Spiritual Rebel

by Sarah Bowen

  Trekking Thursday

  * * *

  WEEK 2: NOT ALL THOSE WHO WANDER ARE LOST*

  “It’s a quote from the Buddha in Jedi script,” I answer for what seems like the gazillionth time. It’s my standard answer when someone asks about the tattoo on my right bicep. Often, I continue with a comment on how reading and hiking can be dangerous.

  When I first started wandering where the Wi-Fi was weak, I had a hard time slowing my mind down enough to enjoy meandering. As an avid multitasker who struggled with just being, I needed to be doing. So I started hiking in the forest to sacred texts—sometimes by audiobook, other times carrying a book and stopping along the way to read. Unexpectedly, using both mind and body at the same time helped me embody the words in a way that was unavailable to me when I sat reading on the sofa.

  One day, hiking to an audiobook of the Dhammapada (a collection of sayings of the Buddha), I stopped abruptly in my tracks. As I heard the words of verse 172, I knew immediately that they needed to be inked on me—fully embodied symbolically. I tweaked the words slightly and set them in Aurebesh (a writing system for Galactic Basic. And, yes, that’s a thing): “She who was once reckless but becomes balanced gives light to the world like the moon when freed from the clouds.” It was an intense pointer towards my higher purpose. The words were simultaneously comforting and scary, as I suspected life was about to change dramatically. I could no longer ignore the spiritual baggage neatly stored away. An unraveling and unfolding of my dark secrets was about to begin as I sought riskier hiking routes and studied heavier texts.

  As naturalist John Muir inspired us last week, so will Belden C. Lane this week. His Amazon author page describes him this way: “Some time ago he found himself delightfully introduced as a Presbyterian minister teaching at a Roman Catholic university telling Jewish stories at the Vedanta Society.”** Plus, he’s a self-professed recovering scholar who quotes Aslan (“Further up” and “further in”!), and a worthy guide for our journey further into the connection between nature and spirituality.

  In Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice, Lane describes his chief reason for hiking as being “to let the mind empty itself, usually after a period of overuse.” He notes that taking a saint along a trail is not an intellectual exercise, but rather like hiking with a Zen master, “having someone to slap me upside the head as may be required” to pay attention to what is happening around him. He adds:

  Spiritual reading can be dangerous…the truly risky stuff…haunt[s] us with the fundamental questions, overthrowing our previous ways of viewing the world. Reading a potentially dangerous book in a landscape perceived to be dangerous can be doubly hazardous. The place heightens the vulnerability occasioned by the text. Challenging books lose their bite when they’re read comfortably at home in a favorite armchair. Their riskiness increases however, when read by firelight in a forest glade, ten miles from the nearest road.

  Lane suggests not only using the written (or audible) word, but also engaging in Lectio Terrestris. I suspect you get the gist of that term without explanation, but I’ll elaborate for those of you not currently having a Latin-lesson flashback.

  You’ll recall that yesterday we experienced Visio Divina (divine seeing). Lectio Divina (divine reading) is a related activity, in which we don’t try to study something, but instead merge with the words. People who do this practice formally usually follow a form of read, reflect, respond, then rest. Lane’s Lectio Terrestris goes one step further, placing reading in direct contact with nature, to create “a richly interactive reading of the Earth itself with the expectation of being changed by what we read.”

  In the spirit of some spiritual multitasking, today we’ll combine the two, intensifying our wilderness spirituality.

  HOW IT WORKS

  1. Get to nature. Step out your back door onto the earth. Or consider one of the spaces you found last Thursday. Perhaps listen to some kirtan on the way.

  2. Take some long breaths. Do a little forest bathing or wonder practice to settle in.

  3. Slowly read the following words from the Tao Te Ching.***

  The Tao which can be expressed in words

  is not the eternal Tao;

  the name which can be uttered

  is not its eternal name.

