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!
Way back long ago in late 2014 I wrote a poem. Which as a stand alone statement is hardly cause for excitement on any level I can think of.
Except to say that in that poem I expressed much of what I felt (and still feel all these years later, perhaps more so) about Vincent Van Gogh. I called it A Little Ode to Vincent, because it was a kind of love song, a celebration of Vincent and an affirmation of my reverence for that great one.
Anyway, I was reading some old poems last night and I came across A Little Ode to Vincent. I checked to see if I’d shared it with you on this blog at some point, but to my surprise I found that I hadn’t. Which is very nice for me, because I get to share it with you now.
There it is then. Thank you for allowing me to share it with you. There isn’t a word I’d change if I were writing it now.
While looking through my blog checking for this poem, I came across two posts from 2022 which mention Vincent. Well, one is about a book I’d read on his spirituality and his quest to lead a compassionate life. Have a look at the beginning of that post and what I wrote about that book:
I still remember the book and its impact on me vividly. Please read the post Van Gogh Mystic & Saint, and if at all possible read the book. In fact I’m going to try to track it down and read it again, or at least do some Googling on the topic.
The other post I wrote at around the same time isn’t about Vincent directly, but it does open with a quote from him, and he’s referred to throughout the post. Here’e the opening section:
Again, please take the time to read it. It’s called The Pilgrims’ Way, and I think it makes a very nice sibling post for that first one I’ve linked to.
I hope you found the little Ode of mine satisfying. I have always had great reverence for Vincent, and after reading the book about his spirituality, I was even more deeply attracted to the man, the artist, and the mystic saint that was Vincent Van Gogh.
There’s nothing more genuinely artistic than to love people.
Has anyone seen Walk the Line? It’s a great movie that tells the story (or a version thereof) of the life of Johnny Cash. Yes, I know: not everyone is into country music. This movie, however, is an intriguing insight into the life and work of a gifted but troubled artist. He was a prolific and inspired singer and songwriter.
There is a scene in the movie in which Johnny is about ten or so. He’s talking to his brother who is maybe 14. The brother is studying the Christian scriptures (he wants to be a preacher when he grows up, but dies soon after in an horrific accident) and Johnny says, ‘Why you studying so hard?’ His brother looks up from his reading and says,
‘You can’t help nobody if you don’t tell ´em the right stories.’
Yes, I thought when I heard that, you have to tell them the right stories. But, what are the right stories? It’s a good question but, fortunately, there is a simple answer: they are all the right stories. That is if they are told from and with the heart, and if they are created and shared with the intention of conveying Truth, promoting harmony, and doing or causing to be done, what’s right.
The ‘them’ of poor brother Cash’s reply are those who get to hear/see/feel the stories we tell. And we all tell stories don’t we? I mean I’m telling you a story right now. As a (cringe) blogger, that’s what I do.
But we all share stories of all kinds. Sometimes they are stories of our lives, sometimes they are from memories passed down the generations. Other times they might be something we ‘make up’ to help someone to understand a point or idea. Pretty much all of us, most of the time communicate in one kind of story or another.
Of course there’s the other kind of stories; the ones meant to spread rumour or gossip, to hurt someone, to mislead. We all know how that works, and it’s not today’s topic anyway, so let’s just leave it there.
Those we share stories with may be those we intend to share with, and they might be others who at the time are distant from us both in time and space. Just as the stories we tell each other might be decades or even centuries old, so might our stories keep on reverberating through time and space.
A true story written on a wall somewhere
It’s also true that the stories that ‘help’ people come in all shapes and forms and are about an unlimited variety of subjects and topics. Then there’s the matter of timing. How often have you ‘just by chance’ read something inspirational when you were needing some guidance or advice?
Or what about those times when you are feeling a bit low or under the weather and you come across a story that makes you smile or otherwise lifts your spirits? I’ve often been in need of a good cry only to come across a sad movie or story or a moving tale of one kind or another. (Just last night I read a wonderful phrase I’d never seen before: Transformational Weeping. Probably a story or two there do you think?)
A story I tell myself literally every day. One that’s a prayer and an affirmation
So, let’s keep telling stories. They are all the right ones for us to tell – if they come from the heart and told with the intention of serving Truth. Someone once wrote:
If there is a way to improve the world, it is by telling a good story.
Okay then.
