Month: October 2024

Especially now with the wild flows of energy, life, fear, despair, joy, love, compassion, and beauty rocking us and spinning us around, the idea of a Cosmic Dance makes a lot of sense to me.

I was recently referred to Joyce Rupp, a writer who has written an excellent book about this dance. When I looked her up, I found this wonderful piece from another of my favorite sources, the Center for Action and Contemplation. I copied and shared it here in full, as it says it all so well.

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Spiritual writer Joyce Rupp understands all of creation as part of a “cosmic dance”:

No one person has been able to fully communicate this amazing dance of life to me, but Thomas Merton comes close with his description in New Seeds of Contemplation. Merton’s use of the phrase “cosmic dance” set my heart singing. When I read it, I felt my early childhood experience [in nature] of the inner dance being echoed and affirmed:

“When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Bashō we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash—at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.” [1]

Rupp continues:

The soul of the world and our own souls intertwine and influence one another. There is one Great Being who enlivens the dance of our beautiful planet and everything that exists. The darkness of outer space, the greenness of our land and the blue of our seas, the breath of every human and creature, all are intimately united in a cosmic dance of oneness with the Creator’s breath of love. [2]

Rupp celebrates the restoration that takes place by her conscious participation in the dance:

There is such power in the cosmic dance. Each time I resonate with this energy I sink into my soul and find a wide and wondrous connection with each part of my life. I come home to myself, feeling welcomed and restored to kinship with the vast treasures of Earth and Universe. I am re-balanced between hope and despair, slowed down in my greedy eagerness to accomplish and produce no matter the cost to my soul, beckoned to sip of the flavors of creation in order to nourish my depths….

Whenever and however I join with the cosmic dance, it jogs my memory and gives me a kind of “second sight,” a glimpse of the harmony and unity that is much deeper and stronger than the forces of any warring nation or individual. My trust that good shall endure is deepened. My joy of experiencing beauty is strengthened. My resolve to continually reach out beyond my own small walls is renewed. The energy that leaps and twirls in each part of existence commands my attention and draws me into a cosmic embrace. I sense again the limitless love that connects us all. I come home to that part of myself that savors kinship, births compassion, and welcomes tenderness. I re-discover that I am never alone. Always the dance joins me to what “is.” [3]

References:
[1] Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions Books, 1961), 296–297.

[2] Joyce Rupp, introduction to The Cosmic Dance: An Invitation to Experience Our Oneness (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 10, 11.

[3] Rupp, Cosmic Dance, 17, 19.

We have a prayer in my Sufi community in which we invoke the love, harmony, and beauty of the Only Being who is united with all illuminated souls forming the embodiment of…

And here, in the prayer as taught us by the great Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Kahn, the next word is “Master” – the embodiment of the master.

When he gave us this invocation, I feel certain he wasn’t considering that word the way it feels in our current world. From all I have read and know of his work, I expect he was referring to the mastery of our ego and the ability to be present with skill and practice.

Yet, that word holds unpleasant resonances for many today. So, our community often changes the word ‘master’ to another word—usually beginning in ‘M’.

I have heard people use ‘mother’, ‘mystery’, ‘message’, etc. All of which have a sweetness and their own resonance.

But my favorite, as I strive to remember and remind us of our connection to the all in all, is “Mycelia”.

The Only Being, united with all the illuminated cells that form the embodiment of the mycelia!

For me, the most resonant embodiment is that of the network of energy, love, harmony, and light that connects us to everything on this earth and indeed the universe. The recently understood mycelial networks of fungal systems seem to me to be the best possible metaphor and, in fact, the best physical representation of those connections.

A new favorite author and teacher, Sophie Strand, is hosting a workshop that I highly recommend and encourage you to consider – Myths as Maps Workshop

This excerpt she recently posted is so inspiring and germane to this week’s blog, that I share it here:

“Fungal systems are constituted by thread like mycelial networks below ground. With no predetermined body plan, they become maps of relationship wherever they grow. They branch and fork and fuse to constellate the connective network of other species and beings. I like to say that just as when you pour fungi into an ecosystem it becomes a map of relationships, so should your myths pour themselves into your web of kinship, becoming a map of your ecology of relationships. Fungi are maps of ecosystems, so should myths represent webs of relatedness rather than a single species of narrative perspective. Just like fungi taught plants how to root into the soil, so do myths teach us how to root into relations with our actual homes.” ~ Sophie Strand

May we all re-discover the mythologies that remind us of our mycelial connection to everything, everywhere. From that place of remembrance of the love, harmony, and beauty of the Only Being, it is impossible not to do all we can to sustain, support, and preserve the health and thriving of all that is.

May it be so.

