Earlier today I took my camera out for a walk. Which is to say, I had an intention that the walk would be more than exercise for the body (very much needed as it is), but also an opportunity for my eyes and heart to open up a little to the tiny part of the world I was to pass through.
I also hoped that my mind would join in so that I would be able to actually recognise what I was seeing and feeling, allowing me to perhaps make images of what I saw and felt.
One final prayer: In doing its job, I hoped my mind would stay focused, and work behind the scenes very quietly.
A few minutes walk from the Hermitage is the shore of a fairly large lake, and when I reached that spot, I sat on a conveniently placed little wall, so I could, well, just sit for a bit.
By chance, um. Sorry, let me rephrase that. By the brilliant synchronicity that results from the perfect working out of the natural laws of the Universe, right in front of me, nearer to the water’s edge, a dozen or more Corellas played and foraged. At least to my limited human eyes, that’s what they were doing.
Zoom in and share the fun!!
It’s mesmerizing watching them: tumbling with each other or on their own; picking up and wrestling with twigs and other small things. I was blessed too, to witness several of these creatures taking off, in flight, and landing.
You might have heard me say (or read when I wrote) that ‘I was just not there’. Well, not today; today I was definitely there. In a contemplative reverie in which I felt connected with what I was witnessing through my lens.
‘I had a small sense of being relaxed,’ I commented casually to my community when I arrived back at the Hermitage. And that’s what it felt like: I had relaxed for a time. I can’t say I was aware of the passage of time; it was more an eternal being in the moment if I was to try to label it now. It might have been thirty minutes or ten by the world’s measure; I have no idea really.
I’m only ever going to be a beginner when it comes to paying full attention, to contemplating and being completely immersed in the moment, and not forgetting trying to control the monkey mind. Practise will never make perfect in that department!
Anyway that’s why spiritual practices are called practices: they require the spiritual seeker to be committed to a life of ongoing and continual practise.
Of course encountering those birds at the lake today is definitely a practice I would be happy to practise anytime!
There, dear friends, right there, in the title are our next two W questions, as well as the answers to both.
The answer is brief, succinct, right to the point, yes indeed. But somehow to me it doesen’t seem very helpful, a bit vague.
Here and now. Let’s look at this tricky little phrase. On the face of it Here and Now has an obvious meaning: if we choose to think on it in the spirit of our ongoing contemplation on my prayer life, it’s very clear. Here and now is a timely reminder to me to pray right where I am, right now, wherever I might be; and whatever the time, day or night.
But it’s not really a very satisfying answer is it? Here and Now? It seems too flippant to me, too bland, even a bit of a ‘catch all’ cliche thrown around without any real insight into its meaning or importance.
Anyway, moving right along …
We are exhorted to pray without ceasing in the Christian Bible with similar exhortations found in so many other texts and scriptures from many faith traditions.
Remember my aspiration to make of my life a prayer? Well, that’s the idea: to pray without ceasing. Which translates to mean that everything I do, say, think, feel (what else?) will be prayer – or I can also say a prayer. Life is a prayer, life is lived as a prayer.
Of course the precise forms my prayer takes are – and will ever be – many and varied. We’ll be looking at some of those forms and types later in the How post of this series. But, for now, allow me to brainstorm on the topic for a bit.
Consider washing the dishes, a task we all find ourselves engaged in to some degree or other. I have a sense that my feelings towards dish washing is actually quite neutral. Don’t get me wrong: if I never had to wash a dish again you would not hear me complain.
At the same time, I have absolutely no hard feelings against washing dishes.I just get on with it, just like most everybody else.
Sticking with dish washing …
Most often dishes need washing as a consequence of preparing, cooking, and eating food, for a meal or meals. Right there is an obvious opportunity for a simple prayer of gratitude.
It might be a simple whispered thank you for the gifts of the nourishment, satisfaction, even pleasure of the meal. Anyway, just a random first thought on the subject.
There are a few other points to be made in our little dish washing thought exercise as it fits into my own prayer life.
Sometimes, while actually dish washing and cleaning up, I might chant mentally, or otherwise pray with words – set prayers. Prayers of praise or gratitude; mainly whatever pops into mind. Go with the flow is the theme here.
Now, that’s one thought. Next: I might decide to be quiet while washing up. That is not speaking and being as silent inside as I can be.
On these occasions I just focus as intently as I can on what I’m doing: washing dishes. I make it an occasion for not doing the dishes just to get them done, or to get them out of the way, or to put an end to an onerous chore.
