Spiritual Communion in Nature

This past weekend, I paddled down my favorite New England river for several hours in the evening in the company of just myself. 

It was wonderful, and, I might add, quite spiritual.

It was the first time I had been out in my kayak since last summer.  Not because I have not wanted to-badly.  It's just been, you know, life.

I've had my kayak for about 10 years now, and though with work and young kids I don't get out on the water nearly as much as I'd like to, but when I do, it almost always feels like coming home.

I'm not sure exactly why.

It could be the womb-like symbolism of the water. Or the quiet solitude of the minimalist "sport" of flat-water kayaking.  Or the sensation of being carried and held by something larger than myself.

Or maybe some combination of all three.

However, yesterday, what really pulled me into that deep sense of interconnectedness--an experience that for me is one of the most "spiritual" of them all--was my sensation of communion in the moment of sharing breathing space on that particular river on that particular evening with so many beautiful herons, turtles, and purple wild flowers- which always reminds me of the famous Alice Walker line from her 1982 book The Color Purple:

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.)

But what do I mean when I say, communion?

It this case, it was communion with nature, which for me is communion with god.

It is a feeling of joining or together-ness. A oneness. An intimate, authentic presence, and sometimes even a conversation.

It is also an unquantifiable sensation of being cared for, cared about, and deeply accepted, or, in other words, an experience of feeling like a valued part of the grand whole.

And this most recent experience of spiritual communion in nature, reminded me of the brilliant 20th century African American theologian, author and professor Howard Thurman who wrote in his 1953 book Meditations of the Heart:

The impulse to align oneself on the side of that which is whole is a natural one.  Sometimes it springs from the desire to cover up, to take refuge in the strength of another so as to shun the necessity of dealing with one's own weakness. Sometimes it springs from the desire to discover a way by which to understand one's own needs and to do something about meeting them.  The Other-than-self reference is a necessity for peace of mind and spirit.

I, most literally, could not have said it better.

Below are some more photos from my evening of communion with the much, much larger Other-than-self.

Perhaps you too might find occasion for such an experience today.

May it be so.