This is what I am finding as I continue to deepen into it, and, like other spiritual practices, I think the barrier to entry is low while the opportunities for deepening are enormous.
Magic happened; while reading your piece, a golden dragonfly landed 1.5 m away at eye level. She perched there for about one hour while I read and then practiced variations of these steps. She turned her head in various directions looking at me (I was unaware that they had such mobile and expressive heads & faces). After completing the contemplation/belonging/reciprocity, I looked away for a moment to the sea, and when I looked back she was gone. Thanks to you for the beautiful serendipity of your words, and thanks to her for immediate, unequivocal deep connection.
I am so happy to hear about your experience, from trying something new to pausing when it started to deepen. I also am so happy you tried it and came back here to share with me and anybody else who may see this. I imagine the dragonfly visit can lead to a lot of additional processing and perhaps may become a significant step on your journey toward greater connection with the living world.
I agree with you on this one, Inge. Sensitivity and kindness applied in an intentional way can have dramatic impacts on what we bring into the world through our actions.
This is such a beautiful way to offer a framework for nature contemplation. I resonate deeply with both the 3 premises and 4 movements. So lovely, thank you. 🙏🏼🌿🦋
Laura, thank you for your kind comment. I hope this may inspire you to try it as a new practice, and if you do so, I really welcome hearing how it goes!
I love the simple opening to this remembering it provides. I have been doing what I and others call grid work for a very long time, and its time for many many more to remember this relationship. Bless
Sometimes it is only a tiny shift in how we look at the same thing that helps us to deepen more into it as we see with new eyes. So often the wonders of the world are missed as we see them every day, and in this way nearly everything can become backdrop. I am heading out for another week along the same initial seven-day path of the Camino in France starting this Friday, and will be trying this out again with a landscape I already know as one that constantly nourishes me.
What vivid language you shared about the landscape wrapping around this pond, as if it were embracing it in kindness. Thanks for sharing this amazing insight.
I have been an avid, sacred wanderer for many years and have never come across this beautiful framework. I'm very glad I did. I tend to trust what is very, very old, especially when it comes to how we are being with the Land. I love its simplicity and invitational resonance ... with steps that could also lead to some pretty profound encounters! Thank you for sharing.
The initial framework of lectio divina originates with Guigo II, a Carthusian prior who wrote the movements down around 1150 in his Ladder of Monks. Lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio. He was reading scripture in his monastic cell.
Two things are mine. His image is a ladder, which means rungs, climbed in order, going up and away from the world. I invite us to forget the order, because the movements describe what already happens when you give a living being your sustained attention, and attention does not climb or seek to escape.
The other is the fourth movement. Guigo was ascending toward union with God. I call it Belong, and it goes the other direction, further into the place you are standing and relationship with the living world.
I point out the seams because you said you trust what is very old. The bones are. The turn outward toward the Land is recent, and I owe part of that framing to recent works on ecospirituality and kinship with the living world.
The encounters do come, by the way. Almost always on a walk I expected nothing from.
I lov e your adjustments. Very deep feminine. Very immanence over transcendence, which I feel is deeply needed in spiritual adventures of all kinds. Chthonic intelligence, right here and beneath us and all around us. Beautiful.
Thanks again for the kind comments and for sharing. I am delighted this resonates, and hope that, if you try this out, you share back how it went for you.
I have an apple tree in my front yard I have become friends with over the years. My children swing in her branches. Once, after having just put up the swing and using it with my eldest for the first time, I leaned against her trunk and gave thanks for her support and her witnessing of this tender part of my life. Suddenly, I received a vision. It was from her POV as the seedling she once was watching the landscape change around her over decades. My words do not do it justice. It was awe-inspiring and shocking. Plants are amazing.
This is simple, beautiful and can be explored for a lifetime. Thanks 🙏
This is what I am finding as I continue to deepen into it, and, like other spiritual practices, I think the barrier to entry is low while the opportunities for deepening are enormous.
Magic happened; while reading your piece, a golden dragonfly landed 1.5 m away at eye level. She perched there for about one hour while I read and then practiced variations of these steps. She turned her head in various directions looking at me (I was unaware that they had such mobile and expressive heads & faces). After completing the contemplation/belonging/reciprocity, I looked away for a moment to the sea, and when I looked back she was gone. Thanks to you for the beautiful serendipity of your words, and thanks to her for immediate, unequivocal deep connection.
