REBIRTH: Re-union of Spirit & Nature

Copyrighted Material: Chrystal Lynne Spencer-Churchill 2011

My Wilderness Quest, the papers I wrote, the books I read, the images that arose from the paintings with saran wrap, my dreams, and intuition—all droplets gathering together to form a river that would wash over me.

Reborn in these baptizing waters, my spiritual life renewed with a sense of wonder for the landscapes of the natural world. I find myself a conduit speaking from the “middle voice,” weaving threads to unite Spirit with Nature housed in a practice of attentive intimacy.

• There is a strict dualism between Spirit and Nature. Every human being is a combination of these two principles. ~ Patanjali

• The Hopi tradition speaks of a fall from grace in which human beings experienced themselves as progressively more separate from earth, animals, and other humans. The return to grace is through reunion. The cause of the fall is ascribed to people’s forgetting their true nature and purpose. ~Arthur Deikman

• There is a Cartesian split between the knower and the known…a spectator knowledge about things. ~Abraham Maslow

• …two important kinds of knowledge exist, one based on reason and empiricism, and the other, no less important, based on intuition and noetic understanding. ~Henri Bergson

• A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. ~Albert Einstein

Premise: EcoSpirituality is the Re-union of Spirit with Nature

A possible resolution to this split, this “fall from grace” and the resulting imbalance and fragmentation we now witness lies in developing a new mythology around EcoSpirituality – a reunion of Spirit with Nature.

Myths have provided the major cultural guidelines for the conduct of life. It is only in our own time that major cultures have lacked a common, coherent myth—a grand, unifying picture, story, and explanation of the cosmos. Indeed this lack of a common myth may be a major factor in the fragmentation and alienation that haunts so much of the contemporary world. Much may depend on our ability to create a new myth appropriate to our time and needs. ~Roger Walsh

In the West, our present underlying mythology is housed within the Judeo-Christian tradition and its values. Built into the tenets of monotheistic religion is an admonishment of intimate bodily connection (embodied spirituality) as a pathway to the sacred. In its texts, Genesis 1:28 for example, God gave man dominion over the earth. This, along with other examples, set up a conditioned distancing, a pattern of control and disconnect from nature. Overtime, this developed into economic and technical mastery failing to take into consideration the health and welfare of all the Earth’s creatures as well as of our future generations. Thousands of years of literal adherence to this mythology has played a part in the rampant unearthing of Gaia’s treasures, depletion of Her resources, and blatant disrespect for the land via technological advancements focused on economic gain.

Without strong role-models of a Divine Feminine presence under fundamentalist monotheistic religious systems, women, as well as the anima in men, have been conditioned to distance themselves from an immediate, personal experience of the sacred, and taught to seek a transcendent presence of the Divine most often through an intermediary – usually male. This sets up conditioned patterns of distancing, and my life was steeped in them—thus, perhaps, my passion. The wound becomes the gift, but first I had to experience it fully.

I am a child of Western conditioning supported by a patriarchal underpinning and immersed in a collective psyche whose attention is to attributes arising from the left-brain while negating the validity of the right, and a society that continues to be subconsciously influenced by the biblical Genesis creation myth. Until another mythology arises to infuse the culture with a new foundation – other than Descarte’s machine – which is yet another form of distancing, as a Spirit having a human experience, I intend to seek deeper, intimate connection to the Great Mother as Gaia. In the bear caves at Pinnacles, I sought to re-member myself through intentional rebirthing: a ritual death of the old paradigm’s grip on me, and a rebirth into balance as a conduit between duality.

MY PERSONAL WOUND: LACK OF A DIVINE FEMININE ROLE-MODEL TO BALANCE

In her book, To Be a Woman: The Birth of the Conscious Feminine, Connie Zweig states, “Growing up as young girls, we are told by adults that we were made in the image of God.” From the outset we are given an image to which we, as women, can never aspire, merely by the simple fact that we were born female. Jane Wheelwright says, “A baby girl born into a society that believes in this ideal, even if only implied, will inevitably be affected my it.” Having no feminine heroine to inspire us, we are forever designated to a lesser role, to the status of helpmate to the more powerful and authoritative male. Christine Downing, author of the book, The Goddess, explains, “To be fed only male images of the divine is to be badly malnourished. We are starved for images which recognize the sacredness of the Feminine and the complexity, richness, and nurturing power of female energy…We long for images which name as authentically feminine courage, creativity, loyalty, self-confidence, resilience, steadfastness, capacity for clear insight, inclination for solitude, and the intensity for passion.” In her essay, “Why Women Need the Goddess” found within Womanspirit Rising, Carol Crist says, “Religions centered on the worship of a male God create moods and motivations that keep women in a state of psychological dependence on men and male authority.” The earth is my Divine Feminine: the Great Mother, the Great Goddess. Her voice waits to be heard. Through cultivating attentive intimacy with the land, a form of EcoSpirituality, we are able to hear Her whispering….

