Nature, the Soul, and FOOD FOR THOUGHT
A lovely, thoughtful essay by one of our contributors.
“Soul, you are Natural, like a crystal clear stream, unsullied by life’s harsh conditioning! Fields and flowers reflect Your Divine Image!”
I wrote this Soul Affirmation for April, because I believe, unless we re-identify with the natural, original, Shared Being that we all really are, we can’t in any sustainable manner, reflect that well-being love and harmony out into our environment.
But this inner Source of all goodness and Being; our pristine, original Self, is so close, so intimate and “natural” if you will, that we sometimes “forget” about it, and overlook it.
For example, I still get lost at times, in thoughts or outer perceptions of separation. The latter seems to “cover over” my original, essential Self. It sometimes even feels, as if I, as Soul, am being polluted.
This brings me to a strange dream I had the other night.
I dreamt that several people were gathered around me, insisting I needed insulin, because my blood sugar was too high. I thought, “they must be wrong. I have arthritis, not diabetes”.
I try not to assume things about dreams.
I try especially not to automatically believe an interpretation of my dream that might cause me to fear or worry, like “maybe this means then, that I will get diabetes”.
I was happy in the morning when I noticed this dream starting to simply fade, as I prepared to meet a friend at a nearby horse farm.
A horse named Charlotte, that my friend had taken care of several times, was sick with a leg injury. My friend wanted to visit and say goodbye to Charlotte, before Charlotte had to be euthanized.
When I arrived at the farm, I was soon struck by the contrast of the beauty there on this lovely Spring day, and what appeared to me as “brutalities” among the animal and natural environments.
Yellow daffodils were in full bloom, literally filling the entire hill that sloped down from the farmhouse with their abundance. Here and there, shy, wild violets that had spread naturally, were peeking through the grass, getting ready make their presence known next.
I noticed a magnificent, soft white mare, so lovely and maternal, that seemed to want to protect its injured, hobbling companion.
There was also a hawk, circling overhead, as if to remind of ever present, looming death.
The farm owner explained that though it was rare birds of prey like this hawk, could get into the chickens’ fenced in area, foxes, weasels and other predators had already gotten in and killed some.
Bridget also mentioned to me and my friend, that the chickens were destroying all of the grass, turning their hillside into mud, and she and her husband were going to have to move their chicken coop over soon and relocate them.
She spoke excitedly of the turtle and frog eggs in a nearby pond, and the birds she anticipated laying their eggs among the reeds and irises.
“But” she then added, “of course, the snakes will come.”
Every area on the farm seemed to be a mixture of booming, beautiful, life – and rather casual death.
When we approached the injured horse, I slowly moved my face in turn, close to hers, as I had been told “that’s how they know you”.
Apparently, horses get information about us from our breath. As Charlotte nuzzled me and ate a carrot from my hand, I intentionally rested for a moment in awareness, silently saying to her, “We share the same Be-ing that is Love”.
I could feel this Love, and Charlotte’s sweet gentleness. I asked Bridget, and my other friend, “Is there nothing that can be done, for this horse’s leg injury?”
“No”, Bridget responded, looking at me sadly. It wasn’t really a leg injury per se, she explained, but a lameness caused by dysregulated sugar levels. She told me that horses can get this in part simply from eating too much of the sweet grass, so plentiful this Spring, (except where the chickens had gotten to it).
I asked if this was like diabetes, and she said yes, but many horses are insulin sensitive.
Charlotte had been on various kinds of medications, and also natural treatments for several years, but was worsening and in pain. Charlotte’s situation, Bridget explained, was complex.
Wow, I thought. The love and connection between horse and humans that cared, was shining brightly and beautifully right before me, despite the seemingly hopeless material situation.
Charlotte was peaceful, despite her discomfort.
But moreover, I realized, in my dream the night before, it was as if I was Charlotte being told I needed insulin ~ the horse whose shared Be-ing with me, I would make note to remember and honor, the next day.
Wow.
So when I came home, I found myself still musing over this sometimes beautiful, sometimes seemingly cruel, paradox of life and death, cycling so inevitably throughout nature.
When I was a child, I had been given the not so satisfying explanation that the reason animals have to suffer and die in this world, is because of human being’s “Original Sin”. According to this doctrine, animals, like all humans, were tainted with the effects of the first human Souls falling from grace.
I don’t believe this anymore.
It couldn’t be that humans are intrinsically bad, and therefore animals too, have to suffer our painful consequences. That would mean that Souls weren’t made in God’s Image, what’s “Good” could suddenly turn malevolent, and God wasn’t within us at all, but was like an unjust man in the sky, that happened to be unfair to animals.
I suddenly realized that my conundrum with how life, death and ecosystems naturally work, must really lie in a common human misperception about reality.
I realized it all goes back to humans simply forgetting, and becoming too attached, to forms! We forget we are Souls, not our temporary forms.
Even when we think of how best “to protect” the environment (rather than thinking as a part of it ourselves) we tend to focus on determining “which forms” are better to use, and make up more rules to obey, rather than knowing and thinking intuitively as One Be-ing, for that mysterious well-being of All.
Animals and nature on the other hand, seem to care very little about their physical forms, and the labels and rules we ascribe for them. Even the trees act immediately, intuitively and invisibly from within, and behave in a kind of Love-cooperation, as a whole.
Could what I was seeing as harsh brutalities, be Nature simply, constantly, shedding temporary forms, for the more real, Invisible Whole, and eternal, shared Spirit of Love that We all - humans, nature and animals alike ~ already Are?
It's not sweet grass, but this idea feels to me, like good food for thought.
Perhaps it’s we humans that can learn, even from what we perceive as shocking in Nature, how to “clean up” - our own inner environment; our perceptions.
We are not our passing forms, or even the helpful or hurtful things, people seem to do.
We are in our most essential, albeit forgotten selves, the One, Eternal, Shared Be-ing of Love, giving, receiving, and celebrating.
We are already that.
And that my friend, is a Reality, that can never die.
– Wren Clement Eli
Let’s take a moment, or more, to get ourselves in the “stewardship” frame of mind as we nourish our April habit. More than 35 years ago, John Kennedy recognized that saving our planet would take a global effort, one person at a time. You and I are two people. We’re already on our way.
The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of this, our planet.
— John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
Love the Earth. Become the steward of a spot somewhere near home.
Learn more about April’s Habit - Take Care of Our Environment at the 12 Habits Web Site.