings and further information visit:www.futurenow.consciousfrontiers.com

Will Gethin is Director of Conscious Frontiers.

Time to Get Serious About Laughter?

“Laughing Yogi” Joe Hoare explains the remedial benefits of laughter yoga.

‘It’s time to take laughter seriously’, says Dr Madan Kataria, founder of laughter yoga. Laughter has benefits on every level, including mindfulness and presence. These benefits are activated by the act of laughing itself and not by humour, and this is the basis for laughter practices world-wide.

Laughter yoga practices have a long pedigree. In Awakening the Laughing Buddha within my co-author Stephen Russell, the Barefoot Doctor, writes that the state of laughter readiness is a core Taoist principle, one with great antiquity. The Taoist insight is that sometimes laughing at the madness of life is the only sane response. As my valued co-author, his Taoist perspective on modern laughter practices adds depth to contemporary techniques.

The heart of laughter practices, whether in laughter yoga, laughter therapy or my own nls: natural laughter skills is the practice of laughter for its own sake. The benefits come from the act of laughing itself, not from waiting to find things funny. The curious and rather lovely spin-off is the more you laugh, the more you find to laugh about. This is where the mindful, empowering and healing dimensions take effect.

Laughter practices make you present. Whether you use them as a meditative practice or as a distraction, they pull attention into the present moment. When we have our attention in the present moment, we are not fretting about the past nor worrying about the future. This is the state of mindfulness. Associated with this state is a sense of peacefulness and happiness because except in exceptional circumstances, when you bring your attention into the ‘Now’ you experience joy. The progression, therefore, is that via mindfulness and empowerment, laughter practices help you access your own innate sense of joy. After all, as Deepak Chopra says: “True spirituality means not taking ourselves too seriously.”

As we outline in Awakening the Laughing Buddha within, laughter practices are easily initiated by smiling exercises, the experiential approach to Louise Hay-style affirmations.

They are surprisingly effective: ‘Vedant has really taken what you said on board and now everyone at our hospice is doing their 15 second smiles morning and evening. The patients respond really well to such a simple device - it is lovely to see the effect it has.’ (Christine West, Chair, National Association of Complementary Therapists in Hospice and Palliative Care)

Smiling exercises are exactly what they say – exercises in putting a genuine smile on your face and holding it there for at least 10-15 seconds. To keep it genuine requires an effort of will, also known as willingness. This willingness changes your mindset by inducing a sense of positivity in the same manner as a classical Louise Hay affirmation.

Smiling exercises are an easy starting point into the 5-stage model of walk the walk, feel the feelings, speak the words, think the thoughts, and live the life. Using this model, your whole being becomes engaged with the process. The cumulative effect transforms people’s lives, as a student of Joe’s laughter therapy testified:

‘I am writing to tell you what a positive and lasting effect the Laughter workshop has had on me. The workshop itself was fun, but also deeply serious in intent. Since then my husband’s deteriorating condition has put an almost unbearable strain on me. I have been practising the techniques I learned that day and sometimes they transform the situation and lift my spirits. I can’t begin to tell you what a difference that makes.’ (Carer delegate, Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust).

With evidence like this, isn’t it time for us all to add this approach to our spiritual tool-kit?

Joe Hoare is one of the UK’s leading Laughter Yoga therapists. He has dedicated himself to encouraging people to connect with their benign, creative individuality and to perform at their best. A charismatic facilitator of courses, workshops, retreats and one-to-one sessions, he is author of new book Awakening the Laughing Buddha Within, co-authored with Barefoot Doctor.

