Beginning Our Week of Fire

Our week dedicated to air has concluded and now we've moved on to fire. Fire has always been a challenging element for me to feel kinship with. I most often notice this in tarot cards--though I don't use them much these days, I've collected some lovely ones that I still enjoy occasionally. Most decks use a symbolism that incorporates fire, and I never feel like fire is well differentiated from the other elements. I know, I know, it's not the cards. I'm not a fiery person. I'm a born and bred New England Yankee, prone to be a little buttoned-up--maybe even more than a little; at least on the surface. I've always wanted to be one of those people who lets it all hang out, singing one moment and yelling the next. (Okay, maybe it's not so fun to be on the receiving end of that kind of outburst. I don't even know how it would be to live that way, it's so far from my experience.)

I got off to a slow start with fire. When I started thinking about air it was easy to incorporate my consciousness and appreciation of that element into my life. But fire is a little bit more metaphorical: we see sun, or light, or feel warmth frequently, but fire itself is not present much in our everyday lives, whereas air surrounds us constantly.

But maybe this will turn out to be a slow burn! First of all, as before, Christine's book chapter on Fire was extremely helpful in opening up several new perspectives on fire. I thought more about how fire and light illuminate; how they represent the spark of life, spirit, and creation. I thought about the volcanic fires at the core of our earth (and we're seeing lots of great Eyjafjallajökull photos on the web to help with visualization!), volcanic vents in the ocean, and the fires of stars, other cosmic objects, and solar winds--fire and light permeating the cosmos in so many ways. And I thought about the passion and joy of creativity. I love creativity and immerse myself in many ways, so it's just a matter of paying closer attention to this or reframing it in my consciousness.

On Monday I didn't have any chance to meditate or pray, but I went running. It was hot under the sun and I was slogging up a hill that always challenges me as I near the end of my run, pushing the jogging stroller and fogging up my sunglasses with heat and sweat. My mind was wandering and I happened to think about someone I have good cause to really, really dislike--though fortunately his role in my life is well past. My first thought was to use that anger, along with my iPod music, to hit a rhythm and move forward more strongly. But suddenly I found myself flagging and weary, much more so than I had been. And then I thought of my readings on fire and moved to positive imagery, forgetting that jerk and instead thinking of a flame kindled inside me and radiating outwards. My pace picked up and I powered forward again, feeling much more comfortable. I've never experimented with this kind of imagery before, so the power of the positive flame--and the taxing feeling of negative thoughts--was a revelation!

Today I did have a chance to both meditate and pray, but I've felt really scattered recently and it was a challenge to get centered. (As an aside: It doesn't help that, literally, I don't know how to pray. I am sure there are many traditional ways. Supplication, meditation, openness to the moment? But I have not been taught any of them.) I couldn't decide how to approach my time, and found myself jumping from mindfulness meditation to Christian meditation to prayer. At long last, in a traditional posture of prayer, I settled in and, interspersing my thinking with a prayer to be opened to the understanding and experience of fire, turned over some of my favorite images and words from Christine's book:

• the bush that burned but was not consumed, and Moses removing his shoes as he realized he was on holy ground
• the transfiguration of Jesus, and the mystic who said it was not that Jesus shined brightly but that the disciples were, for a moment, able to see him as he truly was
• the story of the Abba Joseph, who said "why not become fire?" as his ten fingers became like ten lamps
• the burning of the sun and its reflection by the "mirrored ball" of the moon
• the heat of a summer's day
• the spark of life
• the fires burning at the core of the earth, revealed to us directly or indirectly by volcanoes, geysers, and vents
• the images of deserts and purification; the fire which burns all of that except which is necessary
• the Ironwing Tarot, which was made in the desert, by a woman who is a blacksmith, and is filled with symbolism deriving from both

(When thinking about volcanoes and vents I also focused on a painting I just bought, after much anticipation. It is called "Shedding" and the artist says: "This is a painting about ancestry. The antlers and the steam grow from the same source. The ground is wetter and warmer around the source; moss and lichen grow there more readily." Not directly fiery, but I find it compelling!)

I thought about that sacred moment, being in the presence of the magical fire that does not burn. What would it feel like, to see the sort of light that makes you realize you are in the presence of God? To be on ground so holy, you remove your shoes? And then I thought, but as the mystic said about the story of Jesus's transfiguration, that light permeates everything; it is just a question of whether, in the moment, we see it. And for a few moments I could see myself, kneeling in prayer, bathed in fire and radiating light.

I thought, too, about how these images show two different kinds of fire, the fire that burns and the fire that does not. But even the fire that burns does not burn everything: it purifies and leaves only the necessary, the bare bones of what is. What is more, even the hottest fire can be a creative force, not destructive: out of the hottest fires of all emerge glass work, diamonds and rubies, gold and silver work, iron things and metal. I saw an image of gifts emerging from fire, and it was surprising and joyful to realize that in fire, as in just about any aspect of our universe, destruction and creation are coupled: to strip down to the necessary and the barest elements or to subject something to brutal heat and pressure can lead, in the end, to proliferation, newness, and beauty.

