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sacred threads ~ nature’s doorway

November 11, 2009 – 1:18 pm
Charleston on the Battery

Charleston on the Battery

If’ you’ve been reading for a while, you know by now that I find comfort in exploring my spirituality from multiple vantage points including diving into esoteric spiritual texts from a variety of cultures and human experience.  One of these texts is the Vijnana Bhairava. This book is a collection of dharanas, centering techniques.  These techniques not only center a seeker, but open her to experiencing the wonder of the Divine Presence.  The English Translation of this text has a captivating title, “The Yoga of Delight, Wonder, and Astonishment.”

One of my favorite centering techniques from this text is the practice of gazing, without blinking, at the sky.  “If one makes himself thoroughly immobile beholds the pure (cloudless) sky with fixed eyes, at that very moment, O goddess, he will acquire the nature of Bhairava (Supreme Consciousness).”

One day, after a long weekend of tiring work, a friend of mine and I took a day of rest on the beach.  After a long walk, we lay side by side gazing at the sky, our bodies still and minds quiet.  We breathed deeply and took in the great expanse above us.  After some time, I asked her if she could see the thousands of tiny dots of light that seemed to be dancing before my eyes.  She did.  Together, we gazed at the sky in wonder.  I felt myself as made of the same particles of light that danced before me.  I experienced a dissolving of the illusion that my friend and I were somehow different than the sand, the ocean, and the sky.  I was filled with a sense of quiet wonder and complete love.

As each object of Nature carries the energy of God, the Presence of the Divine, it follows that each object of Nature can then carry the wisdom of the Divine.  However, to experience that recognition I must stop, but for a moment, to consider it to be a manifestation of God.  I pause.  And, in that pause, Nature seems to open a doorway to reveal some Truth.

Even the path of the sun in the sky, lends itself to revealing the mysterious Presence of God in its very predictability.  Further contemplating the sun, I experience its generosity in the sensation of warmth on my skin or taste a bite of fruit in remembrance of its rays.  The ways in which I can contemplate Nature and find solace in it is truly endless.

In fact, images of Nature, simply gazing at Nature can naturally return me to a state of peace.  Such images are abundant, infinite and easily accessible.  For instance, walking outside and gazing up at the sky, or simply sitting where I am and remembering the vastness of the sky can lure me to the experience of knowing I am in the Presence of God.

It’s comforting to me to know I’m not alone in my quest to deepen my relationship to Spirit and to use any doorway that takes me there.  Nature is a broad doorway.  The Native American reverence for Nature is well known and continues to gain respect as many look to deepen their understanding of and appreciation of Nature as well as challenge previously held beliefs and assumptions.

Consider the wisdom in this statement from the Mohawk Nation (This quote is from an old journal and I can’t find the source.  If anyone knows the source, please share), “We are shown that our life exists with the tree life, that our well being depends on the well-being of the vegetable life, that we are close relatives of the four-legged beings.  In our ways, spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics . . . We believe that all living things are spiritual beings.  Spirits can be expressed as energy forms manifested in matter.  A blade of grass is an energy form manifested in matter – grass matter.  The spirit of the grass is that unseen force which produces the species of grass, and it is manifest to us in the form of real grass.”

Any aspect of Nature, from a single acorn, to the changing seasons can teach me more of the Truth of who I am.  What if I listen more deeply, and let God be God in any and all manifestations before me?  Might then I glimpse the beauty and peace of the Eternal in the Present moment?

By Melanie | Posted in mindfulness, sacred threads | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

sacred threads ~ searching for faith

November 5, 2009 – 3:42 pm


“The trees and rocks will teach you that which you cannot hear from masters.”

~ St. Bernard of Clairvaux

For many seekers, contemplating Nature opens the door to a mystical life of untold beauty and spiritual bounty. What secrets might we learn in the contemplation of Nature?  What comfort might we find in its embrace?  Across traditions spiritual aspirants are encouraged to have faith in God’s love and grace.  Yet, in my life there are times when practical faith continues to elude me.  I suspect I’m not alone.  And if I take St. Bernard’s statement literally and look to nature as one of God’s teachers, I can contemplate its teaching and deepen my experience of faith.

