The littlest park ranger
I took this picture in the summer, above the Achensee. I love the way the panoramic
wide-angle seems to cradle the valley below. Life is like this. Your view on
the world "cradles" it. Your view is unique, and adds real love to existence
thanks to the particularity of that view. Love needs something particular to
flower. It's famously easy to make loving expressions in the abstract.
But those expressions have no real power. That which you gaze upon must have
its flaws...they serve as hooks which rescue you by awakening your compassion.
Note: I wrote this last April, but it's stuck with me. I feel I should share what I am a little bit more. Not that anyone is listening out there. It's more about my attitude. Am I so special that I have to clutch my thoughts to my bosum? No. They are just thoughts. I like them, mostly. I'll stick 'em here.
This morning in meditation I imagined my ego as a little park ranger in a beautiful park.
He’s always trying to make some perfect situations for the park guests, but he doesn’t realize that it’s better to do nothing at all. The guests are here to enjoy the nature of the park. He busily creates a little “play area,” he invents games with sticks and cards. Then he’s upset when the guests wander away, uninterested in these games. That dude is who I have been. Or maybe I should say it like this:
that ranger is the unelected governor of me. I am the park, and I might need a ranger, but he should sit in my nature and love it for what it is.
For I, the nature, am sitting in my Father’s nature[^1], and loving what it is. And He is doing the same. In right relation we all look with love to our Source.
The park ranger has his source in me. Born out of me and empowered by me. But I didn’t know how to provide for him. So he did his best. And he looked at me, seeing my uncertainty. “Nature can’t take care of herself,” he thought, and began to rummage in his tools. Doing his best in a godless world.
I must relieve him of duty. Though...I allow him to live in the ranger’s hut forever. He will have free time, and he will feel lost. This is necessary -- necessary that he re-orient around faith that his natural world knows best but does not say in words. That he find in Her[^2] what he tried to build alone. He will walk amid his failed works, and know them for the sad things they are: artifacts of a loveless existence. And as sadness fills him, and yet he does not collapse into plan-making[^3], then I can love him.
I can reach him.
And when he feels this, he will hold himself, too. And then we are in right relation with each other.
And then words have served their purpose.
[^1]: The "old-fashioned" and gendered syntax here might be off-putting to us modern folks. I can imagine reading this myself, and thinking "gee, why does this dude have to limit the appeal of his message by talking about God for one thing, and even worse, talking about God as a he? 'My father's nature,' is that really necessary?" Since I left it in, I think it is. I'm using my nose, or some similar other sense to feel my way into the right frame of consciousness. And "my father's" is the phrase that fits. Only it conveys the sense of a giving up of myself into the hands of one who knows more and will treat me with compassion. It's tied to the word or the feeling of surrender. If I said mother, it would somehow mean retreat into what-was-known for me. If I say father, it means something more like...falling forward into unknown and unexpected grace. All creation is cycles. I think there is a cycle in me of movement from mother to father, and thence back to mother in another way. I don't know...I'm just putting this footnote here to let you know that at least sometimes, I see that my words are jarring and out of tune. I do worry about this. But it's better I think to show who and where I am, with whatever flaws are present. Only then do I have a chance to understand things myself.
[^2]: "WTF, dude?" I can hear the reader exclaim. Now gendered language again, but in the other direction? And you said that you were Nature, and now, this Nature is a her and not a him? Why bother? You are either confusing or offensive -- maybe both at the same time.
We contain multitudes. I have masculine in me. I have feminine in me. When I walk
through the forest, I feel a presence. It is timeless and enormous. But also
loving of the small particulars that it sees. I am one of those particulars...small,
and yet warm through the awareness that I am beloved. When I feel the Awareness in
this way, it has a feminine quality. I catch a hint of beautiful scent. A whimsical
absence in the place that I look...and a presence that wraps a cloak around my
shoulders when I give up looking. The hands and fingers that bring this cloak are
fine and sensitive, suggesting features built on a fine scale.
Maybe not in the extreme presentations of nature, but definitely in the normal
presentation, there is femininity. I am gifted by this. If it can have a life *in*
me as well, then I am gifted again. So...the park ranger in me walks in my
loving femininity, and looks to her for solace. She is there. I am here, and there,
and nowhere.
This is the best explanation I can give!
[^3]: What felt fresh and exciting to me here was the idea that communication between Spirit and Mind only occurs when Mind stops spinning. Normally, Mind falls into itself, thinking itself alone. It makes plans to fix what is broken. This goes on for decades. Finally though...maybe Mind is just tired. Maybe it begins to dawn that this activity is just circular. It goes quiet.
Here, in my thinking, is the moment that finally, Spirit utters a single word that is heard.
In fact, the word will not be heard...only the reverberation of it in the great cave of
consciousness. The system is held fast by the breathtaking beauty of the reverberation and
echo of that soundless word...filtering through all the fibers of being. Ah ha...
Now communication has begun. At long last.