Photos from the Unwind in Nature Facilitated Walk on 06.05.2013.
Facilitated Walk 06.05.2013
Core Musings
Facilitated Walk 05.29.2013
Photos from the Unwind in Nature Facilitated Walk on 05.29.2013.
Starting with some open blue sky above us, we ended with spellbinding light as the sun began to set off to the West.
Dramatic Landscape Transformation in Hadley 05.15.2013
A nine image photo set showing the transformation of the landscape over a one hour period while on a facilitated walk in Hadley May 15, 2013, 5:30–6:45PM.
Intentional Seeing–Openning the Eye-Mind Connection
The act of consciously using your visual focus for increasing awareness in nature is one of my core practices. There is great power in training the mind to both choose what one looks at, and how to use what one seees. For example if I choose to keep my focus on the sky without breaking my attention I have a experience that is informed by the continuous unbroken and constant fluidity of the clouds or perhps the vast unbroken field of blue if a cloudless day. I can then choose how I want to relate to this visual experience. If the sky is a very complex cloudscape I might choose to look at the complexity in a very detailed fashion, focusing on the dynamic variations found within the cloud field. Following the edge of one cloud and how it flows seemlessly into what feels like another cloud, slowly getting lost in the layerd billowing flow. This type of looking often leads to a sense of awe and wonder at the profound creativilty expressed in the formation of clouds.
If the sky was an cloudless blue sky I might choose to relax my attention and let my eye-mind rest in the open empty field. The later encourages very soft open mind that is excelllent for releasing the hyper focus tension filled mind many of us operate out of for many hours a day.
Both methods can lead to very profound mind state and are supportive of self-discovery and opening the creative channels.
Learning to control one’s visual attention is one way to train the mind as a type of meditation. Similar to focusing on the breath, you can always return to focusing the mind on a particular visual point of attention.
Self Care and the Dilemma of Chasing vs Searching
I was talking with a friend the other day and he used one of his favorite phrases, “chasing the great American nightmare.” I happened to be reading about the spiritual process of searching after the Beloved and the notion of spiritual certitude. I began to realize that we often confuse searching for truth, meaning, and happiness with chasing the dreams that almost always fail to satisfy. Most material ambitions are at best based on deep compassion for improving the state of the world, or perhaps the desire to improve the opportunities for yourself and family, but far too often are an unsubstantial mania for the latest and greatest.
Our corporate consumer society puts more and more demands upon us and often leaves little time to consider one’s own well-being. How many professionals I meet who do not have a sense of trusting they can truly take care of themselves, physically but especially spiritually. I feel that we have confused chasing for searching. My work in nature starts with the simple notion of moving out of the state of chasing for a while. Put simply, I want you to stop chasing and simply become present and aware. From a place of awareness and presence, awakening of your inner self can begin to have the space to come back to life and clarify the quality of search.
Harmonizing with the Four Elements
FIRE, AIR, WATER, EARTH
I use the four elements as a rough guide to creating a balanced awareness, both in nature as well as within.
So, for example, the experience of the sun acquaints me with the nature of FIRE, the sky with AIR, the ocean, lakes, rivers and rain with WATER, and the land, trees, and flowers with the EARTH.
Through developing conscious awareness of these four qualities while out in nature I believe we can find the balance of well-being within.
I generally work from the EARTH element into the FIRE Element and back to the EARTH element. I try to create a balance of natural energies, ending in awareness at the EARTH level, which is the plane of action.
These four elements I work with come out of ancient knowledge and were refined and reconsidered in the writings of the Báb and Bahá’u’láh, the two manifestations of the Bahai movement.
Know that the first tokens that emanated from the pre-existent Cause in the worlds of creation are the four elements: fire, air, water and earth…. Then, the natures (ustuqusát) of the four appeared: heat, moisture, cold and dryness—those same qualities that you both know. When the elements interacted and joined with one another, two pillars became evident for each one: for fire, heat and dryness, and likewise for the remaining three in accordance with these rules, as ye are aware.
Bahá’u’láh
According to Aristotle in his On Generation and Corruption:
- Fire is primarily hot and secondarily dry.
- Air is primarily wet and secondarily hot.
- Water is primarily cold and secondarily wet.
- Earth is primarily dry and secondarily cold.
My interest is mostly as a metaphor for the different aspects of experience in nature, as well as seeing time as a continuous cycle of change and development.
Relating to the process of time, the calendar year can be seen as a cycle moving through these aspects.
Chris Page 