For a moment today,  I gazed at a tree and considered how its roots reach deep into the dark rich earth.  I reflected on how the earth so generously provides a steady flow of nutrients and minerals so that the tree may continue to grow, reaching towards the sun.  All the while, the sun provides needed rays of light for growth.  And the sky opens itself to rain on the tree, giving it precious water.

Then I imagined myself as a tree with roots growing from my tailbone and feet.  I imagined the roots reaching through the floor beneath me and carving their way through concrete obstacles to reach the rich dark earth.  I imagined feeling the steady flow of the earth’s abundant strength and energy flowing into me and mingling with ‘my’ energy.

I then imagined a spinning orb of light blazing with the light of the sun, shining on me and through me, mingling with the energy of the earth, giving me everything that I need.  Faith.  From such a vantage point, might you too develop the faith of a tree, the confidence of its faith in the earth and the sun?  Recognizing the pure beauty of a tree’s simple faith, what else might the tree teach you and me?

What a sublime practice faith can become, if I remember to continually reminding myself, this too is God.  This too is God!  This too is God!  The teaching then comes alive and joy becomes mine for I can never be separate from God.  No matter what happens, no matter where I am, no matter who I’m with, I’m never without God, the God of my understanding.

Then the play continues.  My ego captures my attention with the pulls of attraction and aversion, and I swirl in the belief that I am separate.  I find myself gravitating towards a particular experience while avoiding another.  When I can’t avoid a circumstance that I would like very much to avoid, when I get caught up in how I would prefer things to be different, therein lies an invitation.

There, right there, is the invitation to loosen my grip on my ego and reach for Truth.  Instead, more often than I would like, I let myself get caught in the throes of the ego and I lose my equanimity, my sublime understanding that indeed I can never be separate from my Lord.

All this because I deny the Presence of the Lord, hidden in the fabric of the present moment.  What a game of Hide and Seek!  Fortunately, I can always begin again and remember this ‘too is God.’  Fortunately, my soul continues to yearn for the Truth and God hears my call.  The wind blows.  A leaf falls and my attention rests on a tree.


By Melanie | Posted in sacred threads | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

practice of the presence

September 7, 2009 – 5:47 pm

It’s probably a little sacrilegious that I put myself (and you too) in the same realm as saints & sages.  Oh well.  Along with saints and sages, I think that we, too, can know and live in the Truth of the joyous declaration from the Koran, “God is the East and the West, and wherever ye turn, there is God’s face.”  Such a declaration demands that we expand our ideas of who or what God is.

In challenging my limiting beliefs about God, I find a Magnificence that cannot be captured in words…at least my words.  I understand the Truth of the Tao Te Ching teaching, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.”  Yet, still I wander through this garden of words to play hide and seek with God.

In one moment, the devotional seeker in me listens for and attempts to follow the quiet impulses of  my heart that encourage me to see  the face of the Lord, where ever I turn, in what ever circumstance I find myself.  I seek and sometimes find the true contentment of the Presence of God in myself, in the person I’m with or even the clickety clacking of my fingers on the keyboard.  With or without devotion, it’s THAT that I seek, THAT single Consciousness that playfully hides in some infinite number of creative manifestations.

In this Game, I find the humble wisdom of Brother Lawrence to be a signpost guiding my Way.

In the early sixteen hundreds, a humble footman gazed at a simple tree, its outline stark against the winter sky.  The tree stood barren of leaves with only the promise of its summer bounty hidden within.  As Nicholas Herman of Lorraine lost himself in the contemplation of this simple tree, he found himself overcome and forever changed by Grace.  He was given a “high view of the providence and power of God.”

The sight of a dry, barren tree and the vision of its full beauty bursting forth in Spring was the catalyst of his conversion.  At the age of eighteen, he began his walk to God, throughout the rest of his life seeking only the Presence of God.  Soon following this vision, Nicholas Herman became a Carmelite monk and took the name Brother Lawrence.