TO FIND HOME

SOME PEOPLE NEEDTO

LEAVEHOME

The path of evolution isn’t a straight line; it is much more like a U. The left hand of the U traces the path from “original participation” to our current estrangement from nature. …We are just beginning to make our ascent back up, this time on the right hand of the U. …Now we can begin to participate…by becoming conscious of the power of our imagination in creating the world. …The world we see is a result of thousands of years of work by the human mind. ~Owen Barfield (identified with “participatory epistemology”, the knowing that occurs when perceiver and perceived are united as a single consciousness)

U

WALKING BAREFOOT ON MOTHER EARTH

SAN ANDREAS FAULT LINE – THE RING OF FIRE: INTIMACY AND ENERGETIC CONNECTION TO THE ARCHETYPAL VOICE OF THE EMERGING

GREAT MOTHER

MY YEAR’S SOJOURN BEGINS AT PINNACLES NATIONAL MONUMENT

It took me awhile to connect the dots, but with a friend’s feedback concerning the images that magically emerged in my second saran-wrap painting, I began to see how the puzzle pieces fit together. She saw that the form in my painting showing me the way to my own rebirth, was the Mother Mary. Her suggestion triggered a connection to a dream I’d had a month earlier where ancestors, one of them the Mother Mary, were guiding me.

One cannot set intent, call in the ancestors, and then not take heed and open to their guidance when they

actually do show up! The Mother Mary was is one

of my guides.

Arrow pointing the way into the bear caves Chrystal Lynne 2011

An excerpt from my dream:

On the edge of sleep, in a hypnogogic state, I felt myself sinking downward. Suddenly, the ancients, their forms rather iconic, encircled me. They looked as if they’d been carved in linoleum. Robed figures with their deep-set eyes, long noses, and pursed mouths looked down on me as I lay deep in this grave-like hole, curled up in a fetal position. It was dark and I felt so alone. They stretched their arms toward me. I sensed that they had always been there, but that I’d been too focused on having sunk to the deepest depths and was too mired in the muddy darkness to notice. . . .lying at the bottom of the pit, I felt warmth coming out of these ancient hands, so many hands, reaching down to me to help me up. Shrouded in light the Mother Mary stood out amongst the others…

And here she was, she’d shown up in my painting. This was a HUGE epiphany! Although not a Catholic, who better for me than the mother

of Jesus, the Christ to point the way to the Great Mother Gaia? Throughout Southern France where I’d made pilgrimage in 2000, the Mother Mary is venerated alongside the Black Madonna, representing the “total woman.” Approached with reverence, I knew She, as Gaia, would reveal Her healing power, Her ability to nurture, feed and care for Her children and would once again be given the honor and respect

She so deserved as representative of the Divine Feminine.

My Tribute to the

Mother, Mary, and the Black

Madonna as my guides on this journey.Chrystal Lynne Feb.

2011

base-camp for my journey. Why Pinnacles and not Yosemite…with the megalith “El Capitan” and “Spirit in the Land” a source of inspiration for so many. Walking the land, my hair, like fine antennae picking up frequencies, caught the whisper floating by…not the whisper of Great Spirit, but the voice of the Great Mother. I was told that this land was once a volcano. The energy below its surface, rising, pregnant, like the lands of Hawaii. The Ring of Fire—the portal where the blood, the vital energy of the Great Mother, ran close to the surface—accessible to those who paid attention. Later, receiving confirmation of the ancient volcano below the surface at the visitor center, I knew I was being drawn to write from the voice of the Mother within the land.

Writing from the “middle voice” a conduit btw. The two would be my genre.

Though so much activity is happening all the time, it is very difficult to be attentive to the point of intimacy…intimacy depends on serendipity, but also on attention.”

