In  the  Midst  of  the  Eternal  Way

Early in the morning,

almost every day for the last ten years,

I have taken our dog, James, for a walk.

We take various paths, but

invariably we walk down a meadow.

Over the years I have noticed a path developing there.

Many times I have looked at this path

and thought, “My Goodness,

the imprint of our walking is going to last

a long time!”

A couple of months ago I began to take a different route with James

and we didn’t come through the meadow.

But some days ago I decided to come that way again.

As I looked down from the top

no path was to be seen.

So I walked as best I could along our old route,

loving the tremendous variety and profusion

of grasses and wildflowers.

For some reason I felt full of joy that the path had disappeared!

The evidence of ten years of our walking had gone without trace.

I wondered a little afterwards why I was so happy about it.

It could have been just the beauty of what had grown.

Or maybe

that I was so delighted at the newness of the scene,

following our prolonged intrusion.

We may think of the world and the billions of human beings

who have trodden,

not just paths,

but have created paved highways through the human consciousness,

traveling without review,

established thoroughfares

which it is easy to see now

are dead ends.

There is no future along these ruts of human consciousness.

This fallen, distorted civilization will also soon be gone

without trace.

I was also thrilled because I realized

I wasn’t trying to carve something eternal

to give myself meaning during my sojourn on Earth.

Thus, I found myself transported

into a totally different perspective,

into the wonder of now,

of giving expression to who I Am

today,

in the midst of the Eternal Way.

Alan Hammond

from a lecture given on June 26, 2005
and re-shaped into verse form by david barnes

The  Etiquette  of  Freedom

from

The Practice of the Wild

by

Gary Snyder

  

The world is watching: one cannot walk through a meadow or forest without a ripple of report spreading out from one’s passage. The thrush darts back, the jay squalls, the beetle scuttles under the grasses, and the signal is passed along. Every creature knows when a hawk is cruising or a human strolling. The information passed through the system is intelligence. Each creature is a spirit with an intelligence as brilliant as our own. The world is not only watching, it is listening too. A rude and thoughtless comment about a Ground Squirrel or a Flicker or a Porcupine will not go unnoticed. Other beings do not mind being killed and eaten as food, but they expect us to say please, and thank you, and they hate to see themselves wasted.

An ethical life is one that is mindful, mannerly, and has style. Of all moral failings and flaws of character, the worst is stinginess of thought, which includes meanness in all its forms. Rudeness in thought or deed toward others, toward nature, reduces the chances of conviviality and interspecies communication, which are essential to physical and spiritual survival. One must not waste, or be careless, with the bodies or the parts of any creature one has hunted or gathered. One must not boast, or show much pride in accomplishment, and one must not take one’s skill for granted. Wastefulness and carelessness are caused by a stinginess of spirit, an ungrateful unwillingness to complete the gift-exchange transaction.

The etiquette of the wild world requires not only generosity but a good-humored toughness that cheerfully tolerates discomfort, an appreciation of everyone’s fragility, and a certain modesty. These moves take practice, which calls for a certain amount of self-abnegation, and intuition, which takes emptying of yourself.

The lessons we learn from the wild become the etiquette of freedom. We can enjoy our humanity with its flashy brains and sexual buzz, its social cravings and stubborn tantrums, and take ourselves as no more and no less than another being in the Big Watershed. We can accept each other as barefoot equals sleeping on the same ground. We can give up hoping to be eternal and fighting dirt. We can chase of mosquitoes and fence out varmints without hating them. No expectations, alert and sufficient, grateful and careful, generous and direct. A calm and clarity attend us in the moment we are wiping the grease off our hands between tasks and glancing up at the passing clouds. Another joy is finally sitting down to have coffee with a friend. The wild requires that we learn the terrain, nod to all the plants and animals and birds, ford the streams and cross the ridges, and tell a good story when we get back home.

Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking brings us close to the actually existing world and its wholeness.

This  Place  Is  Holy

Black Elk   Hehaka Sapa

great holy man   wicasa waken   of the Oglala People

says in prayer

Grandfather, Great Spirit.

You lived first,

and you are older than all need,

older than all prayer.

All things belong to you.

You have set the powers of the four quarters to cross each other.

The good road and the road of difficulties

you have made to cross;

and where they cross

the place is holy

where the good road

and the road of difficulties

cross

is where I stand

and that place is the center of the world

and it is holy

everywhere I stand,

that place is at the Center

the great circle

the great hoop of life

the Sacred Hoop

moves as I move

and a great arc of light across the land

pulsing

breathes into life

the blessed pathways of a Sacred Nation

the Sacred Nation comes into being

where the road of difficulties

known in this body world

and the good road

blend

this place is holy

every time I allow my body world

to come to focus

in the spirit of the good road

the road of difficulties

dissolves

in a consciousness of the holy place,

a consciousness of Creator magnificence

a consciousness of love

this place is holy

receive the ever present opportunity to listen

for the presence of love

perceive

the ever present design of love

and walk in its pathways

these are the ways of life in the earth

learn these ways and respect them

always

this is the command of the Great Spirit

obey

Great Spirit

Day in and day out,

Forever,

You are the life of things

david barnes

Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all,

and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world.

And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell

and I understood more than I saw;

for I was seeing in a sacred manner

the shapes of all things in the spirit,

and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops

that made one circle,

wide as daylight and as starlight,

and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree

to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.

And I saw that it was holy.

Black Elk