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

December

As the days grow short the shadows creep in. The blanket of leaves grows dark and lies like a shroud upon the cold body of the earth as she draws back her fluids into herself. Winter sucks the life out of the land with a harsh and oppressive hunger, and all that is soft and warm recoils in the face of her advance. The woodland creatures hibernate, sealing up their dens to salvage and sustain the heat in the heart of themselves. They wrap themselves around it and sleep, little pockets of hot life imbedded in the cold clay. Secret dreamers among the black roots, spirits of fur and claw and snuffling snout, cave dwellers, fire keepers, as silent as grubs they hide from winter’s fierce and probing tongue.
We too are called upon to descend. Into stillness. Into the heat of ourselves. Into feeling. Yet so often we fear descent and struggle to resist it. We fear the death of what we know, the collapse of all that supports us. We fear the shadows that we meet there.
Yet every winter, Nature surrenders painlessly to this descent. She follows the cycle of her own being back down into the heart of herself. Of all the lessons she teaches us this is perhaps the most profound, that descent is not to be avoided but embraced. Entered into voluntarily it is a sweet release and the doorway to transformation. It is the death and dissolution of the caterpillar in the cocoon.

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

Courage, My Love

I’ve just returned from Japan, attending an international meeting to address the annual killing of thousands of dolphins there. Unbeknownst to most, this bloodbath is actually funded by the commercial trafficking of live dolphins, a few of which are shipped to holiday marine attractions and dolphin-swim parks around the world at exorbitant prices – while the rest are slaughtered as 'pests' and sold for their meat, which contains dangerous levels of toxic contaminants.

Predictably, this situation is enmeshed in a complex web of conflicting political and economic interests, while Japanese media often try to paint this issue as East clashing with West.

Dolphins – surely recognised as one of the most beautiful, joyous and inspiring of creatures, would seem a poignant representative of our troubled blue-green world. We know in our soul of souls that harming these creatures is surely wrong. 

 

Yet with danger comes opportunity. The plight of the dolphins represents a great challenge, extended to the human race as a whole. Can we avoid the distraction of supposed cultural divides and instead connect through something far more ancient, universal and profound – our compassion, our very humanity? 

 

Will we ignore the cries for help, or will we accept this challenge echoing across the seas and continents: to reach within ourselves and discover our archetypical inner hero, and stand up for all that is good and green in our world? Can we engage and inspire a critical mass of people to do the same? 

 

We can. And we are. Courage, my love.

You can see two short dolphin music videos I created from my time in Japan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx8G71vXwnY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYCqOP-ZE-Y

or on my website: www.RekindlingTheWaters.com

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

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.

November

Sometimes we find rope swings in the woods and this is always an invitation for the child to re-emerge.
We have found here how we constantly swing between the wounded child that we were and the archetypal child that we are seeking to manifest. The wounded child reacts to situations and relationships that trigger its fear, subtle transferences that keep us trapped in familiar patterns and sabotage any hope of escape. But the archetypal child is a beacon that is never truly extinguished, our infinite potential for renewal, for wonder and for real and enduring freedom. The rope upon which we swing is our tenuous link to the elder, high up in the branches above. It supports us and allows us to play. Sometimes it wears thin or even breaks and we fall on our face in the mud. At those times we may need another elder, a therapist perhaps, to help us tie up another rope and reinstate our connection. But this is only a temporary state of affairs for our true elder, the one within, never stops watching over us from above.
This connection between the old and the new is rarely felt more keenly than in November when the trees sow their seeds in the presence of death, in their fallen leaves, in the compost of the old year. Here the elder and the child lie side by side, one on her death bed, the other in her cradle. There is great ambivalence in this, our grief and our hope so united.
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

Reining Passions

And God took a handful of southerly wind, blew His breath over it, and created the horse.... Thou shall fly without wings, and conquer without any sword. ~ Bedouin Legend

For those trying to raise awareness about an issue or cause close to their hearts, it is of utmost importance to direct one’s passion carefully.
In a world where so many seem dangerously deaf and blind to the increasing troubles that beset us, it can be incredibly difficult to summon patience and avoid succumbing to the inclination to vent one’s frustrations on the very people one is attempting to educate. Where cooler heads do not prevail, we may inadvertently find ourselves becoming part of the problem rather than the solution.
The flaring of our passion sustains our will and commitment to support restorative changes, but like a team of wild horses, if not carefully directed and guided, it can easily trample rather than enlighten ignorant bystanders.
Particularly in times of heightened debate or discussion, reining our passions in, like trying to quiet wild horses, is an unmitigated challenge.  However, doing so almost invariably rewards our efforts.  Rather than alienating others, directed passion is a powerful force of Nature that can engage and inspire those around us to join our efforts to transform our world.  Indifference and even opposition can ignite – and unite to discover solutions, as our passions carry our hopes into reality.

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

The Cove

I was encouraged to see the connection between my feature in issue 263 on the Oscar winning documentary ‘The Cove’ and the blog posts of Leah Lemieux. It seems the plight of the Dolphins are once again on the local and global media radar. I remember the first time round. I lived in Ireland for a year in 1997. Part of the journey to the Ring of Kerry was to discover for myself the local folklore of the famous Dingle Bay Dolphin, Funghi. Dolphin mania seemed to be everywhere. This incredible sea creature brought a huge boost in local eco tourism as well as a connection to the natural world that has literally changed the lives of thousands.
As a result of indiscriminate tuna fishing uncovered in the eighties, the general public realised that Dolphins were in need of urgent protection. Public sympathy was sparked. My close friend and producer Tor Cotton made the acclaimed documentary, ‘The Dolphin’s Gift’, about Funghi. The film was a success with a suitably earnest narration by John Hurt.
I worked in the press office of the Environmental Investigation Agency in the early nineties and was honoured to work with the man who got the camera on board the ship where dolphins, inadvertently caught in the tuna fishing nets, were routinely having their fins cut off and thrown back into the sea to die. Gruesomely caught on his undercover camera, the fate of the Dolphin was given massive global media profile and the senseless killings, for the most part, were stopped in their tracks. Dolphin friendly tuna logos on supermarket cans worldwide soon followed.
And so, the cycle has begun again. We find ourselves in a new urgent, dolphin saving time with, among many others, the horrific issues raised in ‘The Cove’.
My experiences swimming with Funghi were not life changing but they had a powerful, lasting effect; as do the stories of those who have looked into his all seeing eye and found themselves changed forever. Swimming In his watery world I was deeply humbled, and a little scared; reminded of my natural place on land and the respect I have, and must have, for the sea. The dolphins power and place in the ocean is without question. So we must protect and respect their right to live fully and freely; as they did for millennia; long before we entered their sacred world and changed it forever.

Caspar Walsh is Film Editor for Resurgence magazine and a wilderness and writing teacher. His new novel, Blood Road is available from Headline.

www.casparwalsh.co.uk