~ Stephanie Kaza Field of Bright Spirit: Intimate Relations with the Natural World

Attentive intimacy with the land as the focus of my spiritualpractice became the underpinning for my year’s sojourn. EnteringPinnacles National Park,I wondered why I felt so strongly that THIS PLACE was to be the

The amphitheater adjacent to the bear caves where I sang out my prayers and intentions loud and clear for the whole world to hear.I listened while they echoed in the canyon…it was then I saw my first Stone Person staring right at me.

I amble with an explorer’s temperament. I am alert for the numinous event, for

evidence of a world beyond the rational. ~Barry Lopez

“You took my breath away, oh ancient guardian of the talus bear caves. I would never have been privy to your benevolent gaze had I not been overtaken by a sudden urge to stop, enter into the amphitheatre-like indentation adjacent to the cave’s entrance, turn completely around with back planted firmly against cold rock, and reverently speak my prayers and intentions aloud. It was at that moment my eyes befell you: stalwart, omniscient, primeval. Piercing eyes exuding hope that all who enter the den in a winter phase would emerge renewed. And I, so small, would be but a wart aside your nose. Oh, majestic crystallization of the primal substance of the cosmos, your rust spots speak to the many tears you have cried. With Fatherly concern, you are patient with your children. I am honored to have such a profound witness to my rebirth into the land, into deepening, remembering my wild nature as one in the wild. Returning to the arms of the Great Mother.” Chrystal Lynne

2011

Oh Divine MotherEven in the hardness of

rockYour forms are soft and

pulsateWith life.

The passage is narrowYour blood stains the rockMaking my way through your vaginal passageway

Into the wombAwaiting REBIRTH.

“Women find their way back to themselves not by moving up and out into the light like men, but by moving down into the depths of the ground of their being.” Maureen Murdock

The Heroine’s Journey

Into the caves…

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light,To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight.And find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,And is traveled by dark feet and wings.

Wendell BerryCollected Poems

We might consider our link to another time when darkness (attributed to the feminine) was considered positive –

symbolizing wisdom, life, fertility, the earth, and regeneration.

“Darkness precedes light and she is mother.”-inscription in the altar of the Salermo Cathedral in Italy

The Feminine Emerging

My being descended i could feel my womb areatingling and pulsating with vibrationas “I” grew larger. Not an upward ascent, it was a plunging into the deep,a letting-go and giving-way to something bigger.

(poem cont. next page)

The environment—rich and teeming with life embraced by something thick and palpable It was as if i was encased within my Self. Enfolded, i became one with the languid, powerfully-soft textures surrounding me. Suddenly i felt myself contractwithin a minute membranei’d become an oval-shaped seedengulfed in a mother’s warmth.The vibrations nourishedthe dryness of the outer shelland i could feel myself being nurtured by this loving, receptive field. Glittering stardust flowedover the top of my seed-egggolden sparks danced over its surfaceas i pushed out of a small, fleshy aperture. My feet became tree rootsseeking the depths.

(poem cont. next page)

Roots, like tiny veins,moved this fluid up into my trunkspreading a warm, red, blood-like substancethroughout my body.With hands clasped and fingers pointedi prodded and probed the dark earth above meas the whispers of women eldersfluttered like silken shawls over my shoulders.i could feel their breath on my faceand long, gray hair enveloping meforming my limbs.With one strong BURST from this deep, dark womb i emergedengulfed in love.

(poem cont. next page)

Before me stood a huge figure with pendulous breasts and large, strong thighs.She was smiling with a mother’s love as tears streamed from her soft, round eyes.“See me and know your Self,” she whispered.

Chrystal Lynne 2011

High above me I saw ancient Stone Faces acting as sentinels for the healing waters of the Great Mother. (do you see the ET faces at the top of the photo?)

Arising renewed from the bear caves, they were the first thing I saw; my witnesses as I came out

of the dark and into the light: reborn.

(I am amazed that the ancient one who emerged in my second painting resembles the ancient faces in these rocks. It amazes me even more that a baby’s head could be found in the markings left by the saran wrap and was held lovingly in the hands (thumb) of the ancient “ET” one.) see opening photo

“Emerging from the darkness and into the light of day, I marvel at the Great Mother’s steadfast presence presiding over the crystal clear waters that have baptized me anew. You are the ultimate lyricist—singing beauty into being. Your songs echo throughout the canyon, strengthening the resolve of each new budding seed as you call forth their new names. You, Mother, are the womb of life, the entrance into the void where seeming nothingness is palpably full. With my delivery from the bear caves I now reverberate with the vibrations of your pulsating tones. The dawning of a new day, a new beginning packed inside a tiny seed of hope bestowed upon me in that little acorn from the Spirit of the Land at Yosemite.”

