Being Spiritual Ecology

In recent years Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee has pointed out that the pyramids, the Stonehenges, the Gothic cathedrals, are no longer the vehicles to bring a certain spiritual energy to the earth. That task has fallen to the human beings themselves—us. Only through our willingness and attention can this responsibility be fulfilled. The heart of the world cannot receive these energies fully without our participation.

The question, of course, is how. But clues have been given all along, in almost every spiritual tradition; this moment has been prepared for. Whatever way human beings can align themselves with the Divine, and participate in bringing this energy into being here, will help accomplish this. Or as Rumi observed, there are ten thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

The cornerstone of the Naqshbandi tradition, and of many other Sufi paths and other traditions as well, is a very simple practice: be aware of your breath, be aware of your step. Not so simple in practice, of course; the mind seems to yearn for distraction, and most of modern society provides it. But practicing this, again and again, aligns us with something beyond our supposed selves, and allows us to be aware of this beyond.

It is such a fundamental practice, simple in the best sense of the word. Who does not breathe? Who does not move or act in the world? But if you can attend to your breath, and align with something beyond it, then that alone is a prayer. Because real prayer, in whatever form, is nothing but Union with the Divine. And it is through this alignment that the energy can be brought to the earth.

If you can watch your breath, then you can put a blessing on that breath.As Inayat Khan’s teacher Maula Baksh said, the only breath wasted is the one taken without the thought of God. And then you can offer that blessing to the earth.

If you can be aware of your step, then you can put a blessing into that step, and through it directly into the body of the earth.All you have to do is be aware of your connection to the earth, and allow it to happen.

This is not new, but ancient. The Kogi, for instance, are constantly on the move in the course of their days. They walk up and down the mountains where they live, even when they do not need to. Why? As Wade Davis notes in One River, “The idea of the sacred infusing the material world informs every aspect of life in the Sierra….movement was in part metaphor, that in passing over the earth they wove a sacred cloak over the Great Mother, each journey like a thread, each seasonal migration becoming a prayer for the well-being of the people and the entire earth. The Kogi themselves refer to their wanderings as weavings.”

By attending to his steps, and making his movements a conscious prayer, the Kogi “aligns himself with all the forces of creation,” and brings the sacred to manifestation here on earth. Peter Kingsley, in A Story Waiting to Pierce You, makes the same point about Abaris, who brought from Mongolia a certain transmission to Pythagoras and Greece: that he walked the land consciously in this manner and purified it wherever he went. It’s a practice more ancient than all the religions that have arisen since, and it still works.

In this “civilized” day and age, it’s sometimes hard to believe such a thing. But other clues have been given about the effectiveness of prayer through human beings. In Islam and Agnihotra, for instance, ritual prayers are supposed to take place at certain specified times of day. And these times shift with the day and season. Why? Because the object is to align the unified prayers of human beings, and the human beings themselves, with the cycles of the earth and the planets. It is not the knowledge of the specific cycles that is important here, it is the manner of the connection between human beings and the universe in which they dwell. In this manner humans collectively can be used to bring the Divine to earth.

Or in the dervish turn of the Mevlevis: one aspect of its symbology is that the semazen enters this life and turns upon the earth in order to bring down a certain grace for the sake of all. That is why the hands occupy the position they do: one palm up to receive, one palm down to transmit. And the semazen becomes the pole in this process, both figuratively and literally. Because during the turn, the actual experience of the semazen is that he or she ceases to spin, it is the world that begins to spin about her. That’s why it can be done without getting dizzy.

Even in the Dances of Universal Peace, whose object is to create a collective sacred container using the human body and voice as prayers. There too, awareness of your breath and your step is a crucial part of the process, as well as aligning yourself with the others around you. “When two or more are gathered together in my name,” said the Christ, “there will I be also.” And if we remember that the Christ was a living Divine energy that manifested in his disciples, it is easy to see that the process is still one of bringing the Divine energy to the earth.

So, what about us? How can someone in our urbanized society, so misaligned with the rhythms of the earth, be a part of that giving-back to the earth? One of my teachers is fond of answering, when people ask for advice about whether they should do something, “It’s not so important what you do, as who you are when you do it.” Meaning, are you coming from a personal place, or are you aligning with your higher self/Divine when you act?

This, of course, has as much to do with being as with doing. But watching your step means traveling on the earth, acting. We can’t avoid it. The point is to bring to each of our actions an awareness of and receptiveness to that beyond, however we choose to define it. Even on a city street, you can walk with the awareness of bringing sacred energy into your step, and into your surroundings. It doesn’t matter that you know the real cost of covering a single yard of life with concrete—that’s the moment you are given. Like Abaris: walk in and with the Divine.

Use a car? Just like the Kogi, lay down a trail of Divine awareness. Do a practice on the breath, or out loud. Consciously put that weaving of the sacred into your movement on the earth. It can be done. I once drove from where I lived in Virginia to a Sufi gathering in New Mexico, and intentionally laid down a “zikr trail” every mile of the way. Did some form of Divine remembrance from the moment the car went in gear until the moment it stopped again for the night, leaving the energy in the land.

Use the gifts of the earth for living, like water, food, shelter, heat? Be conscious of them as gifts, be grateful. Return your thanks. To rephrase a line from a song, “Changes in gratitude, changes in attitude,/ nothing remains quite the same.” The great Lakota medicine man Fools Crow took a small portion of every meal and took it outside and buried it, as an offering of thanks to the earth.

Be responsible towards these gifts. Use as little as possible. Don’t waste them. Never take them for granted. Even do without them for a time, so you know what they really mean.

Foster a relationship with some part of what we call nature: birds, trees, a piece of land, a body of water. Be aware of the consequences of what you do, for the earth itself. If you run water to get it hot, save the clean water for another use. Small things, done with consciousness. That’s what the Buddhist “mindfulness” means. It doesn’t take much. And you can find them in every part of your life. Because each of these acts constitutes a recognition of those beings or elements or parts of the earth that went into the gift. “All my relations,” in the Native American phrase. It is exactly this recognition and acknowledgement that is required of us as transmitters of Divine energy, in order to bring that energy to all the other beings on the planet—as well as the planet herself.

And it is always important to remember: don’t try, let. The divine knows how to work, if we will just give it a chance.

The list of what we can “do” in this way is endless—ten thousand ways to kneel--but the method is the same. We’ve just allowed ourselves to forget how. What we need to do now, is remember ourselves as a part of things, from the Divine to the ridiculous. Otherwise, we may not be a part of things at all.

c 2010 David Hunter