Every day the news seems more fraught and frightening. Children and innocents both human and more than human are dying in wars, disasters, droughts, and other climate-related changes to our beloved home, Mother Gaia.

A looming election threatens to carry us into autocracy, violence, or both.

And each of us with any level of empathy can feel all that pain, suffering, and chaos if we allow ourselves to do so.

We have choices.

Some of us might choose to retreat into spiritual bypass. It is beyond our ability to change, so we’ll leave it to God.

Or maybe we harden our hearts with cynicism or other emotional armor, and simply pretend we don’t see it.

I don’t fault or judge anyone for the choices they make to protect themselves, but I want to share a practice that I have found to help me stay grounded and present in that chaos without ignoring it or pretending it’s not there.

After all, I believe that we are all an intrinsic part of a large mycelial network, connecting us spiritually, emotionally, and even physically to all beings and to the earth and universe. If that is true, then ignoring the suffering is choosing to ignore a part of myself.

I can’t do that.

So, I offer this practice.

It is a Sufi-influenced version of a Buddhist Tonglen practice by Joanna Macy that she calls “Breathing Through”

Settle into a comfortable position, feet on the floor, imagining and truly feeling your connection to that mycelial network. Hold that in gratitude and allow yourself to experience that connection as much as possible.

Place your hands on your heart and feel the warmth and vibration of that network rising up inside of you.

Allow your arms to reach out as wings of your heart. The heart and wings is a Sufi symbol.

With your arms held as wings, allow yourself to deeply feel the suffering, pain, and trauma of all of our beloved siblings, human and more than human. Truly feel and hold those feelings in your left wing.

At the same time, deeply imagine and feel and remember the incredibe beauty all around you in nature, that amazing sunset, those incredible Autumn leaves, those children’s faces, and hold that and compassion, love, caring, and forgiveness in the right wing.

Allow yourself to deeply feel both wings and feel the constant flow that is happening between each of those wings. You are riding the currents of all that is, both good and bad, dark and light, uplifting and distressing. Feel it all, and allow it to flow and be balanced on your wings.

After you feel you have held it long enough (it need not be long), smoothly and with deep love and compassion, fold the wings of your heart back by placing your hands back on your heart.

Breath through all of this that your heart is now holding. Breath love, compassion, caring, patience, and presence into your heart.

Now, drop your hands toward the earth, and let it all go with a final long sigh.

Give it all to the Mother. She can hold it and she will heal it.

Imagine all that you have held flowing back into the earth to be alchemized and broken down into the enriching soil of our collective being.

You can do this once, or repeat it as you feel called.

For me, this practice reminds me that we are held, and that I have some agency and power to at least imagine healing for all of the suffering. It reminds me that we are always capable of noticing and staying in balance and groundedness and presence, even if we are not able to physically change or help those who are suffering. It acknowleges our connection to all and honors it.

May it bring you blessings and rest.

See you in the mycelia!

For our Jewish siblings it is the time of the high holy days. Rosh Hashanah marks the New Year and asks us to look deep within to see what might need to be cleaned up.

I think of the all important need to forgive ourselves and others, accept forgiveness and grace, and to grant and receive reconciliation.

Especially as we approach the Day of the Dead and remember that all of us are mortal, and since we don’t know when our time will end, we truly can’t afford to leave any “I love you’s” and ‘I’m sorry’s” unsaid.

Consider deeply anyone you need to reconcile with and don’t wait.

Rosh Hashanah reminds us of the importance of this introspection. But it need not wait for a special time of year.

I received this beautiful poem in an email post from Keah Calluccie (she/her), Multifaith Program Manager for Earth Ministry.

I share it here as a Rosh Hashanah blessing.

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The Offering: A Tashlikh Prayer

by Rabbi Jill Hammer

I cast this gift to the water.

It is my past: blessing and regret.
It is my present: reflection and listening.
It is my future: intention and mystery.

It is what I did
and did not;
it is yes and no and silence.

It is what was done
and what arose from what was done
and what arises in this body remembering.

I let it all go. I own
neither the sting nor the sweetness.
I hold on to nothing.

The river has no past.
Each moment of rushing water
Is a new beginning.

Harm that has been:
heal in the rush of love and truth and time.
We who are lost:
let the current take us homeward.

May these waters churn what is broken
into what is whole.
May each separate droplet
reach the ocean that is becoming.

The journey awaits.
I have no power to refrain from it;
only to steer it when I can.

May the One who is
the great Crossroad
guide my turning.

Three times I declare:
It is finished.
It is born.
It is unending.

Three times I listen:
It is love.
It is the river.
It is before me.

May my offering go where it is meant to go
and may the one who offers it
find the way.

Amen.