Wilderness Wisdom

       I’m just back from a wonderful, five-day wilderness retreat in the Boundary Waters with my good friend, Rich.  We spent much of the time in silence, soaking in the beauty around us – sights and sounds – waters rushing, waves lapping on the shore, the lush greens of cedars and pines, dramatic sunsets and moon sets, including one spectacular descending sun haloed in double-rainbow light.  For me it was a much-needed time to rest and recover from depletion, to listen in stillness, to re-connect with life, to re-balance and re-focus.

       We camped on a peninsula with a path – maybe a couple hundred yards long - connecting the lakeside where we pitched our tents and the riverside where the roar of the rapids immediately hushed my inner chatter.

       On the second day, that short hike between lake and river slowed to a walking meditation.  With each inhalation, I invited earth’s loving energy into my soles and up through my body to the top of my head.  With each exhalation, I sent the energy back down through my body and back into the earth.  My intention was to be as open and transparent as possible to the healing flow of love.

       At some point it struck me:  I was making love with Mother Earth – and being made love to.  I felt a pure connection with the Divine Feminine – and an ancient, familiar hunger for deep communion with the Feminine.    

       As I stayed with the experience, I remembered, once again, the spiritual nature of this hunger, the wisdom of approaching this hunger as a yearning for the Divine Within, and the goofiness that accompanies my efforts to satisfy this spiritual hunger in the realm of flesh and blood relationship.