Once upon a time on a dark but not so stormy night …
PS I saw the movie in Dharamsala India. On a postcard home I wrote a little rhyme about some writing work I was doing on some of the town’s environmental issues for a local magazine:
He walked the line did Johnny Cash. But here in Dalai Lama Land my words will help reduce trash.
I did say stories come in all shapes and forms didn’t I?
Remember that old Bee Gees‘ song Words? It’s about one person offering all they have to another. Well, the one doing the offering must have been a writer because, while the song’s a love story, it’s words that are the big thing on offer here:
It’s only words, and words are all I have To take your heart away
Well, as this is a blog, words are the way it hopes to reach your heart. Actually, the posts also include photos and sometimes other art, but the main vehicle used here is words.
So, with that in mind I have a couple of words to offer you today. Well, one word and its opposite. Have a look at this sentence from Thomas Merton:
If Irish monks affirmed his Celtic spirit in their mastery of cataphatic contemplation of the wonders of divinity in nature, Buddhist monks evoked his Zen mind and drew him into the apophatic path of formless ’emptiness’…
As sentences go (though this is obviously only part of a sentence) this has to rank pretty close to the top for length and denseness.
Kataphatic. What a word! Of course I had to look it up; I’d never heard the word before (this post is a rewrite from notes written a while ago that I never got around to posting.), and even though the sentence seems to suggest the meaning, I was still curious.
Looking at Wikipedia – where they spell it with a ‘C’ like Merton, as well as with a ‘K’- I learned that cataphatic is an adjective that describes an approach to theology that uses ‘positive terminology to describe or refer to the divine (God, Truth, Dharma, Spirit. You know what I mean: the divine).
Apophatic, as you probably figured out already, is when one uses ‘negative terminology to indicate what it is believed the divine is not’. A process of negation or we could say you get to what the divine is by a process of elimination.
Pretty simple concept really, but with a couple of big words to label it, and a lot of words to define it. No, don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the meaning and origin of the words and all the rest. Mainly because I don’t know and I’m not especially interested anyway in all that technical stuff.
I simply resonated with the word, and the concept. Cataphatic made me think of Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews singing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in Mary Poppins. But let’s not go there: this is a serious blog after all. Except to say there’s more to that word than you might imagine.
Putting aside the aesthetic appeal of the word for a minute, let’s contemplate a while on cataphatic, and it’s opposite, apothatic.
To begin thinking about these two words, it’s necessary to acknowledge the existence of the divine. We can call it God, if we like. Or Dharma, Truth, Spirit, Love, Beauty.
As the quote suggests, a cataphatic approach, ideology, theology, or whatever we call it, ascribes names and forms to the divine, as well as describing where and in what the divine may reside.
Whereas apothatic, again as the quote suggests, does not ascribe names and forms to the divine. Instead it seeks to discover what or who god is or isn’t by a process of negation as described already.
For a long time I labelled myself as a Humanist. I had decided that this physical body is all there is; the physical or material universe is all there is, and that there is no ‘god’ separate from us or who has special powers to affect our lives. No God at all in fact.
In the Grove of the Sentinals
But, all that while, I just knew that there was something else, something more than just the physical. And over time, I came to the knowledge that there is indeed more than the simply phsical universe (including we humans).
I’ve thought about it a lot over the years and I came to the conclusion not that many years ago, that I had simply been afraid to name or define that something more. It would have meant admitting to myself that something more really did exist.
That is to say, I was scared of taking the cataphatic approach – and I’d never even heard the word.
Well brothers and sisters, I saw the light. The truth was revealed to me. And what is that truth? Well, to put it simply, I wasn’t scared anymore. Not of names and forms, and not of what I couldn’t see.
Now I could take both the Catophatic and the Apothatic approach: that the something else I had actually always known just was, really is, and can have a name and form, or not. The divine is not an omniscient being or any kind of being at all; As I’m very fond of saying, the divine (or truth, God, Dharma) simply is. And it’s all there is.
Some of you might know that I am really quite fond of the Indian deity, Ganesha . Do I believe that a man with the head of an elephant actually exists or ever existed?. Of course not. Do I actually think that he resides in the lovely painted icon that sits by my bed? Well, obviously not.
But do I believe that there is a spark or aspect or attribute in all life, in you and me, in nature, in (scary word time) creation, that we can tap into to help us overcome obstacles? Or that we can access when we begin new ventures of whatever kind, or when we need strength to face challenges? Yes, I do. Very definitely.
