I have had vivid dreams before.
Once, I dreamed the world was ending. I remember watching a concrete overpass fall to the ground. It was immediately covered by a rapid growth of grass. The street became a rushing river right before my eyes. I watched as all man-made structures disappeared and the earth was restored to a paradise. In my dream I was overcome by unspeakable joy and I turned my eyes to the sky.
I knew Jesus was coming.
It was so convincing that when I awoke, I ran to the window just to make sure.
That dream changed me.
Gerald May describes experiencing something similar in this week’s chapter of The Wisdom of the Wilderness, Experiencing the Healing Power of Nature. May opens chapter ten, Natural Being (Only one more, folks!), with the story of his dream about an encounter with a mountain lion. The dream left such an impression that a dozen years later it remained fresh and clear in his mind.
Nothing much happened in the dream–other than a lot of observation of one another–oh, yeah, and May running for his life at one point. But in the end, May and the beast locked eyes and had a sort-of mind meld. Then the cat left.
After considering the dream, May reflects:
At first I thought the teaching was about animal being, the mystery of what goes on inside the consciousness of wild creatures. Now, however, I believe the teaching…is really about ourselves, about human nature… wild creatures share this one characteristic: they are completely, totally themselves. They do not pretend to be anything else. They do not question their identity. ..They are what they are, and they are impeccable at it. They have no use for questions about their worth on earth. They are worthy.
May says that we too can reach this state of lively being-who-one-is-where-one-is if we practice alertness the way the stag does. He notes that the deer takes many times to stand very still in the midst of whatever he is doing. He becomes very attentive…listens, looks, smells. Even more.
The stillness inside must become exquisite; it must deepen into a moment of absolutely pure and utterly simple wakefulness in which your whole being is vitally present. In this stillness, you exist in beauty, and your next movement is perfectly clear. It is the practical, immediate ground of both appreciation and wisdom.
May practices this type of alertness when he walks through the natural world.
…I like to stop, sometimes suddenly, sometimes softly. I stand like a tree. I look around and feel my body. I notice my breath steaming in the cool air. I sense inside, my emotions and heart-perceptions…If I want to know which way to turn next, I wait, see, listen. My being lives and Wisdom comes.
This is the true teaching of the wild, May says, that by so fully being who they are, they show us how to be who we really are.
This teaching also heals, the author asserts. May believes that root of our brokenness is our separation from nature.
May admits that he is not sure exactly how Nature heals us.
In part, it happens just through the physical touch of earth and sky and growing things…For me, the deep touching happens when my mind stops and my senses open and I am given willingness. I have never been able to do this for myself. It has to come through grace, in the Presence of the One I called the Power of the Slowing, the Wisdom of the Wild.
Food for thought:
**Do you believe humans are capable of the same kind of alertness as the wild creatures?
**Have you ever experienced healing through being part of nature as May describes?
**Do you think this type of healing happens the same way for everyone?
Related posts:
Glynn’s A Line I Can’t Cross
post by Laura Boggess , photo by Kelly Langner Sauer, used with permission
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
We went in different directions here, Laura. I think my modernist roots are showing. My thoughts are posted at my blog: http://faithfictionfriends.blogspot.com.
I have found May’s last chapters “difficult”, if that is the right word. I don’t see nature/Nature as separate and apart but of the whole of God. There are lessons in nature, no doubt; they help but they are not where I find healing.
I’ve come to think that May cannot bring himself to acknowledge that he is seeking God, needing God, and so invents (perhaps an unfair word) a substitute he calls the Wisdom of the Wild. I’ve come away almost feeling sorry for him, wondering why, so close to death, he cannot allow himself to accept through believing.
maureen,
i found myself wondering if he was questioning God more during this time, and so found it easier to see Nature as something separate from HIm.
Still, I am glad to have L.L.’s input and her knowledge of his other books.
In a way, I think I have the unfair advantage of having read other books by May. Addiction and Grace, for instance, which asserts that only through God can we find healing from our addictions. Or The Dark Night of the Soul, which looks deeply at the ideas of St. John of the Cross.