This week I'll hope to build on these reflections and continue to gain an understanding of fire rooted in my heart and not my head: especially to think more on fire as a creative, bountiful, and life-giving force even when it is simultaneously searing or stripping down. And I will continue to be aware of light, illumination, creativity, passion, life, and warmth: not in the overwhelmingly obvious or ham-handed way I seem to have pictured them until now, but envisioning them as woven throughout my everyday life, and becoming more conscious of fire's many little sparks as a matrix in which I move and exist, just as much as I exist in an ocean of air.

A thought about the general theme of this series: resurrection. I am indeed finding this a time of resurrection, but I am also finding that it doesn't help me to look at the topic of "my self" or "my needs" too specifically or directly. It feels too much like me, me, me, uninteresting and limited and prone to make me neurotic or to feel sorry for myself. Instead I find that when I turn my thoughts outward, I grow on the inside. I suppose the analogy would be tending the garden--tilling the soil, letting in lots of light, watering it--rather than overpruning the plant. So these things I am letting unfurl gently, of their own accord, for now.

Mid-Week Thoughts on Air

We've been thinking about air this week during the Easter e-course from Abbey of the Arts, taught by Christine Valters Paintner.

First, I had to share this amazing link, via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, who say:

Ken Murphy's A History of the Sky is a fantastic art project recording, collecting, and displaying time-lapse movies of the San Francisco sky.

The movies are displayed side-by-side in high definition-- one little video for each day --and synchronized to show the same time of day in each movie. It's simply stunning to see the progression in the length of the days as the seasons change.

Here's the video:



(You can read more about the project here.)

In Christine's book Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements, she offers a meditation or prayer based upon Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's conception of "the breathing together of all things." One expands one's consciousness, first from one's own breath, then to that of loved ones, to the breathing of all people, to that of all creatures, to trees and plant life--"which offer us a mutual exchange of breath. Allow this prayer to connect you to the vast matrix of pulsing life within which we live" (p. 23).

This was deeply evocative for me when I first read it and imagined the breathing of the entire planet. And when I came across this video it seemed the perfect visualization of invisible, fluid air that circulates constantly all over our planet, as the breath of animals, people, and plants, carrying clouds and rain, eternal motion and flowing. Every time I watch this video I am enthralled and feel that it is another way of experiencing the enormity and beauty of our globe and its atmosphere, in a sweeping and total visualization that reminds me of the famous "blue marble" picture of the earth seen from space.

I haven't even finished the "air" chapter and it has been revelatory several times over. In particular, besides this vision of the breathing of all creations, I was captivated by the meditations on "carried by the wind"--conceiving of giving up control and direction and entrusting these to God, the divine. Christine speaks of  the idea of "peregrinatio," purposefully submitting in trust and faith to God's direction: seeing where God's wind takes us. Our culture is so fascinated with responsibility, will, and control that, amazingly, I feel as if this thought is completely new to me: that abdicating the need to direct everything could be not only healthy, but the will of the divine. As Christine mentions, this does not mean that we ought to give up all self-direction, but it is deeply appealing to me to think about leaving some part of my life open to divine serendipity.

I have only had time to take a brief moment in the mornings to stand and face the east in prayer; but I am taking time to meditate, pray, read the book chapter, and stay mindful of the week's topic. Ever since childhood I have been fascinated with watching dust motes in the sun, little particles of water (steam from a shower, or fog), smoke--these give air shape and allow us to see air's fluidity and remind us that it surrounds us. This week I am returning to my fascination with all these things. I find myself constantly aware of wind and air in my day-to-day life, and often thinking of the rising sun in the east, the morning breezes, the birds gliding about tree branches, and their calls ... I feel a bit as if part of my soul is living in the treetops right now. This week is a perfect time to think about all these things, too, as our part of the world has been waking up from cold and rain into warmth, spring buds, and sun!

And, as often happens when everything is right and you are in the "flow," I keep on hearing about airy thoughts and images everywhere. Last night I was listening to an archived Sound & Spirit program on dreams and heard famous language from Shakespeare's The Tempest:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, 

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

(The Tempest, Act 4, scene 1, 148–158)

Thanks to Shakespeare, we often use the phrase "melting into thin air", but the words have lasted because it says something about our assumptions. If there is nothing else, there is still air, invisible but omnipresent. For someone like myself who believes in the immanence of the divine, meditating upon air is a way to remind myself of the enormousness and pervasiveness of God throughout creation, but in another way the air itself is God (because everything is). Concentrating upon this helps me remember that our entire world is holy and filled with holiness. In this way sacred space, as I talked about earlier, exists everywhere as well.

