Climate change explanations aside, I set out to enjoy the unusual spring-like temperatures with a 4 hour silent mindful walk in the woods.
What makes a walk mindful you might ask?
For me, the difference between a mindful walk versus any other is the conscious decision, followed by the effort, to place my attention on the experiences of my body as opposed to my constantly thinking mind.
It's not because I believe thinking, or my thinking in particular, is bad or wrong.
No, I think the mind can be a creative miracle that allows me to process a sometimes confusing and chaotic world in insightful ways that allows me to participate more fully in my life and community.
Except when it doesn't.
Perhaps you have these stuck-in-the-mud-mind moments too: when you are caught on a hamster wheel of thinking that can prompt a sense of helplessness.
In those moments, if time and temperature permits, my favorite perscription for myself is to head out into the woods (preferably by myself) to recalibrate my mind by directing my attention toward my body.
I purposefully notice the contact of my feet on the earth, the sensation of my body temperature going up and down, the fluctuating intensity of my breathing as my chest rises and falls, and of course all of the gorgeous sensory experiences in the woods that I can take in through my eyes, ears, nose, and fingertips (no taste on this one!).
Then, as if to punctuate the present moment with an exclamation point, I pause every once in a while.
This is a method I picked up while on a Day of Mindfulness Retreat at one of Thich Nhat Hanh's monasteries in New York state.
In those moments, without fanfare or talking, I stop walking and stand tall in stillness while taking in 3 long intentional breaths. Then, I resume my walk.
From time to time my mind will drift over to my thoughts, which in this case was an intense worry about a loved one.
In those moments, I honor those thoughts with a nod of recognition, but then I turn my mind back to my feet on the earth, my lungs breathing the warm air, the sound of the wind moving through the pine trees.
Sometimes this is several times in a minute. Sometimes only once in a half an hour- frequency neither here no there.
I also take photographs.
Contradictions included, this is where the hardcore, mindful purists may need to plug their ears and do the "Na Na Na" thing, because for some, taking photos on a mindful walk is a "No, No" of sorts.
For me though, photographing nature has always been a deep love of mine.
Something about the awe that I encounter when I feel right up close with the earth and all of her majesty.
My photography then becomes a kind of worship of sorts to that which is most holy or Beloved.
14th Century Persian poet Hafez (or Hafiz) often uses the word Beloved for god, and Beloved is the best word I can think of for my description of all of creation which, in my belief, is both in and of god.
So as I now lead you on this pictorial mindfulness walk through the New England woods on an unusually warm day at the start of this new year, I thought (see there is much beauty in thought too!) I'd accompany the photographs with some of the poetry of Hafez taken from Daniel Ladinsky's book "I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz."
I find the mystics throughout the ages seem to share a wisdom about the intersection of humanity and the cosmos that I am just beginning to scratch the surface of.
Enjoy.
We should make all spiritual talk
Simple today:
God is trying to sell you something,
But you don't want to buy.
That is what your suffering is:
Your fantastic haggling,
Your manic screaming over the price!
My Brilliant Image
One day the sun admitted,
I am just a shadow.
I wish I could show you
The Infinite Incandescence (Tej)
That has cast my brilliant image!
I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being!
What Happens
What happens when your soul
Begins to awaken
Your eyes
And your heart
And the cells of your body
To the great Journey of Love?
First there is wonderful laughter
And probably precious tears
And a hundred sweet promises
And those heroic vows
No one can ever keep.
But still God is delighted and amused
You once tried to be a saint.
What happens when your soul
Begins to awake in this world
To our deep need to love
And serve the Friend?
O the Beloved
Will Send you
Once of His wonderful, wild companions-
Like Hafiz.
Silence
A day of Silence
Can be a pilgrimage in itself.
A day of Silence
Can help you listen
To the Soul play
Its marvelous lute and drum.
Is not most talking
A crazed defense of a crumbling fort?
I thought we came here
To surrender in Silence,
To yield to Light and Happiness,
To Dance within
In celebration of Love's Victory!
Skinning Your Knees on God
Little by little,
You will turn into stars.
Even then, my dear,
You will only be
A crawling infant,
Still skinning your knees on God.
Little by little,
You will turn into
The whole sweet, amorous Universe
In heat
On a wild spring night,
And become so free
In a wonderful, secret
And pure Love
That flows
From a conscious,
One-pointed,
Infinite need for Light.
Even then, my dear,
The Beloved will have fulfilled
Just a fraction,
Just a fraction,
Just a fraction!
Of a promise
He wrote upon your heart.
When your soul begins
To Ever bloom and laugh
And spin in Eternal Ecstasy-
O little by little,
You will turn into God.
Would You Think It Odd?
Would you think it odd if Hafiz said,
'I am in love with every church
And mosque
And temple
And any kind of shrine
Because I know it is there
That people say the different names
Of the One God.'
Would you tell your friends
I was a bit strange if I admitted
I am indeed in love with every mind
And heart and body.
O I am sincerely
Plumb crazy
About your every thought and yearning
And limb
Because, my dear,
I know
That it is through these
That you search for Him.
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