Joe is facilitating his next LFS: Laughter Facilitation Skills course on Friday 25th & Saturday 26th April at the Unitarian Chapel in Bristol. This course includes his nls: natural laughter skills. He is also hosting a laughter yoga seminar with the legendary “Grandfather of Laughter Yoga”, Dr Madan Kataria of India, founder of laughter clubs international, on Monday 9th June in Bristol.
For further details visit Joe Hoare’s website: www.joehoare.co.uk

Surprising Harvests

Living in a Buddhist Centre – Life Happens II

I finally summoned up my courage (after weeks of procrastination) and uprooted a mystery plant, that had self-seeded and grown, to Triffid-like proportions, in the corner of my basement garden.  For most of its life, I had assumed that it was a sunflower – the leaves were big and pear-shaped, mid-green, with lighter veins, slightly furry and gently serrated at the edges, the stem was thick, woody and hairy...But then it had developed side shoots (like small branches) and grown really bushy...

Odd, I thought, this plant has ambitions to become a small tropical forest all by itself, whereas sunflowers are usually single stemmed, tall and leggy... Then it grew more side stems, and strong sturdy suckers...I thought it may be protesting about the lack of light by growing more and more sideways, upwards, outwards, across...  It grew to about four metres (16 feet), high: tall enough to reach the sunlight over the top of the basement.  I tied the now leaning, top heavy, stems up to the inside of our cast iron railings.  But what was it?  But then I thought – relax – let it flower.  Let it have its moment of glory as any self-respecting sunflower should!

The flowers came and were anti-climatical.  Tiny.  It was so disappointing. The flower heads were just bigger than the bottom of teacups, there were seven of them.  And, whilst the petals were yellow, so were the centres, with small stigma and tiny, undeveloped, seeds.  Sunflowers usually have those lovely dark, often chocolate brown, stigma and anthers at first, followed by the beautifully geometric Fibonacci spirals of plump seed cases, so this was a disappointment.

This giant plant came out surprisingly easily when I pulled, only to reveal dozens of white, muddy tubers attached to the roots.  It was almost surreal.  I was working in twilight, so at first I couldn’t see properly what these bumpy protuberances were, or where they were coming from.  I hadn’t expected such an abundance of what almost looked like button mushrooms: spherical, bulbous, asymmetrical and round, earth-covered, glowing, phosphorescent fruit.  I gathered a carrier bag full, of these surprising creamy, muddy, fungus-like Jerusalem artichokes, underground critters that had grown all by themselves, beneath the concrete pavements of Bermondsey, without anyone knowing or caring that they were there.  And how good they were, boiled, with butter and garlic for my supper!

Later that evening, my own seemingly stubborn and untamed mind did just the same as the plant.  I was sitting in my room, letting my mind go and just watching my thoughts.  I hadn’t got the energy to go and sit on my meditation mat, but I believe it’s OK to not force yourself to formally meditate if you don’t want to.  A friend of mine at our parent monastery, Samye Ling, recommends:  ‘Just sit, and relax and watch where your mind goes.  Avoid all that Buddhist flim-flam’.  No pressure.  Nothing fancy, just let yourself be.  No sitting in uncomfortable positions, no special room to be in.  It’s a do-nothing, pro-idleness stance. 

So I was sitting, reflecting, in my comfy chair, but actually feeling utterly depressed and miserable and my mind was racing.  I was thinking about how unforgiving and angry I am towards those who I feel have deliberately and unfairly hurt me. (And I was feeling merciless even though, in more tolerant states, I know that those who have been brutal act this way because of the brutalisation that they have suffered).  I was having all sorts of negative hate-filled thoughts.  Then I thought, if I was in the religious tradition I was brought up in, I would be blaming myself for these thoughts.  I would say I was sinning.  But, I thought, I am in the Buddhist tradition now and I can be kind to myself.  I can accept all this negatively in myself.  I don’t have to try to be lofty and repress my misery.  So, for once, I tried to stop trying to not have these thoughts.  Instead, I tried to think what are these feelings of hatred like?  Can I be kind to myself even though I am doing what I am not proud of?  Can I stay with these emotions I despise and feel ashamed of, and not blame myself for having them?