  Without a name,

  it is the Beginning of Heaven and Earth;

  with a name, it is the Mother of all things.

  Only one who is eternally free from earthly passions

  can apprehend its spiritual essence;

  one who is ever clogged by passions

  can see no more than its outer form.

  These two things,

  the spiritual and the material,

  though we call them by different names,

  in their origin are one and the same.

  This sameness is a mystery,

  the mystery of mysteries.

  It is the gate of all spirituality.

  4. Close your eyes for around five minutes. Let any images or words float around without judgment or grasping.

  5. Gently open your eyes. Reread the passage. Reflect on what you are feeling, what you have just experienced, or anything that is happening in you.

  6. See if a word pops into mind, or maybe a short phrase. Listen to what nature may be saying to you. If nothing comes, try this prompt from our reading: “the name which can be uttered is not its eternal name.”

  7. Write your word(s) on one of the Reflections & Ahas pages or here in the margin.

  8. Now wander! Occasionally bring your word or phrase back into your mind for reflection. Ask yourself: How do the words relate to what I see? What is my relationship to mystery?

  9. Rest. After your walk, rest in a seated position letting the practice sink in.

  REBELLIOUS VARIATIONS

  It’s just a phrase: If you come up blank, try one of these phrases for your trekking. Stop at intervals to read it, contemplating if the mean differs by location. Some ideas:

  • The idea of knowing exactly where you’re going is over-rated.—Sarah Sze

  • Traveler, there is no path. Paths are made by walking. —Antonio Machado

  • There are love dogs no one knows the names of. Give your life to be one of them.—Rumi

  • There is nothing new under the sun.—Ecclesiastes

  • True humanity is within you. Seek and you will find it. —The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

  • All things are in Nirvana, and it has been since the beginning.—Buddha

  • Every little thing is sent for something, and in that thing there should be happiness and the power to make happy. Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus we should do, for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World.—Heháka Sápa (Black Elk)

  Words of wisdom: Pick up sacred literature from a tradition you aren’t familiar with.

  • The Dhammapada

  • The Upanishads

  • The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali

  • The Tao Te Ching

  • The Tattvartha Sutra: That Which Is

  • The Torah

  • The Gospel of Thomas

  • The Qur’an

  • The Egyptian Book of the Dead

  • The Bhagavad Gita

  Modern lectio: Check out these not-so-sacred-but-thought-provoking options.

  • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

  • “Zen Parables for the Would-Be Jedi” from The Dharma of Star Wars by Matthew Bortolin

  • Traveling Light: Stories & Drawings for a Quiet Mind by Brian Andreas

  • The Drowned Book: Ecstatic and Earthy Reflections of Bahauddin, The Father of Rumi by Coleman Barks and John Moyne

  The more, the merrier: Hike with a friend and stop to read to each other.

  For the homebound: Assemble a tent in your backyard, awaken each morning with a sunrise reading or end each day with a sunset one.

  For the citybound: Awaken you
r inner eight-year-old and build a fort. Attach a Do Not Disturb sign and crawl in with your book.

  DISCOVER DEEPLY

  • Listen to “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text” podcasts at harrypottersacredtext.com.

  • Read Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice by Belden C. Lane.

  • Read The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality by Belden C. Lane.

  • Experience desert spirituality at ghostranch.org.

  • Read Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche by Bill Plotkin.

  NOTES

  * This line was taken from the poem “All that is gold does not glitter” by J.R.R. Tolkien, written for The Lord of the Rings.

  ** Vedanta is an umbrella term for a number of spiritual philosophies originating in India. The Vedanta Society was founded by Swami Vivekananda (a follower of Ramakrishna). Arriving in New York for the first World’s Parliament of Religions, Vivekananda noted, “I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true.” Concerned with both self-knowledge as well as the search for divinity, members of the Vedanta Society believe in a oneness of all existence.