Brother Lawrence was not a prolific writer, nor was he a scholar.  His was a simple Way.  His gift to us was his compassionate and concise wisdom collected in a slender book entitled, “The Practice of the Presence of God.”

Throughout the centuries his simple Way has attracted and consoled seekers from many traditions who aspire to know God.  Even today he continues to be an inspiring model for living in the awareness of the Presence of God.  He wrote, “I renounced for the love of Him everything that was not He, and I began to live as if there was none but He and I in the world.”

How completely simple, yet how completely profound was his unassuming wisdom.  Such is the way that he approached his life, from his humble work of fifty years in the monastery kitchen to his relationships with his contemporaries.  He walked through his days making room for the Presence of God in each unfolding moment.

Brother Lawrence

He performed all the ordinary tasks of his daily life in the continual remembrance of the Presence of God, always “pleasing myself by doing things to please God.”  As he cooked, he cooked with an awareness that he was cooking for the Lord.  As he washed dishes, he washed dishes with the awareness that he was washing dishes for God.  As he ate, he ate with the awareness that it was God that he was feeding.

Although he lived a seemingly uncomplicated life in a remote monastery, he wrote with clarity and honesty of his sufferings and failings.  With his own body being “lame” and the difficulties accompanying such a handicap, not to mention the trials of daily life, he encouraged aspirants to persevere in the discipline of seeking out the Presence of God.

He wrote, “Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business, and even in your diversions.  Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company . . . It is not necessary for being with God to be always at church.  We may make an oratory of our heart.”

What an inspired understanding, in continually making room for the Presence of God in the present moment, I can make a temple, a house of worship, in my own heart!   The power of such simple practices; continually making room for the Presence of God in all things, all activities, all people, all circumstances, and doing all things for the love of God filled Brother Lawrence with perfect faith and unwavering devotion to God.

Free from the distractions of the world that might lead him astray in his love of the Presence of God, he revealed a clear and simple path through the maze of daily life.  Although I live the life of a householder, rather than a monk, I can still learn from his sublime example and perhaps gradually free myself from the distractions that lead me away from recognizing and welcoming the all-pervasive Presence in ordinary circumstances.

In welcoming this Presence in each moment, in making room for this Presence in each moment, I experience a stream of Love flowing steadily from my heart.  It is that same Love that is the Presence.  What a mysterious paradox is this play!  Looking into the lives of great beings such as Brother Lawrence, I stumble across practices and wisdom that lead me to the experience of the all-pervasive Presence of God.

By Melanie | Posted in sacred threads, this i believe | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

sacred threads ~ who is god to you?

July 28, 2009 – 6:06 pm

Several years ago, standing alongside fellow seekers in a temple, my voice joined with other voices to sing hymns of love for Consciousness, for God, for Shiva, for Allah. . .  After some time, I felt enraptured by waves of immense bliss and infinite love.  My experience of who I am began to shift. No longer did I exist only in my own limited personal identity.  My “being” encompassed fellow seekers, the love we share, the temple, the early evening sky, the entire cosmos.

“I” consisted of all Existence; pervading all time and all space; permeating the fabric of all existence.  I experienced myself as being complete bliss and pure love.  This experience of myself lasted only a glancing moment.  Yet, this glancing moment changed me forever.  It seemed that I was given a glimpse of the answer to my burning question, “Who is God?”

My glimpse into the answer grounded me in faith that there is an answer.  What a sublime practice faith has become, reminding me as I move through daily life, “this too is God.” This too is God!  This too is God!  This practice of this understanding brings the teaching that God is ALL pervasive to life in my life.

Joy becomes mine as I more consistently recognize that I can never be separate from the Lord, whoever I conceive Her to be! No matter what happens, no matter where I am, no matter I’m with, I am never without God.

So, who is God?