And do I believe in a blue boy called Krishna who lived in India 5000 years ago and spent his time playing in the fields with the village cows and his friends, entertaining them with his flute? Again, of course not. Does he live in the other beautiful icon by my bed? The answer is obvious: no.
But do I chant the Hare Krishna mantra in an effort to come closer to the divine that is… well, that just is? Yes, again, very definitely.
Words. It’s all only words. Only words? Only??
In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. (from the opening of the Gospel of John)
A few days ago I began a new work to study and contemplate in my not quite daily Lectio Divina practice. It’s actually a spiritual classic that, although I’ve read it before, I felt the need to explore a little more, dig a little deeper, rather than simply reading through it as I did the first time.
I haven’t gotten very far in the book; like I say it’s going to be a slower, more reflective process this time (I’m amazed how little I remember as I reread now). A small story the author tells us by way of describing how he’s structured the book, is actually where I’ve left off, so that I can share it with you before I go on with the text and forget!
Abba Arsenius (courtesy Wikipedia)
It concerns Abba Arsenius who was a high ranking Roman official working in the household of the Emperor. Clearly he was looking for a more meaningful, more spiritually oriented lifestyle away from the dogma running people’s lives, politics, the decadence and the rest, because he constantly prayed to God, seeking a way out that would lead him ‘to salvation’. He was wanting badly to be free.
Well, he heard an answer, from deep within his soul:
Flee, be silent and pray always.
So, that’s what he did, fleeing first obviously. I don’t know the rest of his story. I mean I could look him up, but for our purposes here today, all we need to know is that he took off secretly to Egypt and went to live alone in the desert.
Nouwen believes:
“The words flee, be silent and pray summarize the spirituality of the desert. They indicate the three ways of preventing the world from shaping us in its image and are thus the three ways to life in the Spirit.”
Flee. It’s quite a strong word isn’t it? On the face of it, it simply means run away or escape. But it seems to suggest something more urgent, as if the one doing the fleeing needs to get away as quickly as possible; sticking around could be (or actually is) dangerous.
And that, as I said, is where I stopped to think. Sorry, I mean contemplate. I was so struck by the concept: in its essence, it is exactly the life I am attempting to live. Anyway, since reading it I’ve been thinking a lot about the three imperatives given to Arsenius in that very succinct answer he received to his question.
In fact, looking the word up just now I see that some slang terms for flee are: bolt, scram, schedaddle, or get the heck of out Dodge (or in the case of Arsenius, Rome). Let’s just say, to flee means to run away as quickly as you can, to escape imminent danger of some kind, real or metaphorical.
I read once of a woman who had the debilitating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. In an attempt to recover and heal, she moved to a remote cottage in a tiny town ‘in the middle of nowhere’. Why such a drastic move? Surely if she is ill she should stay near to doctors and other resources?
Well, for her being in a city was the problem. Noise, crowds, pollution, pressure to conform and consume, interaction on so many levels all the time with other people, trying to meet daily needs in a complex, crowded and hectic environment was precisely what was making her ill.
Not to mention the effects on mental health that living in such conditions has on a lot of people, and I think we can all relate to some degree to this idea. We’ve all felt sometimes (or even very often) how we would like to just get away from it all.
For me it was about the gross materialism, the lack of ethical and moral thinking in the running of businesses, governments, and the rest; I longed also for a deeper connection with what one might call the sacred; more time and space for contemplation and just a simpler, slower, less rushed, less complex life.
Now, I hear you saying: ‘not everyone can or should just give up everything and take off to live in a cave’. (or desert, wherever). And you are right, of course. In fact, we can say the cave is a metaphor for all sorts of spaces one might feel drawn to when fleeing and seeking separation from the world. Actually, we’ll be talking more about this later when we get to the be silent bit.
For these Hermit Pilgrims ‘fleeing from the world’ has meant a nomadic lifestyle, few possessions and material needs, a hermit life where our engagement or entanglement with the world is kept to a minimum, and in which we feel less of a pressure to conform, to ‘be shaped’ by the world around us’).
The reality is of course, at the end of the day for most of us and for most of our lives we have to make money to feed and clothe ourselves and our families. And for that we need to work. And in order to work we need a house to live in, and to have a house to live in we (perhaps) have to get a mortgage, and to get a mortgage … . Well I guess you get the point.