To return to the central theme of this e-course, I am not sure what all this says about resurrection in my own life, but thinking on all these things continues to feel like a resurrection in itself, so I will cast my own spiritual coracle on these waters (or air) and go where I am taken.

Making Space for the Sacred

It's the end of a long and very non-spiritual week. (I guess we're supposed to think of Sunday as the beginning of the new week, but I would dare say most of us probably pair them up together as the "weekend.") Really, the past three weeks have been very spiritually dry, crammed with work, chores, and errands, and not enough sleep.

Today I received the packet for my Easter e-course at Abbey of the Arts--I've been so excited about this--and perhaps the most emphasized suggestion for this week is that we schedule time in our lives during this virtual retreat for reflection and prayer.

I don't disagree in the least, but this is a very challenging thing for me. First and foremost, I'm naturally disorganized and am not good at scheduling personal time. I've always wanted to be the sort of person who does laundry on Monday, dusting on Tuesday, etc., but I have not been very successful. (I'm working on it. But very slowly.) Second, I have two very young children. Even if I were a Monday-laundry sort of person, I would probably be falling behind at this time in my life.

Third, we live in an era when personal time is very, very short, and often fragmented, and fraught with distractions. I don't think we should get too sunny about past times in this regard: people worked damn hard, and their lives were often filled with chores and long days of unrelenting drudgery. But I do think they had a certain amount of free time built into their lives due to seasons, poorer evening lighting, a lack of constant communication (e.g. no cell phones), etc. It may be much more challenging to resist spontaneous and insistent demands on our attention today.

Fourth, we also live in an era where spiritual practice, despite getting a lot of lip service, is often devalued in practice. I suspect that most people, if you were to tell them you're a regular church-goer or that you're setting aside time to pray, might put you down as a goody-goody. I still feel an echo of this myself. Weirdly, my experience of church and worship has been entirely separate from the reflexive connotations I attach those same words.

In my own life I prioritize social events as much as possible. We've spent the past dozen years moving around a good amount, and so we haven't had the chance to sink deep roots in any one area. I really want to form and maintain closer friendships. But when I didn't attend my usual service on Easter so that we could see friends, I regretted it. I enjoyed seeing our friends, but missing out on celebrating that high holy day with the church friends I'm coming to know was surprisingly hard.

So this past weekend, when a friend had to cancel Saturday plans and asked to reschedule at 11 a.m. on Sunday, I dithered. What should I do? Then I thought about Easter and Christine's request for us to set aside personal time for devotion and I thought, okay. I have to make this time sacred to me.

And that's when it hit me. Make this time sacred?! By its very definition, it is sacred time--or, at least, it should be. Yet somehow, along the line, the expression--to make a time sacred--has become secularized and made shallow.

I cannot be a monk right now, or even an oblate. I probably won't be able to set aside as much time as I would like during this course to really worship. But what I can do is try, as much as possible, to reconnect with true sacred time. Sacred cannot mean simply "set aside for some secular purpose" but a real attempt to take oneself out of secular time as much as possible, in order to attune to deeper concerns.

I think this attempt to reach sacred time is best attached to sacred space, in the literal sense. Christine talks about this as well. She mentions creating an altar with an object for each of the four directions. This interests me because most pagans have a very similar altar in their homes, and most pagan rituals involve the creation of sacred space (usually the drawing of a circle). The space is felt to offer protection and sanctuary, but it is also meant to create a space outside of normal time and place. To approach this from the Christian perspective makes it fresh and new for me. I think of this effort as somehow trying to create a cathedral or labyrinth in your home. The creation of this sacred space will have to spring mostly from the mind and emotions, as I haven't got the time, square footage, or money to put in fan vaults or pews. Will I be able to create sacredness even in the middle of piles of laundry, or will I find myself needing at least a clean room? How does one cultivate the ability to shift perspective to sacredness in the midst of everyday life?

Unfortunately, I don't know if I will be able to follow her other major recommendation, which is to honor the element of air by praying just after rising, facing the east. Mornings are one of our most rushed times of the day, when it's really not possible to get time to myself. It doesn't help that--I'll admit it--I am really really not a morning person, especially since I've been sleep-deprived for three years now. But I know that there is one simple and very secular thing I can do to try to make some morning space: prepare my son's lunch ahead of time. So I'll do this tonight and try to make this a regular habit. (I ought to anyway.)

By the way: I did tell that friend that I wasn't available during most of Sunday morning, though I didn't say why (mostly because it felt like a private matter). I can't tell if I've offended her, and I worry that I have--a bit of a long story, there. But I think I did the right thing, and I was so glad to be back at home in my regular 11 a.m. service today.

Making sacred time sacred: a radical concept--for me, anyway.