So I bring these things to my understanding of May, and of his final book.
For me, having done a year of daily outdoor solitude, I can identify with the intensity of May’s experience in nature. It does heal. In a way that is hard to put into words. I say that with some hesitation, because I don’t mean that nature is a Healer. I mean that The Creator, The Healer uses it as a balm and as a door.
If May’s book could speak truth to someone who isn’t yet ready to see The Creator… (it is, I think, written for a secular audience) and if it would lead them to his other works (especially Addiction and Grace, I think this would be a wonderful thing.
I am glad you shared this with us, L.L. I was feeling a bit conflicted. Again, May is only human and certainly may have changed his views over the years. Still, I never got that feeling that he was worshiping his Nature/Power of the Slowing…maybe just experiencing it in a deeper way?
A good point that this work could lead some to his others and ultimately to the Creator.
I haven’t been reading the book, but I think that I get what you are saying here LL…
I think that getting out into nature gets us away from our [human] creation, and closer to the dust of the earth that God fashioned us from. If nothing else, breaking away from all of the stuff that we have made and surround ourselves from puts us into a position where we can better connect with our Creator.
Am I getting this right?
Dan, yes. When I did the daily outdoor solitude, I was so overcome by God’s Presence that I had to start a whole new blog just to hold my praise (thus was born “Love Notes to Yahweh.”) And aside from this, on what felt like a raw physical level, I felt as if years of strain and distress were peeled away by the wind, the trees moving gracefully, the seeds drifting.
i can see what you both are saying here.
being close to the things that are not man made can put many into a place where we can experience God’s presence in a new way, and God can speak to us and work in us in a new way as well.
You can’t blame pure nature on anyone but God. I think I’ve seen my husband come to tears in need of a weekend with a fly rod. It’s simple to him. He just hears better there with fewer distractions.
A very good point, Amber! Nice to see you here!
I hear better in the midst of those natural sounds too. I like what L.L. says about God using nature as a balm/door. That’s a good visual for me.
LL brings up an interesting point. My current spiritual advisor went to see May shortly before May died. In fact, the morning they had their meeting, May found out that his cancer was back and terminal.
So as I read through the book, I’m challenged by the way he talks about faith and nature, but I know he was a Christian advisor and counselor. What he does in this book seems mostly designed to shake us up from our Christian-eze. Diane Glancy does something similar when she combines Native American spiritual language with her Christian faith.
As for the specific questions, I find nature very renewing–because it is quiet. At Laity Lodge for instance, I do not have cell phone access. I do not have a computer (usually). At most I have a book. Usually, I spend some amount of time floating on the river, my paddle the only hope of control.
The idea of being wild and being oneself particularly struck me this morning as I read your post, Laura. What would it mean to be so focused in our work, I wonder? How can I bring myself so fully to work that I am like a wolf on the hunt, or a deer on the forage if you prefer something less violent.
Me. I’d rather be a wolf.
It’s good to have this inside information, Marcus—thanks for sharing it. It makes it easier for me to open up about the challenges to traditional ways of speaking and writing about Christianity. We do get a little stuck, don’t we? Everything in context.
I love thinking about the wolf/deer analogy in our work lives. Being so in touch with our surroundings might make intuition a bit easier. That would help a lot in my line of work.
I think I would be a fox.
LOL! Marus = a wolf…
I love the analogy dude, I’m just trying to picture you as a wolf…
Oh, and I’d probably be a dolphin (the Flipper kind)…
Don’t know why, but that seems just perfect, Dan.
Love, love, love your dream, girl! Who needs May? That’s a vision you can hang your hat on.
Oh, yes. It was very powerful.