Rather, it’s more an opportunity to simply wash the dishes, by being with the dishes and the actions required to clean them. Just a little aside: this particular form of mindful (prayerful) dish washing actually results in cleaner dishes. It’s been proven scientifically.
These two approaches to washing dishes – not to mention all the other means and forms of prayer – are not necessarily mutually exclusive, nor are they the only one: a given dish washing event might involve several prayer modes.
Which leads me to the next thought that I had more or less forgotten…
Sometimes I do indeed slip into that old ‘Just get the blank blank things done’ frustration mood. And it doesn’t just happen when faced with the dishes!
It goes without saying that I wouldn’t need an aspiration if I was already acting full time in that prayerful manner. I do practise – sometimes with more determination than others – performing all my actions mindfully (aka prayerfully), though there’s far to go for me in the praying ceaselessly department.
So, to a good question you may be asking: Is there somewhere (or multiple somewheres) that I go to to pray? Some special sacred or holy place?
Well, I know that we are always all of us standing on sacred ground – it is all the Divine. Still, there are places that help me, all of us, feel closer to that divinity, to the sacred, to God, or whatever we call it.
There are places that exude that special vibe, or have a certain atmosphere of calm, quiet, or stillness, that are conducive to prayer.
An apparently random glance skyward blessed me with this moment and this place of prayer
Talking about the idea that we are always standing and walking on sacred ground, there are often places I come across that speak to me as places of prayer. It might be a tree, like the one pictured here; it might be a distant view of a lake and the hills beyond.
Such places call to me to stop. Perhaps for a moment, perhaps to sit and linger and pray with words, or with silence.
In the Hermitage, there is temple, a room we have set aside for that purpose, and no other. From the very first day I set this room aside as a temple, I have felt a stillness there, a tranquil vibe.
Among such spontaneous little moments, there are times I simply stop and stare at a flower, or without thought put my hand on a tree. I will whisper a quiet thank you and a blessing to the Divinity I sense there.
Temples, churches, chapels, prayer rooms, mosques, and other types of sacred sites from andy and all spiritual and religious traditions, attract me as well.
These are all places people have spent time in praying, contemplating their lives and their union with the Divine. All that energy, all that love and devotion has caused an atmosphere of holiness, or sacredness to build up over what can be years, centuries, even millennia, in some places I have prayed.
But, really, when all is said and done, anywhere and anywhen can be and is a place for prayer. Here, in this booth, in the cafe at the lakeshore near the Hermitage, I make these notes in a mood of prayer, a prayer of love and devotion.
Being present, mindful, and prayerful in all I do, that’s my aspiration. Here and Now. Anywhere and anywhen; it’s all prayer.
With the current hermitage located not so much on the side of the road, as right on the side of a large sand dune system, you might imagine that I am at and on the beach every day.
While almost every day, I walk the track that follows the crest of the dunes in this particular area, I’ve only actually gone down to the beach itself a handful of times.
So, yesterday as start to my resolve to make amends for this omission, I climbed the dune, ignored the crest track leading left and right, and continued straight on and down the other side of the dune, and onto the beach itself. My intent was to spend an hour or so walking along the tide line.
And so it was.
Judging by such rare experience of the beach itself, I might easily say I am no ‘beachcomber’; no discoverer of coastal treasures, little natural beauties from the sea, or even the occasional oddity one might expect washed up. Until yesterday that is.
Not that I went to ‘comb’ the beach: rather I was there trying to put myself on the receiving end so to speak, to be a receptacle for what I might be blessed with (not to forget the need for exercise and movement).
And so it was.
This sense of grace and blessings, I hope I’ve conveyed in the small poetic effort (as well as its companion photo) that I now share with you.
SPOTTED ON THE SAND DUNE
Strolling (briskly mind you) along the sands, There I was – deep in the liminal zone. Ankle-deep – sometimes – seawater cooling my feet. One way to receive Varuna’s blessings.
Back on dry sands (still in the liminal zone) I pause to examine a spiral shell – an elegant and delicate sea creature. It lives. Reverently, I move it to deeper water.
As I rise from my small task of union, of reunion, I glance – still within the liminal zone – upwards. There, near the crest of the sand dune sits a chair. An armchair I spotted right there on the sand dune.
There it was, facing me – and the sea – in the middle of nowhere. Though this is clearly somewhere for somebody. The perfect perch for taking in Pacific views.
Empty chair, lonely sight overlooking the liminal zone.
Earlier today I thought I might write a post to let you know what’s going on at the Hermitage at the moment. That’s it. One thought, no follow up. One more idea that might or might not work out.