As usual, I didn’t get very far, or stay in that soothing mode for long, because my mind likes to flit. But then I became conscious of just breathing.  I was suddenly aware of sitting and breathing, having let go of identifying with my thinking.  What a release that felt like!  What was different was that I hadn’t consciously willed getting to that place, but maybe because I have practised meditating, where I have trained myself to come back to my breath, again and again, and that moment of release just came.  I would normally have stayed, hooked into negative thoughts.  

That return to my breath felt like a blessing, (isn’t it strange how we need to use theological language, even though we don’t necessarily have a theist perspective, to try and explain what these magical moments are like?)  It seemed that all that time I had spent on a mat, trying to meditate, had paid dividends.  I escaped some sort of entrapping cycle of negativity without really trying to.  This was equivalent to the miracle of my unexpected crop of artichokes.  My meditation practice has worked (to some extent)!  My mind was beginning to change!  And even though I don’t meditate in order to achieve any specific benefits, I was glowing.

Amanda Root was an academic at Oxford University and now lives and works at Kagyu Samye Dzong Tibetan Buddhist Centre, Bermondsey, London. Her article Life Happens was published on the Resurgence website. 

Photograph: Franckreporter, www.istockphoto.com

The Ancient Art of Meditation

A potent symbol for peace in an ailing modern world

With stress on the rise and Flash Mob meditation gatherings spreading across the UK to galvanise a better world, the British School of Meditation prepares to launch at the Isbourne Holistic Centre in Cheltenham in response to the mass growth in meditation in the UK.

Amid all the pressures and strains of the current financial crisis and growing dissatisfaction with an outmoded material society, the ancient art of meditation is emerging as a potent symbol for peace and calm in an ailing modern world.

“In today’s frantic world more and more people are turning to meditation as a way to calm their busy minds,” says renowned meditation teacher Mary Pearson, author of Meditation the Stress Solution, who co-founded the British School of Meditation with Helen Galpin.  “Stress is a huge problem and many people are looking for a way to reduce their stress and live happier lives.”

Meditation is also becoming widely recognised as a tool for positive change and wellbeing, for bringing people together as a community and for generating a major shift towards more conscious and sustainable living. To this end, hundreds of thousands of people have been gathering in open urban spaces around the globe for Flash Mob meditation sessions in recent months, including several in London as well as in other UK cities – from Bristol and Brighton in the South to Aberdeen in North Scotland.

The many benefits of meditation include stress and anxiety reduction, calmness, enhanced clarity and focus, better sleep, lower blood pressure, weight loss, looking younger, and a boost to the immune system.

“We are really thrilled to be hosting the British School of Meditation courses at the Isbourne,” says Janie Whittemore, Centre Manager of the Isbourne Holistic Centre. “We’ve seen a major rise in interest in meditation here at the Centre in recent months, it’s a fantastic tool for maintaining calm and focus amid the stresses of busy modern life and there’s a clearly a real need now for more qualified teachers to take it out to the masses.”

While meditation is becoming increasingly popular, Mary Pearson and fellow meditation teacher Helen Galpin looked at the existing provision for training meditation teachers and discovered a distinct lack of face to face training available. They duly founded the British School of Meditation to supply this demand, providing OCN accredited courses, and playing their part in spreading peace in the world.

“Teaching meditation has helped both Mary and myself find peace and happiness in our lives,” says Helen Galpin, who is also director of The Nutrition Centre chain of shops in Gloucestershire.  “It’s a great joy to be able to help people find time to ‘just be’ and switch off from the daily grind.”

The British School of Meditation runs an introductory day for its first teacher training course on Saturday 14th January in response to the unprecedented demand for teachers.

Meditation Teacher Training course details
Introductory First Training Day on Saturday 14th January 2011 (10am-4.30pm)
Part One: Saturday 25th February 2012 & Sunday 26th February 2012 (10.00am-4.30pm)
Part Two: Saturday 21st April 2012 & Sunday 22nd April 2012 (10.00am-4.30pm)

For bookings/further information visit: British School of Meditation

Will Gethin has worked as a holistic explorer and travel writer since 2004, writing articles for the Independent, the Evening Standard and various conscious living magazines. He has worked as a communications consultant, promoting humanitarian and intercultural organisations like IT Schools Africa, The Makhad Trust and Tribe of Doris.