  *** The Tao Te Ching is a core text of Taoism, which has influenced not only modern Dudeism but also Confucianism, Buddhism, and Chinese philosophy. Descriptions of the meaning of Tao range from “the way” or “the path,” to “the underlying energy of everything.” Through a Jedi lens, the Tao would be synonymous with the Force. Of course, the paradox of the Tao (as noted in the reading) is that any description of it is incomplete, including these.

  Fearless Friday

  * * *

  WEEK 2: SPIRITUAL BUCKET LIST

  Every morning, our rescued goldfish, Picasso, watches in amusement as I throw money on the floor. With his head pressed up against the glass, he treads mesmerized as I ooh and ahh, hunched over foreign coins and an I Ching scribbling my morning thoughts.

  For many years, Picasso and I have engaged in this morning ritual. That darn fish is near 10 years old, and I suspect it may have something to do with the energy we tap into. (The average lifespan of a goldfish is five to 10 years, but I have hopes for Picasso’s longevity. Since the oldest goldfish ever recorded lived 43 years, I have some time to test this hypothesis.)

  When I run out of the house “too busy” to cast an I Ching, my day rarely glides as smoothly as the days I do. Regardless of the effect on Picasso, it’s evident the practice works for me. I certainly can’t prove it doesn’t. Increasingly, can’t prove it doesn’t has become an influential mantra. Rather than looking for certainty or proof, I rely on experience. As my exploration into spiritual experience expanded, I became willing to have a go at things I previously judged as odd, weird, superstitious, bat-shit crazy, or (less critically) not for me. Stepping forward with courage, I explored outside my comfort zone.

  Since I previously threw the idea that “doing such and such will send me to Hell” into the sacred trash, I didn’t worry about that particularly heinous result. (Or that any of these practices would lead me to the dark side of the Force or have me burned at stake.) But I did have some worry and fear nevertheless.

  And that’s not surprising. All of us are preconditioned to look for things to freak out about. It’s the first thing a brain judges in any situation: Is there anything scary here? My answer was: Not on Fridays.

  Instead, I chose to suspend fear, do something new, and strengthen my courage muscle. Giving myself permission to suspend all expectations of what a practice would do for me, I approached Fridays as experiments, with no attachment to what would happen. I started by making a list of things I was curious about. Presto! A spiritual bucket list.

  At the top of the list were things centered around developing intuition. I’ve never been a fan of people telling me how to act based on their infallible scripture interpretation. Instead of seeking certainty in scripture, creeds, or dogma, I prefer to develop my own sense of inner right and wrong, based on personal interpretation and experience.

  Enter the I Ching (also known as the Yijing or Book of Changes). This 3,000-year-old book differs from other sacred texts: It’s meant to be interactive. Of the many translations available, I have collected a dozen, including Hilary Barrett’s I Ching: Walking Your Path, Creating Your Future. Curious to learn more about working with it, I reached out to her. Barrett describes her path to Yi as haphazard and unintentional. After reading several versions of the I Ching and working with the practice, she said, “It gradually dawned on me that the answers weren’t random, and this thing could talk. If speaking with [insert preferred spiritual being or absolute here] is this direct, this readily available, then perhaps the world is not quite what we thought it was.” Sinking more fully into her relationship (and conversation) with Yi, it expanded beyond divining into writing and teaching. If you ask Barrett, “What do you do?” her answer will be, “Help people have conversations with truth.” Notice she doesn’t say, “To tell people the truth.”

  My own experience has echoed this, working with Yi isn’t about sitting down and just reading the I Ching. Instead, I meditate on a personal question and then cast a reading. (There are multiple ways to cast. I keep it simple and throw three coins six times.) The result of the toss is a combination of open, solid, and (sometimes) “changing” lines, identifying one of 64 hexagrams. (Or, as Barrett describes it, “A six-layered diagram of interacting energies.”) Each combo points to a part of the I Ching to read and ponder in relation to the question.

