Ark Redwood | Earth Pathways Showcase

Diary 2016

Gather together various natural items, such as seeds, berries, nuts and fruits etc, which symbolise harvest and fulfilment. Find a spot in the garden, where you can sit on the ground facing these specimens arrayed in front of you as a makeshift altar. Add any extra seasonal offerings, and perhaps a bowl, or other receptacle, to symbolise reaping and gathering. Be aware of the presence of other creatures around you, who in their own way may be celebrating their own particular harvest. Sense your kinship with them. Look closely at these items, taking time to dwell on each one. See them not just as the culmination of the cycle of growth, but also as its continuation. Give thanks to our mother, the Earth, for all of her gifts to us.

Now close your eyes, and bring your awareness to your breath, follow its rhythm with attention. Be aware too of your posture, and of the solidity of the ground upon which you sit.

Listen closely to any sounds you may hear, beginning with the loudest, and gradually focussing on the quietest. Sense the presence of the living, vibrant world all around you.

Imagine yourself as one of your ancestors giving thanks to the Earth for her abundance. Go further and further back in time, in your mind, to the earliest days of humanity on this precious planet, and connect with the peoples of that land. Recognize that there really is no distance in time and space between you. All of history happens in the flash of the present moment. They live within you, as you live within them. Feel the kinship. Pause a while within this realisation.

When you are ready, and using your breath as an anchor, gradually bring your attention back to your place in the garden, and gently open your eyes.

Being aware of your body’s movements slowly stand up, and with palms together, bow to your altar in thankfulness, and smile.

Sometime, on a bright and sunny day, perhaps in mid-March, stand and pause a while in the garden in order to revel in this energetic dance of cellular enlightenment.

Find a tree, shrub, newly-arising perennial or spring bulb and regard it closely, attempting to visualise the process of photosynthesis, in whichever way makes sense to you, and marvel at it. Try to find a large enough leaf, freshly green, to place between your eye and the Sun and observe its network of veins. Feel the vibrant delight of the plant as it gratefully soaks up the solar energy suffusing it from every direction. Recognise that any apparent separation between it and the Sun is actually an illusion. All is One. There is just the dance, the cosmic dance, playing out before our eyes. Sometimes, if we can put aside our preconceptions, it is possible to lose ourselves in this realisation, and a sort of rapture envelops us. Our awareness expands to include all that is. We experience a joyful, yet curiously familiar, recognition that there is only the thinnest of veils between our ordinary everyday consciousness and this universal awareness. Our Buddha nature laid bare. And all this from a simple meditation on a leaf!