I am so happy to hear about your experience, from trying something new to pausing when it started to deepen. I also am so happy you tried it and came back here to share with me and anybody else who may see this. I imagine the dragonfly visit can lead to a lot of additional processing and perhaps may become a significant step on your journey toward greater connection with the living world.
Those four steps are so simple, yet so profound. Following this can only bring rise to a great respect for nature and life.
Thank you for this amazing post.
Thanks for the kind words, Simon. If you try this out, I welcome hearing about your direct experience with them.
What a wonderful post! thank you
This is such a beautiful way of being in the world. Nature is everything and everyone.
Agreed, and given how easy it is to objectify nature, it is little surprise when we see ourselves somehow beyond it.
A wonderful model to be applied to all - stones and forms people and spirits - the remembering of the belonging face to face relational world
I agree with you on this one, Inge. Sensitivity and kindness applied in an intentional way can have dramatic impacts on what we bring into the world through our actions.
This is such a beautiful way to offer a framework for nature contemplation. I resonate deeply with both the 3 premises and 4 movements. So lovely, thank you. 🙏🏼🌿🦋
Laura, thank you for your kind comment. I hope this may inspire you to try it as a new practice, and if you do so, I really welcome hearing how it goes!
Beautiful, thank you 🙏
Thank you for the kind comment, which is heartfully appreciated.
I love the simple opening to this remembering it provides. I have been doing what I and others call grid work for a very long time, and its time for many many more to remember this relationship. Bless
Sometimes it is only a tiny shift in how we look at the same thing that helps us to deepen more into it as we see with new eyes. So often the wonders of the world are missed as we see them every day, and in this way nearly everything can become backdrop. I am heading out for another week along the same initial seven-day path of the Camino in France starting this Friday, and will be trying this out again with a landscape I already know as one that constantly nourishes me.
Lovely this invocation.
I once 'fell' into a landscaspe wrapping itself round a pond that I had been receiving for two hours.
A very touching experience.
What vivid language you shared about the landscape wrapping around this pond, as if it were embracing it in kindness. Thanks for sharing this amazing insight.
I love this!
Thanks, Patricia. For those of us who connect with the natural world, it is our sacred text!
So true! 🤍
I have been an avid, sacred wanderer for many years and have never come across this beautiful framework. I'm very glad I did. I tend to trust what is very, very old, especially when it comes to how we are being with the Land. I love its simplicity and invitational resonance ... with steps that could also lead to some pretty profound encounters! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for reading it so closely.
The initial framework of lectio divina originates with Guigo II, a Carthusian prior who wrote the movements down around 1150 in his Ladder of Monks. Lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio. He was reading scripture in his monastic cell.
Two things are mine. His image is a ladder, which means rungs, climbed in order, going up and away from the world. I invite us to forget the order, because the movements describe what already happens when you give a living being your sustained attention, and attention does not climb or seek to escape.
The other is the fourth movement. Guigo was ascending toward union with God. I call it Belong, and it goes the other direction, further into the place you are standing and relationship with the living world.
I point out the seams because you said you trust what is very old. The bones are. The turn outward toward the Land is recent, and I owe part of that framing to recent works on ecospirituality and kinship with the living world.
The encounters do come, by the way. Almost always on a walk I expected nothing from.
I lov e your adjustments. Very deep feminine. Very immanence over transcendence, which I feel is deeply needed in spiritual adventures of all kinds. Chthonic intelligence, right here and beneath us and all around us. Beautiful.
Thanks again for the kind comments and for sharing. I am delighted this resonates, and hope that, if you try this out, you share back how it went for you.
will do!
Beautiful
Thank you
You are offering an ancient way of being honoring adoring the natural world I practiced on a vision quest & now without cognitive
awareness
Thanks for sharing your experience, and I am glad this resonated. Have aspects of this connection with the natural world stayed with you?
I have an apple tree in my front yard I have become friends with over the years. My children swing in her branches. Once, after having just put up the swing and using it with my eldest for the first time, I leaned against her trunk and gave thanks for her support and her witnessing of this tender part of my life. Suddenly, I received a vision. It was from her POV as the seedling she once was watching the landscape change around her over decades. My words do not do it justice. It was awe-inspiring and shocking. Plants are amazing.