Will Gethin founded a Guest Speaker programme at the Isbourne Holistic Centre, bringing leading edge spiritual authors and presenters such as Peter Owen Jones and Satish Kumar to Cheltenham to present educational talks and workshops.

A Feast of Ideas and Passions

Tagore 150 at Dartington Hall
1^st to 7^th May 2011

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky

and I lift my eager eyes to thy face

I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish

– no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tear
Tagore, extract from 'Brink of Eternity'

A full day of food for thought, belly and heart – and a little more food for the belly than usual! The curry tent and its hypnotic music is becoming a regular haunt for this writer with its generous portions of wholesome spicy, home cooked vegetables served by a friendly duo who clearly love their work.

Wandering through the grounds listening to discussion sparked by events and talks, bumping into old friends, making new ones easily through the shared, unspoken understanding that by the nature of being at the festival we are of the same tribe, idea, belief and passion, wanting a better world full of creativity, connection and a desire for deep change. The weather held and at times offered bursts of sunlight followed by welcome warmth cutting through the cool days of May after so much April sunshine.

I have heard and read much of Jane Goodall and her work but had no idea just how much she has done and is doing in the world to help make it a better, more loved and respected place for humans, animals and plant kingdom alike. And it is clearly a better place for her life within it.

In defiant defence of our world and all the beings within it, Jane is indeed a force of nature. The Great Hall was packed. Her message delivered clearly and simply. No one could mistake her feelings of despair for the world we have created; she made the 'we' very clear. But she possesses an unflinching faith for the possibilities of change and the hope she has for a better world. Very much in line with here her Roots and Shoots charity motto 'Never Give Up.'

It would be easy to be overwhelmed by the staggering accomplishments of her life and for me to think, “how could I get close to that, why bother?” but she clearly believes we are all capable of making an important difference in the world no matter how small – and in fact we must. It's not simply up to the politicians to do this. We are the leaders we've been waiting for. I couldn't agree more.

Questions from the floor seemed at times to be more about personal platforms for individual work and beliefs and at one point a gallery questioner almost seemed to be moving into a heckle about the destructive force of technology, demanding a response from Jane. She held the question firm, making it clear that for her, technology used correctly, was a key part of our future and has a place in helping to alleviate poverty and the reliance on fossil fuels. I couldn't help thinking about her momentous discovery of the chimpanzee who had created a tool to eat termites and how this changed the world view of humans being unique because they are the only species to create tools.

She then unseated religion and belief as being another key division between animals and man with her story of seeing a group of chimps dancing by a massive waterfall, hurling rocks into the water, staring up at the cascading water in wonder and how this echoed mankind's nature based beliefs and the worship of mystery and beauty in the natural world.

Jane received a much-deserved standing ovation.

Stephan Harding and Philip Franses delivered an ambitious 45-minute talk on the relationship between Einstein and Tagore using Goethe as the bridging point. I heard somewhere that it is good to read or engage with material, words or ideas that requires thought, every day. This certainly demanded some mind bending concepts to get my head around, imagining riding beams of light and ending where you began before you've even left your starting point (part of Einstein's discussion on light as an immeasurable force). I left a little baffled but boosted by the colour they brought to the talk and their evident, shared passion for blending science and belief in a positive and workable way.

There is a feast of ideas and passions at this festival and I would be wise not to gorge myself too early in my hungry search for creative, spiritual and intellectual satisfaction. Time to wander and sit and digest and let the ideas percolate and of course, eat a little more curry...

Tagore Tales
Rabindranath Tagore. William Rothenstein in his book Men and Memories quotes a story of what happened when Yeats arranged a small dinner for Tagore before he left for India. After dinner, “we asked Tagore to sing Bande Mataram. He hummed the tune but after the first words he broke down; he could not remember the rest.