  As my first morning practice, the I Ching helps me intuit the most important focus for the day and consider the best course of action. I Ching scholar Sam Reifler suggests in his book I Ching: A New Interpretation for Modern Times, “Ideally the meaning of the hexagram will have the feeling that it has been on the tip of your tongue the whole time.” And that’s usually the case. The answer is inside of me; I just need help accessing it.

  On the table next to the I Ching is a deck of tarot cards gifted to me by a dear friend, Vicki. I’m a bit leery of tarot, based on a bad experience when a reader told me a super shitty thing, took my money, and sent me on my way. But I hate not to use a gift, so each morning I draw one card from the deck and check out the description in the little booklet that came with it.

  I have many friends who swear tarotology* is a helpful, intuitive practice. So as I started this chapter, I realized it was time to examine my baggage: Could I approach tarot intuition and divination without superstition? To find out, I contacted Brooklyn-based Lindsay Mack, an intuitive healer, holistic counselor, tarot reader, and founder of Tarot for the Wild Soul.

  Lindsay had me at hello. Since her journey has included a wide range of traditions (Catholicism, Wicca, and the teachings of the Buddha via Tara Brach), the words she used were inclusive, approachable, and not nearly as esoteric as I had presumed. Describing tarot as a language for spiritual connection, Lindsay describes her work with others as “aligning people with their highest truth. We gently detangle any threads of confusion or contraction that you may be experiencing, liberating you from panic, trauma, past pain, and resistance. These sessions are powerful unblocking experiences, delivered with warmth, kindness, and the occasional F-bomb.” (Clearly, this is a much different approach from my past traumatic tarot experience.)

  As Lindsay continued to shed light on the practice for me, she skimmed the realm of neuroscience, offering an intriguing illustration: Every human being is born with two dueling radio stations. The consistently louder of the two is the primal part, its primary directive to keep us alive. Lindsay suggests tarot can help lower the volume on Station 1, so we can more clearly hear Station 2:

  When we go through life, we incur all different kinds of neural pathways, triggers, self-protective mechanisms, and that’s related to Station 1. And because it’s louder, we think it’s the truth. Tarot can help sort
out where people are getting confused because they are not hearing their second radio station, which is their channel and their truth. Essentially when we are utilizing tarot in this way, for healing and for reclaiming, then we are talking about evolution. Let’s say the first radio station says, “Stay at home, stay at home, stay at home,” but the soul desires to leave and go out and visit Paris. Then we can have all kinds of brain chemistry experiences about that: fear, terror, obsessions about bombings. Station 1 will do everything it can to try to keep us grounded because it thinks that any movement might be a threat. When we use tarot for clarification, we are essentially honoring the brain, seeing it for what it is doing, acknowledging it, and saying, “Thank you so much for keeping me safe” and then we are looking at the facts. In this example, the facts are that the soul wants to leave for Paris. So how can we hold space for the discomfort while still doing what the soul is asking for? And when we can’t quite link all of that together in the mind—because Station 1 is so loud—tarot can help.

  I was immediately ready to have Lindsay as a personal radio DJ, helping me reduce static and tune in to truth. But since it’s unlikely she will come to my house every morning for a reading, I started dabbling in my own solo practice based on lessons from her online course. Now my fish watches me throw tarot cards on the floor after my I Ching coins.

  Of course, what we feed grows. So shortly after I met Lindsay, the universe tossed shamanic practitioner Steven D. Farmer in my path. Though I was drawn to the name of his experiential retreat, Spirit Animals as Messengers, Guides & Teachers, I was clueless about the content. Over five jam-packed days, Steven led our group through a series of activities to get in touch with our “power animals.” Through guided meditations, animal oracle cards, drum journeys, and chanting, I discovered and embraced Squirrel. Sharing stories of joy and grief among fellow participants, we bonded through tears and an almost ridiculous amount of infectious laughter. Until one afternoon when Steven challenged us to take on the persona of our animals, unveiling face paints.