Month 2, Week 3, Earth Path Meditations

This lesson is mostly commentary and observation, and though there are two assigned questions, there are also two musings and an additional question I would like to address.

Musing 1-Yet I wonder what we may have sacrificed when we retreated from the forests and fields and into our air-conditioned fortresses?

**I think we sacrificed our Being Animal.  We separated the reality that we are creatures of e/Earth.  Today we live without looking at the stars, and so have lost the Great Dance of Heaven and how He affects Her Great Dance.

We no longer feel Her pulse through our soles/soul, no longer feel Her rivers coursing through our veins, no longer tremble to the drumbeat of thunder, no longer know the song of frogs or the language of birds.  We have become human and in so doing forgot Being Animal.

Musing 2-If we could make a paradigm shift to a lifestyle that makes room for nature, what would that do to our sense of wellbeing?

**I think a paradigm shift is precisely what one needs to live in accord to Nature.  I do not see any accord without questioning preconceived assumptions – which are but ‘layers’ that have been laid upon our understanding. 

For virtually every action we take we must ask: “Why did I do that?  Why did I choose this route?  Where did that idea come from?  Is that how I really wanted to act / express myself?”

Many feel remorse or regret at saying and doing things, ruminating for days, months and years over woulda’, shoulda’, coulda’.  Far better to plumb one’s depths for how to act rather than be in a situation where one has to re-act.  Best to know your own mind than that of another.

Question:  Make mental notes on how you experience meditation indoors vs. how you experience meditation outdoors. Is there a difference?

**A few decades back, while meditating indoors, I perceived the wall in front of me as being torn asunder – from roof to foundation.  I then found myself peering into a vast forest with primordial trees, accosted by new scents and sounds so profound that when I rose from my meditation, some six hours had passed.  In short, I no longer let walls confine me, though prefer, at every turn, to mediate outside. 

Assigned questions:

1-In what ways does the experience of nature change your mental and emotional states?

**Nature is my home.  Or at least, when in nature I feel ‘at home’ .. more relaxed, calm, centered, focused, at ease.  Nature is my natural state of being.

2-When you are in a natural environment, what changes do you notice in your mind?  In your body?  In your spirit?  In your emotions?

**Not so much ‘changes’ as ‘release’ of conditions of being that have subtly accumulated over the course of daily dealings.  For example, the body becomes more relaxed (akin to when doing Hatha Yoga); the emotions, like ripples on water, became still; and the spirit finds its natural home.