Caspar Walsh is the film editor for Resurgence. He is an author, journalist and wilderness teacher. His new novel Blood Road is available in paperback. www.casparwalsh.co.uk

February

As the days grow longer and warmth returns, that which has been frozen begins to thaw and feeling returns to the Earth. 

The month of February begins with the ancient festival of Imbolc. Meaning ‘in the belly’, Imbolc marks the first stirring of life in the womb of the Earth. Dedicated to the goddess Bride, it is the first fire festival of the year. 

Bride, or Bridie, is the virgin goddess and all brides represent her as they walk towards union with the solar masculine. Hers is the new, soft body of the Earth as the water begins to flow again and the soil becomes the womb, dark, moist and enveloping. As she nurses the seed within, it begins to reach out to her.

As feeling returns we too find ourselves again in a womb, but one of our own making. The life that has contained and sustained us until now becomes the soil from which we must spring

The tree that the Celts associated with the month of February is willow. Known as the Queen of the waters, the willow is the most feminine of trees. Its Celtic name Saile, means to leap or let go, which is why the leap year falls in February. Willow calls upon us to make this leap, but the only way is to release feeling, to grieve for all that has passed and so cut the ties that bind us to the past. As we do so, life changes and we surge ahead.

To go willingly into grief, to learn and develop its ways as a practice for life, is a great gift to ourselves and to our children who then learn not to fear it as we did. Once the practice of active grief is learnt, we can feel our way all the way back to our beginnings seeking out the grief that was held there and releasing it now. Letting go, letting go, letting go. Each time we cut the strings that hold us back and bind us into familiar patterns and self-fulfilling prophecies, we take a leap. We leap into the unknown, into a place where anything is possible and long forbidden dreams can manifest themselves at last.

Ian Siddons Heginworth is an environmental arts therapist, founder of the Devon-based Wild Things community programme and author of Environmental Arts Therapy and the Tree of Life, Spirit’s Rest Books. www.environmentalartstherapy.co.uk

Are you a good guy or bad guy?

Almost nobody likes to think of themselves as a bad guy. Whether an embezzling politician, a soldier in Rowanda, a Japanese dolphin hunter or just the average person on the street, we fool ourselves with stories of necessity to justify and cover up any of our less noble acts. But where does a clear-eyed look at the role we play in this world leave us? A few questions to ask yourself:

Are you in it for the money? 

Is your job, or whatever takes up the majority of your days, something you are doing out of love, care or compassion, or is it simply something to pay the bills?

How much and how often do you give?

What do you offer the world, or those in need, free of any charge? This could mean time, effort, skills or support that is monetary, spiritual, physical or emotional.

Is this once a year? Once a month? Once a week? Every day?

How aware are you of the potentially harmful impact of your daily actions on other people, animals and the environment and how much do you care?

For many, honest answers may start to paint a less than pretty picture.

Example: I know a geologist working for a mining company. He enjoys his time in the remote, rugged pristine places, examining rock samples for traces of precious minerals. He writes songs about the beauty he beholds and he makes a lot of money at this job. He has a young family to feed. But when, and if, the desired deposits are found, the company moves in and utterly despoils the once beautiful wilderness to claim these ‘natural resources’.  But by then, this geologist is already far away at the next site….

In the eyes of the world, in the eyes of the Earth, is he a good guy or a bad guy?

If we cannot view Nature with the same concerned care we extend to our own families and loved ones, if we cannot make this change, we have no future. 

Leah Lemieux is an author and lecturer who works on dolphin protection, education and conservation initiatives.

www.RekindlingTheWaters.com

Cycles of Change in Nature

On the surface, life appears to be ever-changing. Everything is continually being transformed by the interaction between internal forces inscribed in the blueprint of nature's design, and external forces, like sunlight, wind, rain and innumerable environmental influences.