The thing I remember the most is the way the light looked. Everything had an amber glow. There are days when the sun does the same and just get this incredible butterfly feeling inside. Also, I remember that I was not with my family when this awesome change was taking place. But I had no fear for them. Thought of them fleetingly…but the joy. Oh, the joy just overwhelmed.
i guess that nature is one of the ways and place we can move our self to open our self up to God speaking to us in a new ways, with new thoughts because the new surroundings make our senses more aware to listen and to hear what He has not been able to say to us in other surroundings. a change of place can sometimes open our mind and heart, and back away from things that we do out of habit and similar thinking patterns.
perhaps God can speak to us differently at the beach than He can in an office.
God certainly speaks to me differently on line than He does a the grocery store…but, some how he is able to connect all the dots in-between and make it all one big story.
These words remind me of Romans 1:20, Nancy…
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Nature reveals to us His invisible qualities. I feel that often when in the beauty of His creations.
I feel badly that I stopped reading a chapter ago – rather like a quitter. I just feel a bit of what Glynn is feeling. I love the way the Father’s creation reveals so much of Himself and the way it draws me to Him. I pray that Mr. May ultimately found the great Creator.
What I have mainly loved about this book, Linda, is the community it has brought together and the amazing thought-provoking discussions we have shared. I’m a little sad to see it come to an end because I have so enjoyed the sharing. This one has stretched me, though. I understand.
I love coming at the end to say I agree and concur and what they said.:)
I am at peace outside. On a calm morning watching the sunrise, or a walk on a trail in the rain. It just seems to be how I am closer to the more of Creation , than is possible in any indoor setting. Except perhaps with newborns, or the very old or sick.
I began to wonder at this point if May was looking for something, not God, but I thought of his father. He wrote that the relationship was good, but I was struck by a deep sense of something missing here. That in order to find peace in his dying, he felt comforted by returning to the tactile and sensory things he experienced with his dad.
That’s an interesting thought, Deb! I wonder…
I know that in my most vulnerable moments I have returned to the comforts of my childhood.
Wonder if Gerald May ever thought he would be psychoanalyzed by some book club junkies?
Personally, I fall in and out of alertness regarding my environment, so many other things crowd my mind. Mortgage payments, what to fix for dinner, holiday travel plans, finding a larger size tap shoe for my daughter, the deeper meaning of Matisse’s Two Dancers, the nature of God and eternity. Humans have an awesome capacity to think beyond our physical circumstances, which might mean we spend the bulk of our time disconnected from our physical and temporal environment.
It’s a good practice to stop every once in a while and just let my five senses loose in the world. To be like that deer or that mountain lion.
I guess it brings me back to a somewhat tangible reality amidst all of my heady, philosophical thinking. It has a way of keeping me from thinking I’m more important than I really am.
I have very strong naturalist tendencies. Worship is easy for me when I’m engaged in nature. I have a close friend, however, who is my polar opposite in this regard- when she is outside she is thinking about bugs, cold, hot, poison ivy, discomfort, smelly, icky, get-me-back-in-the-house. Worship is the last thing on her mind. Conversely, she adores the buzz and thrill of urban life and enters into worship on a busy city street. Me… not so much.
Country mouse, city mouse.
I appreciate everyone who’s continued on with this book even though they don’t find a kinship with May’s nature-love. That shows a real “gaming spirit” with these book club junkies.
I hope I will not ever reject God’s healing hand in my life through vivid dreams, big city experiences, or any other vehicle He chooses to use because part of my spiritual journey involves knocking down the box I’ve built around how God can and cannot meet me. I pray He’ll make me always game for what’s on the horizon.
Tonight’s nature report: Walking the dog under a splash of glitter on inky black sky… the grass is crunchy… the soil hard and clumped beneath my shoes… the first time this year that the earth has been so frozen and the air so chill and crisp… I love the change of seasons!
Erin,
Such wonderful thoughts here (so sorry for the tardy response). I especially love the point you make about your friend who is more comfortable in the city than in nature. I thought of this last year when visiting NYC for the first time. I was astounded at how close God felt in the midst of the throngs of people I passed. It was eye-opening.
thank you for sharing your nature report! It always makes me smile.