But, for a moment ask yourself: What would it look like for me to ‘flee’? For each person it’s going to take on its own unique meaning. I suppose the easiest way to put it is to say that fleeing for all of us essentially means laying aside those things (or people, places, behaviours) that we look at as ‘dangerous’ , ‘bad for us’, or from which we constantly feel the need to escape. Sometimes they’re little things, sometimes more serious.
It might be that we’ve taken on too many social media ‘obligations’ that are swallowing up any precious spare moments we have, that we’d like to be free of. Or it could be our compulsion for bringing our work home that we are desperate to give up (the bringing work home, though of course it might be the job too), so we can actually make some more free moments.
Perhaps it’s our drive to ‘know what’s going on’ by watching the news every night that’s doing our head in. These are some of the so-called minor things that we know are shaping who we are, and often against our own wishes too. Now I think about it, maybe none of it’s ‘minor’ after all.
Oh dear, I’ve done it again: word count is very nearly 1000. Too many words is another thing people try to flee from: we’re flooded, overwhelmed by words. And as much as I personally love words, I get the point and I will leave our contemplation on what was actually a message of very few words, till the next post.
It’s a funny thing, but as soon as I start thinking about resharing older (let’s call them prior posts instead) all sorts of posts come up begging to be the next in line to be shared again.
Anyway, I’d sat down to write something on a quote I really like:
Forget all that and hit the road into exile.
FROM A LONG LOST DEEPLY BURIED NOTE-TAKING APP ON MY TABLET
But nothing was coming. Then suddenly I remembered: I’d already written (sort of, kind of, in a manner of speaking) about this topic, if not this particular quote.
Looking up the post, well it did its thing and said very clearly and in no uncertain terms, Post me!
So, here it is dear friends. I will let it speak for itself
Today I’d like to share a poem with you. I wrote it exactly a year ago, but it’s about a day many many years ago. At other places on this site I’ve mentioned that cliched but for me ever so real question: Am I running away from something or am I running towards something?
In one of those other places I joke about my answer: ‘Neither. I’m just a journey person’. Well, this poem began life as a story of the day I first met Jesus freaks as I hitchhiked on just one more random excursion.
Then it becomes at the same time a piece about running, or journeying towards. And, there’s more: it then speaks about the journey as the point of the journey; the movement is the thing
But the thing morphed into a rap about journey beginnings, or at least in the sense of my ongoing attempted, and until a lot of years later, futile escapes from the madness of family and circumstance. That’s the running away bit.
You see, there was something holy felt then, as now, about those seemingly random hitching trips (not that I would dream of hitching in these times). Somehow I knew the Road was the escape route from the growing madness and horror.
Of course I was only able to partially articulate this at that time, but I remember even at 17 (no, it was a year earlier when I’d made my first attempt. I’d forgotten about that) feeling a sort of specialness about the covering of new (for me) ground, the movement, then the arrival at new (for me) places, new towns and cities.
Much of this pilgrimming (for that is what it was) was done in solitude – except for interactions with drivers of course (one of whom was on the day in question one of the said Jesus Freaks) and other necessary people along the way.
I felt a sense of belonging when on the Road; a kind of being in place and in sync. A sense of belonging that I kept fucking up as I let the trickster ego with its taunting messages of fear, loneliness, greed for things and status, and the rest, take control of me and lead me on twisting and tricky roads back to madness.
And now, these 50 years later, I survey the damage done, the cost to self and others. Especially others. No use of course, to look back with wishful thoughts of what if things had been done differently, what if other choices had been made. Such is not truth, not real. Well, none of it’s real anyway is it? Samsara is all it is – it’s all a sea of madness and illusion isn’t it?
Anyway, here is the poem. May it speak to you. Peace
The Road Rises Up
I woke up that morning marooned in Albion in a village of warriors, on a street, in a house, going mad in a nest of madness on an island of madness, in a sea of madness. Escape, refuge, safety – waking thoughts. Waking dreams. Looking for a way out.
The Road. The Road rose up in my mind. The Road will save me. Not the shrink the patriarch screamed I needed to see. The Road was waiting; I found it waiting for me. And my thumb in silent salutation and prayer held aloft in supplication as I trudged on that seemingly straight but trickster road.