“Who is God?”  Indeed, perhaps the most profound answer to this question lies in our own experiences.  For it is to those experiences that we turn and through which we ultimately find personal understanding.  Contemplating the question, “Who is God to me?” lead me to the remembrance of when I have experienced the Divine.  These experiences encompass both the profound life changing experiences such as the one I shared above and the more “mundane” experiences of daily life when the light and love of God pierces my routines.

The luscious fruit of these contemplations, these remembrances, are both scrumptious and enchanting.  Yet, for some mysterious reason, I didn’t really give myself full permission to contemplate this question.  I relegated this kind of knowing to scholars or saints, ministers or priests.

For the longest time, I presumed that intimate knowledge of God is obtainable only after death or in some future life. It is certainly not obtainable in this life, certainly not in this moment, and most certainly not by ordinary people, like me.
Yet, saints throughout history have offered all of us the treasure of their own great understanding of the Truth; “the Kingdom of God lies within.”

Still, I didn’t fully believe that. I think now, because I never asked the question, “Who is God to me? How can I experience the fullness of Consciousness in my daily life.  I resisted completely accepting that the Knowledge I seek is closer than the air I breathe.  The divinity I long for is closer than my own breath.

William Wordsworth, the great poet of the 19th Century captured his own experience of God in this poem,
“And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all
thought,
And rolls through all things.

I, like so many others, have felt that disturbing presence, that sublime joy which stops time and dissolves the illusion of separation from God.  Returning to the memory of those moments become golden threads that together weave a holy shawl for me. I can enfold myself in this shawl, protecting my faith from the howling winds of doubt.  And, I can use any number of tools, such as Z Point to clear all the ways I feel the cold fingers of doubt.

With my mind’s natural tendency to lay claim to the region of knowledge and truth, I sometimes listen only to the mind and ignore the quiet murmurs and reflections of my heart.  I know I’m not alone in this. :)

When I adopt the innocent vision and curiosity of a child, I’m back in the current of LIFE, enjoying the bubbling energy of faith, knowing everything is all right.  Everything is unfolding as it should.  How easily children seem to see and embrace the magic and mystery of life.  Their lives pulsate with awareness, albeit unconscious, of the Presence of Great Mystery.  Might we discover the mystical magic of daily life if we approach each day, each moment with humble and innocent curiosity?

By Melanie | Posted in mindfulness, power of now, sacred threads | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

sacred threads ~ enter the garden

June 17, 2009 – 3:56 pm

Lately, I’ve been reading an old copy of Hsin Hsin Ming, The Book of Nothing. It is Bhagawan Shree Rajneesh’s commentary on the teachings of Sosan.  Again, I find myself startled to see the abundant generosity of Consciousness, the myriad means of attaining Knowledge of Truth available to us.

There are a thousand doorways into the Garden, I just want to open one.  Everyday.  I want to open a door into the Garden, then kneel and kiss the ground.  In reading The Book of Nothing, I’ve been contemplating that sweet spot that balances precariously between non-striving and self-effort.  When I’m poised there, in that spot, I feel the sweet breeze of Consciousness playing in the garden of my life.  I recognize God.

Across time and culture, sacred writings have drawn clear and detailed maps to guide those travelers seeking deeper understanding and meaning.  For me, I’m seeking both meaning and union with God.

What makes my heart sing on this journey is knowing that there are as many doorways into the garden as there are each of us.  It’s a little startling to me that there is Supreme acceptance of  the uniqueness of our various natures and moods.  In some texts, the Bhagavad Gita for instance, the seeker is encouraged to pursue knowing God according to her nature.

In the commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, “Jnaneshwari”, Krishna invites Arjuna to recognize this generosity of the Lord.

“Keep your mind on Me alone, your intellect on Me. Thus you shall dwell in Me hereafter.  There is no doubt of this…
But if with your whole will and mind you are unable to fix your attention entirely on Me, Devote to this concentration at least a brief period during the twenty-four hours of the day…
If you are incapable even of practice, be intent on My work; even performing actions for My sake, you shall attain perfection. . .Whatever action you perform, surrender it wholeheartedly to Me, and do not consider whether it is great or small…
But if you are unable even to do this, then, resorting to devotion to Me, and abandoning all the fruits of action, act with self-restraint…
Let this be.  Set aside remembering Me, and direct your mind towards controlling the senses…”

When confronted with the revelation of Truth as revealed in sacred texts, literature, stories, and poems across cultures around the world, I cannot help but stand in awe when regarding such a compassionate Lord.  I see these threads of Truth woven across continents and centuries as a mystical tapestry of clear patterns revealing well-trodden paths to the heart, paths to God.