And then just now my partner hermit and I were talking about how we’re not feeling present where we are and how frustrating that is.
Then I made a joke about how I’d had the thought about updating you on where we’re at right now and how useless that idea is because we aren’t actually here and it’s not actuallynow. We have already moved in our minds to our next temporary hermitage.
Let me explain.
You see, we move around a lot. Every few months, sometimes even more often. It’s just the way we are, pilgrims and nomads. Still hermits mind you, but the pilgrimage takes us wherever and whenever it wants.
Anyway, we are scheduled to move in about a month. It happens that our next safe haven is in a familiar town that we actually like quite a lot. So, naturally, we’ve been thinking and talking about all the great things about that place. But worse, all that forward thinking, fantasizing, speculating, has lessened our hold on the present, on the here and now.
Like I said, it’s as if we aren’t here anymore and that’s a pity. You’d think that someone who writes and thinks so much about presence would be a little more skilled at actually being present. At least sometimes. But, no. It often feels like the more I think about it, the less it happens. Being in the present, in the here and now I mean.
I know that my last post was about story and its central place in pretty much all our communication with each other and the world. With that in mind, there is a story I’d like to tell you now that I’ve heard a couple of times from a favourite teacher of mine.
It’s a story about presence, yes, but it’s also about having an attachment to some kind of anticipated and (in one’s own mind) fixed outcome. It’s really about how we can never really know anything at all about the future for absolute certain, and how that attachment to the outcome can easily obscure from us other possibilities, other outcomes that are available here and now.
Imagine you work in a city office and have just finished work for the day. You head out onto the street in a casual way because you know for sure the bus isn’t due for another 15 minutes and the stop is just across the road.
So, there you are, just about to cross the road, eyes on the ticket home (aka the busstop), and a car pulls up right in front of you. It’s a friend of yours you haven’t seen for a while (this part of the story is my little embellishment, added for extra clarity and detail you might say).
‘Hop in,’ your friend smiles and opens the passenger door to let you in. ‘I’ll drive you home. It’ll give us a chance to catch up.’
You are in a little world of your own after a long tiring day. You’re, already planning what to watch on TV, and thinking about dinner. So, after the hellos and the how are yous, you politely tell your friend that you’re okay, the bus is due in five minutes (time flies!) and you checked and you know it’s coming on time.
Your friend drives off with a shrug and a wave, and you get ready to cross the road .Just as you are about to step out onto the road the light changes leaving you stuck on the spot. Then you see the bus – your bus – pull into the stop. No worries, the light will change again in a few seconds. But it doesn’t. It’s a busy time of day and the traffic keeps on flowing.
Then, as you stand watching, the bus pulls away and your eyes follow it down the road, round the corner, and out of sight. Now, you also know that the next bus isn’t due for an hour and a half. And that is for sure going to ruin dinner and you won’t be watching much TV tonight either. An exhausting end to an exhausting day.
In your attachment to the idea of the bus arriving on time, and on your thinking about the evening ahead, you refused the other option that just by way of serendipity had presented itself.
Now, like all of us who miss opportunities because we’re busy thinking about the future (and of course it could just as easily be the past), you are asking yourself why was I so sure the bus was coming on time? How could I possibly know? Timetables can be wrong can’t they? You’re already regretting saying no to your friend. You were only being polite anyway.
While you sit annoyed and frustrated at the bus stop, you start to think a little differently. It might have been nice to catch up, after so long. Not only that [my friend’s] car would have been way more comfortable than a crowded bus. Not only that I would be almost home by now.
So, what about me? What will I miss because I’m not here while I’m still here? What won’t I see or experience because I’m attached to the next place? Well, unlike our bus timetable know-it-all, I don’t want to find out.
Time now to recentre. Time to practise what I preach. Time to return to where I already am, here and now. Mindfulness in even the smallest activity. When I remember that is; after all, it isn’t called practise for nothing: it’s a practice that never ends.
Time to remind myself that I can’t ever know for certain what’s going to happen from one moment to the next, much less at any moment between now and a planned event in a month. Nothing wrong with planning, with preparing. The trick is to not be so attached to that plan that you are compelled to either ignore the present or fixate on that possible future.
So then, it’s time to open my eyes, ears, mind and heart to what’s around me, where I am and what is happening. Same disclaimer as above mind you! It’s the effort we make that really matters after all.
The real bonus, though, of being as fully in the moment as you can be, is that being there (sorry I mean here) is the only place you can actually be, which means you are fully in the presence of all there is. There’s nothing else. Not in that (this?) moment anyway.
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 