SacredEgg

‘Spiritual’ experiences span a range of possibilities. The chirping birds and fertile scents of a rain-soaked meadow can transform the receptive person. Such scenes fill the mind with a soft awareness of nature’s magic, bringing one to a grace that lies at the subtle end of the spectrum. At the other end lies the ego-shattering breakthrough, where God’s immanence saturates the heart and mind, until one nearly weeps from feelings of unity with creation. A week ago my soul was blessed with an opening to transcendence somewhere in the middle. After reverently taking leave of my companions, I entered a grove of old-growth redwoods for a five-hour solitary ‘Spirit Walk’. The trees are so wide and tall that it becomes easy to recognize one’s smallness in the face of creation. The first branches don’t jut from the trunks until a hundred feet or so above the cathedral-like spaces that underlie the canopy. The ground is wet from the ceaseless dripping of the boughs above, and it is soft to the step, with inches of decomposing vegetation underfoot. For one hour, I meditated beneath a tree that was probably close to two thousand years old, and as wide as a typical bedroom.

For at least twenty years I’ve pondered how to reconcile my knowledge of biology and physics with my sense of spiritual presence on earth. While sitting beneath that tree, my tentative answers coalesced into a heartbreaking awareness of Truth. On a very deep level, I perceived the evanescence and formlessness of the human mind, the interplay between humans and nature, and how everything intertwines in the awesome depths of creation. The way the human spirit dwells amidst vast spreads of time, space, and scale became clear to me in ways that surpass words. After my meditation, I walked for miles through the woods, while deeper and deeper layers of creation seemed to open to my understanding. In future months I will make the effort to articulate the realizations that blossomed that day, though in short form they were essentially Taoist in character. But at the time words were superfluous; a pervasive and convinced knowing filled me: heart, body, mind, and soul.

In the week since, I’ve held off writing anything specific about my experience. I’ve toyed with peripheral insights. Some I’ve already posted, and some will be placed on the blog in future weeks. All are vital to my growth, and convincing in light of my new understanding, so they need to be addressed. But the heart of the matter is so profound I am allowing it to mature. I want to avoid the ecstatic and grandiose writing that has sometimes found its way onto this site after my moments of inspiration. This experience was so profound and meaningful that it requires gentle treatment, like a fragile and sacred egg. It brought me to what seems like a broad and penetrating understanding of the human condition, and our relationship to nature. The scope of this new perspective crushes into triviality many of my prior concerns, including my imperative to rationally justify the existence of a ‘universal consciousness’. My plan of using linear thought to support faith now looks hopelessly naive. Although the intense mental effort that preceded this breakthrough probably opened the door, I now see that logic is not a reliable path to transcendence. The gates only open easily for those who surrender, abandon ego, and awaken to wonder.

In truth, the answers are as simple as they are profound. But even now I am skirting the core of the matter. I am warming up to writing about the week that started me on a new life, and I want to go slowly. I want to be sure my words are as free of ‘self’ as possible. The truths are universal. I did not earn them, and I do not want to despoil them by taking any credit, or by getting inflated with grandiosity. I have never felt so drawn to write about anything, or so cautious.