Chrystal Lynne 2011

Thus was the experience of my rebirth in the talus bear caves.

The infinite Absolute Source is indescribable. Jewish esoteric Kabbalists, in attempting to define this energy, refer to it as the En Sof or Ain Soph: the Limitless Light, the Radiant Darkness, the Source of everything. This complete Wholeness, this Absolute Source remains outside the boundaries of space and time, and therefore outside the realm that we, as humans, know and understand. In earlier times this Source was identified as androgynous.

A prayer to the Mother/Father has been uncovered in Hippolytus, REF. 5.6, which reads, “From Thee, Father, and through Thee, Mother, the two immortal names, parents of the divine being, and thou, dweller in heaven, humanity, of the mighty name…” In the Gnostic Gospel to the Hebrews, Jesus spoke of “my Mother, the Spirit.”

Again, I have my friend to thank; it was she who pointed out that the “parent” in my painting was both masculine and feminine. This sent me off on a new adventure to research just “who” my new parent was following this rebirthing experience. What I found in texts that “speak” to me…

Not until creation is made manifest are we introduced to a knowable source of divinity. When we attempt to understand this Absolute Source, we tend to use vocabulary familiar to us. This, of course, limits the Limitless. In the West, this naming process included attaching gender to the Source and ascribing male characteristics to it. Thousands of years of this one-sided focus has resulted in imbalance and fragmentation. Reunion is necessary for equilibrium to return to the planet: when neither polarity is venerated over the other. Born into the lands of the West, and raised in a fundamentalist Christian tradition, it is here that I believe both my wound and gift lie, and I believe the earth, as Mother, is seeking to have a voice.

ENERGY FLOWS WHERE ATTENTION GOES…

My words arise from the middle voice—speaking not about personal experience, but from it, dissolving the subject-object focus, stretching btw. Spirit and Nature - the relationship between them, making music together, the “Eco” in ecology & the “Spirit” in Spirituality: seeking reunion – my quest.

A concern I have while traveling is that like a stone skipping over the pond’s surface I, too, will simply skim over the more intimate encounter that is possible while being fully present to a particular area over an extended period of time. The rhythm of the seasons, the first rays of sunlight kissing the dew over the grass and making it sparkle like diamonds, the lingering chem-trails gone puffy pink as the setting sun paints the sky with roses:

The Sun doused His light and I completed

the last half of my Wilderness Quest in

the darkness.

Intimacy deepens with time and exposure.

Riane Eisler says, “Of all life-forms on this planet, only we can plant and harvest fields, compose poetry and music, seek truth and justice, teach a child to read and write – or even laugh and cry. Because of our unique ability to imagine new realities and realize these through ever more advanced technologies, we are quite literally partners in our own evolution. …In the world as it will be when women and men live in full partnership there will, of course, still be families, schools, governments, and other social institutions. But like the already now emerging institutions of the equalitarian family and the social-action network, the social structures of the future will be based more on linking than ranking.”

Consciousness is trying to move frompower to love.

MARION WOODMAN

The entire planet is a living organism and if one practices attentive intimacy through experiential means: nature speaks. Although the Absolute Source defies expression and no words do it justice, I will give it my best, utilizing the “middle voice.”

Nature is the embodiment, the manifestation of spiritual archetypes. Contemplation on any creature, element, or vital energy holds the potential to induce inner transformation and to bring about a merging of the two, which were never separate in actuality, only in our minds.

Hope, like beauty and dignity, is imminent in land—that is, in the pattern of relationships within a place, where human agency has not severed too many of those connections and impoverished the place….Where its dignity has been taken, no hope arises, and no healing can come of it to us who have broken it until we attempt its restoration. Where hope still lies…we may give the gift…to others best by turning what we find into a story.

~Mark Tredinnick

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth, befalls all the sons of the earth. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood which unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. ~Chief Seattle

ODE TO THE GREAT MOTHER

"I who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the stars and the mysteries of the waters, I call upon your soul to arise and come unto me. For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe. From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must return. Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold - all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals. Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you. And you who seek to know Me, know that your seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without. For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire."

Chrystal Lynne 2011

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS…

…AND MY HEART LIES WITH KNOWING AND LOVING THE GREAT MOTHER:

GAIA

How can we save what we do not love, and how can we love what we do not know? ~ Aldo Leopold