SOUL WALKING

As usual what is in my head and what I can manage to put into words doesn't quite match. I'm working on it. 

 One day Tom Cowan (Yearning for the Wind) doing his favorite hike in the woods. Only his mind wouldn't stay in the woods. He kept thinking about his next workshop. that phone call that didn't end well, the deadline for an article he'd barely begun. talking to himself until he ended up looking out over trees and mist and the sky wondering how he got there. Not that Mother Nature or the Universe didn't have ways of reminding him to pay attention. A rock, a root, the thwack of a low lying branch on a rainy day. 

His folks introduced him to the woods while he was still young enough to believe that he and the woods were connected. Most kids do. Somewhere along the line the world convinces us that we aren't connected, especially to the natural world. Our soul and the soul of Creation are one and the same. Hildegarde of Bingen said " Just as the heart is hidden in the human body, so the body is surrounded by by the powers of the soul because these reach to the ends of the earth." Or the ends of the universe. Never heard that in a Sunday morning Methodist sermon. 

Somewhere, sometime he realized that he wasn’t carrying his soul around like a backpack. His soul was carrying him and he quoted the Welsh bard Taliesin. “I adore my God…who has infused a soul to direct me with its seven faculties; fire, earth, water, air, mist, flowers and southerly wind.” Well, that just about covers everything doesn’t it? Because those “faculties” don’t just infuse my soul. They infuse the soul of all Creation. And that soul reaches down and joins my soul and can carry me past the ends of the earth to the edge of Creation if I’ll just let it.

Remember someplace you’ve been that really reached out and touched you. A mountainside in spring when the flowers are just beginning to bloom and there’s still a nip in the air when the sun goes behind a cloud. Summer at the beach as the waves break over and over. And if you’re in Oregon, and it isn’t that special two weeks in August? Well, there’s still a nip in the air. While the sun is out. Or if you happen to be across the narrow channel between the mainland the lighthouse on Tillamook Rock you might get a reminder that while the soul may go to the ends of the universe, the universe can be a powrful place to explore. I'll tell you though that wind lets you believe you can fly. If only you had the courage to try. It will carry your soul thought. 

Maybe it’s fall and the leaves are at their best. Red, orange, burnt orange. Fire in the branches. Then there’s winter and the bare branches are hidden in the mist or covered with snow. Remember how you felt. Let it fill you with fire, earth, water, air, mist, flowers (I like that one) and southerly wind.

Irish or Celtic Druids and saints often asked the blessing or protection of the natural world. Patrick supposedly wrote this one.

I bind unto myself today

The virtues of the starlit heavens,

The glorious sun’s life giving ray,

The whiteness of the moon at even,

The flashing of the lightning free,

The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,

The stable earth, the deep salt sea

Around the old eternal rocks.

Now go beyond mere blessing. Get past asking for elemental protections. Stretch out your soul until you are the heavens, the sun, the moonlight, the lighting bolt, the wind, the rich life giving earth and the sea we all can call our mother. Walk out into the world knowing that you and all of Creation are one. And go for a walk.