Our thinking minds won't get us there. Our determination won't help us. Our ingenuity won't light the way. In fact, there is no "there" there at all if we think we can fashion our own path to a healthy and sustainable future. Nothing lies ahead but what we've seen before--humans relentlessly imposing their will upon a hapless world. And the earth suffering for it.
God won't save us either, for that matter, or the gods, or their divine interventions to establish heaven on earth. That too is egoic illusion, the dream of a deeply troubled humanity crying out for its deliverance from a fate entirely of its own making. It's like the pampered child seeking exemption from trial and from consequence. As if the gods will bend in our service. They're gods.
There is, however, a way forward, even as it entails going back; a way up and out, even though it requires digging down deep. It is in the soulful rediscovery of who we really are--creatures, interwoven into the lives of other creatures, not greater than, but part of, and reliant upon one another. Falling to our knees, we can allow Nature itself to guide us into the beatific future we seek for ourselves and for our world.
In the summer of 2023 I went on a Vision Quest in the remote mountains of Southwestern Colorado. I was part of a group of fourteen seekers, but we split up for three days to camp alone, to fast, and to open ourselves to an encounter with the Soul of the Earth. I had been preparing myself for a year. But following the suggestion of our guides, when the time came for my solo, I set aside all my plans and expectations in favour of a "wait and see" approach. I didn't want in any way to be manufacturing the experience.
The first day I sat still and opened my senses to everything--the wind rustling through the meadow, the birds singing in the trees, the field mouse at work in the grass just beyond my toes. The stiller I became, the more I noticed, and the more the natural world forgot about my presence and carried on with its own business. At the end of the day a word floated into my consciousness: "Behold!" And, indeed, that's what I'd been doing.
On the second day, I went for a short wander into the forest of aspens behind where I'd pitched my tent. Arriving at what felt like the centre of the wood, I heard another word: "Bless!" So I began to move back through the forest, laying my hands on the trees, thanking them for their life, young and old alike. It was a giddy exercise as I imagined the trees responding to my touch, some of them calling out, "Hey! What about me?"
Two large trees appeared to be the matriarchal grandmothers of the forest, from whom all the other trees had sprung. They shared a trunk, which, I could see as I reached out to thank them too, was badly scarred. I stepped back to inspect the damage, and I recoiled at what I saw. Someone had taken great care to carve into the tree trunk: "JESUS 1972". The cut was deep and the tree had bled out badly as a result.
The spectre couldn't have been more synchronistic, nor more sobering. First, there was the location. I was in the middle of nowhere. No paths passed through that part of the mountain and we'd seen no other hikers at all. But then, there was the message itself. In 1972, precisely, I had been part of the Jesus People movement, giving my witness wherever I went. That could very well have been me, cutting into this tree with the blade of my zealous, new-found faith, having dominion not only over the creatures of the earth, as it says in the Book of Genesis, but also over the trees of the wood. I felt ill.
There is more to this story, a lot more, but suffice to say that I came off my Vision Quest with a compelling new mantra: "Bless what you Behold." I don't know fully what that means, but it's guided my steps ever since. It's a lesson I'm living into, filled with Mystery, and reshaping my way in the world.
This is not an experience with which many will readily relate. Some might call it fanciful, or frivolous, or "woo-woo." But some will know exactly what I'm talking about, because talking to trees is in their lexicon too. And some will know that that is exactly how we will find our way forward as a species, by remembering that we are innately part of the world, a world we can either bruise or bless, a world that knows a thing or two that we don't.
I learned to think this way through the writings and the programs of Bill Plotkin, the founder of The Animas Valley Institute, which had offered the Vision Quest. A self-professed "psychologist gone wild," Bill took his Jungian training out into the wilderness where, it seemed to him, many of our neurotic problems simply fall away. In their place is a soulful connection with the natural world as the source of great wisdom. For the Soul of the Earth knows us, and knows us intimately, who we are and what our unique niche is amidst all the other beings of the earth. It becomes a kind of home coming, if we can learn to see it that way.
But Bill's ultimate concern is not with personal development. He recognizes in the work he has pioneered, leading groups of people into the wild, inherent possibilities, beyond the healing of individuals, for the "wholing" of humanity itself--to drop its conceit, realize its true nature, and remember its calling as part of the matrix that constitutes the natural world. If we can allow ourselves to be initiated into the forgotten ways of Soul, we might discover, as I did on the side of that mountain, a healing, hopeful, nature-based path to the future.
To listen to my recent conversation with Bill Plotkin, click on the Play button below. To learn more about his writing and the work of The Animas Valley Institute, follow the "More Info" link to the show notes.
Commentaires