God in His great compassion created many ways to love Him, many roads that lead to Her.

In ignorance and prideful yearning to know God, many of us have repeatedly and for centuries confused  religion with the goal rather than the road to the goal – union wiht the Divine.  Despite the repetition of the theme, “God is Love,” scattered throughout sacred texts, men and women continue to indulge anger, hate and pride to justify the fighting of wars and rejection of whole segments of our shared world “in the name of God.”  Really?

Rather, our various roads to God, the diversity of religious paths, can serve as a reminder of God’s magnificence and compassion for the uniqueness of His Creation.  I don’t want to EVER become mired in the differences.  I intend not to confuse the flower for the honey, the road for the destination.  Religious and spiritual freedom is a means to an end given by a loving God.

Living in the bible belt, where churches on almost every corner boasts that they have the key to eternity and knowledge of the Truth, at a time when, yet again, there are “holy wars,” I want to accept the unspoken invitation to choose and practice loving Divine Consciousness according to my nature.  I don’t want to find myself choosing to love and serve God out of fear of what will happen if I don’t do it “right” and desire for what will happen if I do my spiritual path “right.”

When I stumble upon the revelation of Truth as revealed in sacred texts, literature, stories and poems across cultures around the world, I cannot help but stand in awe when contemplating such a compassionate Lord.  There is no “right.”  There are many well-trodden paths to the Heart.  There a thousand doorways into the garden.

Embracing full self-responsibility for my life is a way I can remind myself of my worthiness to live in the steady awareness of God and allows me to perceive Love.  Such rigorous assumption of self-responsibility jogs my memory of the Truth of who I am and truly creates my heaven on earth.

“Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”
~ Holy Bible (11)

On a side note, I received an email from a reader who shared that she has been printing out and reading and re-reading these posts.  You might want to consider re-reading as well.  I have found re-reading to deepen my understanding and provoke a more practical understanding of what I’ve read.  In this way, perhaps this Sacred Threads can serve you as a kind of spiritual correspondence course.

By Melanie | Posted in sacred threads, this i believe | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

This I Believe

February 11, 2009 – 10:33 pm

I’m a big fan of NPR.  I especially love their segment, “This I Believe.”  There are lots of things that I believe.  I think perhaps the dominant belief is that there is a current of Consciousness that makes up the very essence of our being flowing through each of us.  I believe this current of Consciousnes both informs our lives and is available to us as a resource.

I’ve been thinking about how leaning into the awareness of that Consciousness with an attitude of “enough” feels like a deeper opening of faith.  Within the experience of LIFE, there is enough.  I am enough as I am.  That “enough” is beginning to feel like a seed . . . enough to grow an entire tree.  I’m not even sure what kind of tree is within the “enough” seed, but it’s somehow comforting and peace-filled to know that the tree is already fully grown within.

These days I’m exploring leaning so totally into “enough” that there is no striving….no striving for liberation, no striving for self-realization, no striving for peace, no striving for success…just leaning into knowing that “enough.”   Perhaps “enough” is the essence of true faith.

This contemplation inspired to create a recording.  Last week, I recorded a hypnosis file to help folks who struggle with pain and illness learn to manage pain.  Thematically, I aimed to use hypnosis to access that space where the current of LIFE flows and there’s enough.  From there, I included suggestions to release pain and reclaim health.  You can find it here if you are interested.  The name of it is Release Pain Reclaim Health.

What does it mean to you that you are enough, that LIFE is enough?  I’m curious, does contemplating “enough” nourish your soul too?

By Melanie | Posted in this i believe | Tagged , , | Comments (0)