Welcome to the pilgrims’ way, the Road greeted me as I trod ever more lightly and Babylon’s chariots hurtled past me bound for far nowheres. Or maybe somewheres. All in the fast lanes and howling deceptively of invitations and rejections, attractions and aversions. Then – in time – an invitation proffered and accepted. This pilgrim was on his way.
There used to be a thing – maybe it’s still a thing – that would happen sometimes. You’d be talking to someone and suddenly they’d burst out:
‘Hey that rhymes! You’re a poet and don’t know it!’
This exclamation, this sudden and surprising interruption, was always prompted by some sort of accidental rhyming happening in something you’d said.
Or, sometimes, it even happened when you had written something and had through no fault or thought on your part, created a rhyme, even a little impromptu and accidental poem.
Well, that’s what happened to be. It was a while ago now and I was writing in my journal. It must have been ages ago because I don’t keep a journal anymore.
In any case, with nobody reading over my shoulder, it was left to me to express surprise at a sudden outburst of poetics on the page. And along with the surprise, I was able to make a quick note of what I’d written:
Anyway, this post isn’t about this little demonstration of spontaneous poetic genius; it’s actually about the ‘sometime soon’ tagging along on the end.
I have no idea where or what the walk to take, the pilgrimage to make, was – or is. Which suggests a rather obvious conclusion: ‘sometime soon’ never came. The walk was not taken; the pilgrimage was not made.
Now, I’m thinking to myself, if the walk under discussion was so appealing – as well as so significant that it transformed into a pilgrimage – then how come ‘sometime soon’ wasn’t right now, or rather right then. If you follow me.
Of course there’s no telling the reasons for the sometime soon. Maybe plans would have been required; travel to arrange; equipment to gather; fitness to acquire. Who knows?
Clearly I was inspired to at least put down in writing that I thought this walk, this pilgrimage, was (or would be) a good thing to do.
Meaning, in that moment, in the present that is (or was) of that moment, that walk/pilgrimage was a thing I wanted to undertake.
Now, while I might have longed to take that walk, to make that pilgrimage, in the present of that moment of writing, and even though planning may have been required, thereby putting off the actuality of the taking and making till some future time, I at the very least could have taken some action – again in the present of that moment – to get the ball rolling so to speak.
So, what’s the lesson here?
Well it’s simple really, very simple. Maybe simpler to say than to actually put into practice, but I think my lesson here is just this. Tell myself the truth as often and as much as I possibly can. In other words:
Be honest with myself
Let’s look at the options
If I’d really wanted to take this walk, to make this pilgrimage, no matter how remote, how complicated the logistics or planning, why didn’t I take action in that present? Or at least in some present before I actually forgot completely what the walk/pilgrimage was.
And why add ‘sometime soon’ if I didn’t actually desire or intend for this thing to happen? Well, possibly to put of any decision about doing or not doing. Or perhaps it was a way of saying (in completely other words), ‘Well, it sounds very nice, but I doubt I will ever end up doing it.’
So, honesty, and clear thinking about what I want and what I don’t want. That way I won’t be so attached, so keen on clinging to outcomes that I can’t see clearly, can’t easily know what I am to do or not do. Presence. Being present is what this is really about isn’t it?
To be completely present, to be fully here and now, requires me (all of us I suppose) let go of the maybes, and the ifs and buts as well as the endless ruminations about do this or don’t do that.
If I want to take a walk, or make a pilgrimage, then I say to me: just get on with it! If I don’t, then just say so, and move on.
Last little comment: I would really love for the present to remind me of what this walk/pilgrimage was. I’m a bit curious I guess(yes I know, curiosity is a present moment deflater) Maybe it’ll come back to me now I’ve written this post.
The hand of the monk agéd, insistent, but gentle too, takes and holds mine. The monk sits, the Dharma before him, sacred texts resting in their saffron shroud. My presence completes this circle.
Mountain monastery calling him; it’s not home. Other mountains he’s climbed. Escape. High places divide this world from that, that time from this.
His loving touch, his smile, linger in rarefied air. Air drenched with the warmth of the Dharma, in this late monsoon restaurant of the Snow Lion, south of his land.
I’m not completely sure where I found this prayer. But I have a feeling it is by Thomas Merton, one of my most favourite and significant teachers and guides.
On the going down and the coming up silvered and golded stairs to and from the Underworld. It’s all just a giant mirror In which we see who we are not.
Notes from the Hermit's Cave 