The same blade of grass is not the same from one moment to the next. The process of erosion is always at work, causing the fading of one substance into another. The grass and rocks melt into the earth, only to re-emerge as perhaps the fibres of trees and flowers. Time rules the outer layer of life. The outer material level is subject to the inexorable law which determines the natural span of life of everything in creation.
However, every change is governed by the laws of nature. The cycles of change in Nature are the means by which Nature evolves and progresses. Every change at the surface level is determined by specific laws of Nature operating at a deeper level.

Nature is perfectly organised. Intelligence is evident in every shape, form, line color and texture. Not only does everything in Nature harmonise with everything else, but every structure is harmonious in itself. It is a manifest expression of the propagation of unmanifest impulses of intelligence creating specific forms with precise internal relationships. The order that is evident at the surface of Nature resonates with an unmanifest source of order deep inside us and it is this resonance which gives rise to the perception of beauty.

Barbara Briggs is a writer, poet, teacher of Transcendental Meditation and author of The Contribution of Maharishi's Vedic Science to Complete Fulfilment in Life. This excerpt is from Vision Into Infinity, her first book, which is out of print but will hopefully be reprinted soon. Email Barbara

The Language of Nature

Silence and sound are essential features of life. Everything in nature flows between two shores: from the fullness of silence to sounds and forms, and back again to silence. This is the melodious dance of creation. Is it not true that all particularities of this ever-changing world seem to emerge, are transformed and eventually return to rest in the ground of all things which is infinitely stable? Just as the sound of one's breathing emerges from the silence of unbroken wholeness, so does this world come into being from the unmanifest ground of existence. All works of art too must reflect that unmanifest eternal field of life so that all who view it will hear the song of silence awakening deep within themselves.

Onward and upward, O artists, by way of the inward journey. Life is both surface and symbol. Our task is to translate the language of nature into the language of art. It is not what we paint, what we dance, what we compose that matters so much - it is not the content, but the structure in which it rests. What matters most is how we connect the abstract wholeness of life to each of its particular expressions, the immaterial essence to its material substance.

Every point in creation contains infinity and eternity embedded within it, so one can paint virtually anything, but it is the 'cadence of interrelationship' between infinity and the point which makes the creation of the artist sing.

Infinity exists in every flower, every blade of grass, every wafting cloud. Nature is at once spiritual and material, harmonizing and diversifying. Our challenge as artists is to articulate the deepest value of life. Look around – look deeply within – look, look – be ever open to life's immensity.

Barbara Briggs is a writer, poet, teacher of Transcendental Meditation and author of The Contribution of Maharishi's Vedic Science to Complete Fulfilment in Life. This excerpt is from Vision Into Infinity, her first book, which is out of print but will hopefully be reprinted soon. Email Barbara

Perfect Symmetry Between Humans and Nature

Is not everything in nature a reflection of a feeling etched deep within the consciousness of all human beings?

On the boundless palette of the infinite, we behold ourselves. In the clear blue of the sky in mid-afternoon, do we not perceive a symbol of the clarity of human consciousness when fully open to itself? In the flight of birds, do we not have a foretaste of the exhilaration true freedom brings - to soar beyond all earthly fetters? In the rushing of waves out to sea, and the rapid pulsing of blood through our veins, can we not feel the excitement of a new adventure or whatever we wish to make of it?
In the first sprouting of a plant as it pushes through the earth, in the rain - sometimes torrential downpours, sometimes gentle, caressing - is not nature the supreme art form, capturing the totality in every expression?
Just as one may find abstract ideas and feelings in oneself embodied in nature's forms, so should one be able to find deeper, more subtle levels within oneself through an appreciation of art. The mission of the painter, poet, dancer and musician is to guide people to ever-deeper levels of attunement with the source of harmony within themselves. This attunement with deeper levels within oneself will lead mankind to perfect attunement with Nature, because at the deepest level, there is perfect symmetry between humans and Nature. Indeed, they are one.

Barbara Briggs is a writer, poet, teacher of Transcendental Meditation and author of The Contribution of Maharishi's Vedic Science to Complete Fulfilment in Life. This excerpt is from Vision Into Infinity, her first book, which is out of print but will hopefully be reprinted soon.