UNCONVENTIONAL FORMS OF SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

NATURE #2

Wilderness (or Nature) Rapture

For an inner experience we should go into nature in silence and reverence as one would do going into a temple. One cannot expect to experience the benefits with ear pods tuned into music or incessant talking. We need to surrender to silence and listen with all our senses, even taste. There is a greater appreciation driven by our thirst and effort when we really taste and enjoy water or our snack and can be in the moment with how they nourish and give pleasure.

We can connect with the Soft fascinations which include; sunsets, sunrises, moon-sets, moon-rises, the subtle smells and aromas and the sounds or mantra of the bush. When we immerse for longer periods we can entrain with the daily and seasonal cycles as well. 

"It was only when the while man came that wilderness existed."  Luther Standing Bear

Indigenous peoples were and still are a part of nature – we are apart from nature. We have to prepare and know before we go! 

When we venture into wild places we make all sorts of preparations to go out and look forward to coming back to our creature comforts. 

The force of the primal self, manifested as love is the glory of God. Those who awaken it in others and nurture the nurturers glorify Him.

When we re-encounter our original, indigenous or primal self apart from our religion, culture, education, and conditioning - this “self” can become closer to the real Self if we immerse in nature with respect and awe. Adopting some form of primal consciousness can help us to find spirit in nature.

 

“Somewhere beyond the walls of our awareness, the Esau side, the hunter-gatherer side, the seeking side of ourselves is waiting to return.” L. Van der Post

Encourage going primal – take off our shoes, even sleep around a fire on the earth to “ground” oneself or for “earthing.” Connect with the Mother’s electromagnetic field. The total experience requires shedding or peeling away the inhibitory layers of civilization with takes time.

The effects can be profound. Not only may our dreams be enhanced but we may get intuitive messages in awake time as we walk the deserts, mountains or valleys. As nature meditates us we become more congruent with our true Selves and more coherent with any fellow travelers, with the field of nature around us and the cosmic Field above us. 

 

 “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness…”  Isaiah 

Spiritual masters have frequently gone into the wilderness to Self-realize, sometimes for as much as 40 days and 40 nights. The Native American vision quest is also a way of connecting with the quest for one’s sacred work and destiny. 

The Creator wants a personal relationship with each one of us. Kabbalah teaches that God is playing hide and seek but no one wants to play. Nature is a powerful place to find one's-Self in the plethora of His/Her creative masterpiece. 

 "Play in the exultation of the extraordinary. M. Buber

Its good to remember that we are connecting with the Earth Mother archetype which is feminine, so that a more receptive feminine approach will go a long way in the experiencing.

"Search for me and you will find me. Seek me with all your heart and I will let you find me" Jeremiah

 We are all capable of hearing the soft almost silent, still voice of the Divine. We do not hear it as a trumpeting sound but rather like a whisper on the wind. Humility is key and nature facilitates it. If possible take time out on a lake, by the ocean or in the mountains for as long as you can. Five days, at least, is ideal for this immersion. It can also be in a facility that allows for your inner intention and has access to nature - a Buddhist retreat, other or even a Spa.

It will be given to you according to the measure of your humility.

This is the way we can attain Wilderness Rapture. Maslow may have called it a Peak Experience, others the Wilderness Effect. Rapture occurs when we connect with the Soft Fascinations, the Directions, their elements, the Creator, the Archangels and the Four Beings of Nature. 

The rapture might just be an alfa relaxed state of consciousness or something deeper.

Synchronicity may occur or we can experience a state of flow, fluidity or a feeling of being in the zone. 

 The equanimity can be a subtle trance like meditative effect or something as profound as the Oneness Experience or Unity Consciousness where the Knower, The Known and the process of Knowing fuse into one thing for a short period of time. In other words, if one is in the process of experiencing a sunset one becomes the sunset. 

Wilderness Rapture; What greatly differs is the vastness of the territory, variety of the forces, purity of the pristine and magnitude of the drama and majesty. The more splendid and awesome the less need for a teacher other than itself and you.

“Haze hung over the valley, light as gossamer and clouds partially dimmed the higher cliffs and mountains. This obscurity of vision but increased the awe with which I beheld it and as I looked a peculiar exalted sensation seemed to fill my whole being and I found my eyes in tears with emotion.” L. Bunnell (on being one of the first of a party of white people to enter Yosemite valley.)

We do not have to go into wild places to achieve the balance we need although it helps. We can also find nature wherever we happen to be, in a garden, a park, on a beach.

We need to sanctify the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. It becomes the challenge of non-attachment to outcome, receptivity and surrender. Surrender is not a giving up but a giving in to something much greater than oneself. The attitude is one of letting go, being in the flow, not grasping, not achieving, being flexible to what presents and connecting with the “Field.” This will give equanimity, inner peace, and deeper inner states of consciousness.

There are every day wonders unheard and overlooked far remote from wilderness – the sound of rain, a fallen feather, a spider’s web.

(Spider, the bridge-maker to new realms and harbinger of expanding dimensions.)

These are unheard and overlooked and seem far remote from wilderness until we realize how perception of the smallest bit of wild can connect to our higher Self. Nature reveals, inspires, encourages and shows the way.

 

“To sanctify the ordinary” is to recognize and acknowledge the sacred in every created being whether still or growing, wild or angelic or human... Learn the mystery, savor the wonder of it all. There is nothing that is empty of the divine, "to sanctify the ordinary" is not to make it holy but to be aware of it as sacred and to treat of it with our own sacredness.