Added today to our Ponder This blog page, a collection of favorite quotes:

“When our beliefs are based on our own direct experience of reality and not on notions offered by others, no one can remove those beliefs from us.”  – Thich Nhat Hanh in Living Buddha, Living Christ, p. 135

Well … almost no one.  There is oneself.  My beliefs have changed many times as a result of changing experience of reality and the vicissitudes of delusion.

-The Balsamean

On Weather

Another personal essay by Zivara from his Summer 2003 journal.

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When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shop-keepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too … I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.
– Henry David Thoreau

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June, 2003 – Spring in the Adirondacks has finally warmed up and dried out after a wet, cool beginning.  Still, nothing about the weather has stopped me from enjoying the outdoors.  Being out there under all kinds of conditions, including rain, wind, snow, ice, darkness – things people deem negative – are opportunities to enjoy the experience of reality in nature as it really is, not merely as it is in “fair weather.”  Each condition is a unique and enjoyable experience in its own way.

For me, the least preferred condition is high heat (over 80) with full sun.  But those are days for being in the water and slow saunters in shady places, and there are plenty of opportunities for that.  I’ll take a cloudy or partially cloudy day over a full-sun day any time except in winter when the sun is a better friend to me.  Some day I want to be “out there” in a hurricane, hunkered down in a hollow, ready to leap and run out of the way if a tree comes down at me!

One night I stayed out until well after dark and never turned on a flashlight, so my eyes could adjust and get their night vision.  Then I walked back to the car, partially cross-country and partially on the trail, in what most would call “complete darkness.”  It was not “complete” at all.  Humans do have some capacity for night vision.  Night walking makes for very mindful walking, too, when all your attention is really on walking, not on how you’re going to pay the bills or deal with tomorrow’s appointments.

We are like aliens on our own planet.  The experience of “adverse” conditions in nature is not really adverse!  Each has its own beauty.  Shutting ourselves in against them leaves us disconnected from reality as it really is, knowing only a partial reality that we create in our buildings and yards and cars, even our gardens, but not the one filling the majority of the space in the world.

We know most of the roads and stores and major buildings within fifty miles of home, but we don’t know our way around a single square mile of any woods without well-beaten paths, and many can’t even navigate those without taking wrong turns.  Many people can’t even use the sun to tell them what direction they’re going.  Neither would they recognize the same large tree in the woods if they walked past it ten times, usually because they’re too busy thinking about other things and other places and other times instead of what is right in front of them in the present moment.  We’re too busy going someplace else to enjoy where we are.  We’re too busy racing forward to take a moment to turn around and see where we came from, which is the best way to recognize the way home.

Thoreau once wrote, “I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.  There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one.”  I find it interesting that he said “unconsciously yield to it,” then claims that it is heedlessness and stupidity (or not being consciously aware) that gets us lost.  This points up the need to learn to know that “magnetism in Nature” by conscious effort, by heedfulness and careful attention, until it becomes second nature, so we can then “unconsciously” follow it the way we “unconsciously” drive a very complex machine at the death-defying speed of a mile a minute (and faster) over fantastic distances.  If we put half the effort into learning what nature is doing within our sight as we put into learning to drive and maintain a car, we’d all be smarter than foxes and owls in knowing nature, and never afraid of the dark.

I can sit or stand still for an hour in the woods and just look at what is within immediate view, and do it repeatedly at the same place over and over again throughout the seasons, and see completely “new” and different things every time.  Not to mention hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling, and the apparent changes, or differences, incurred by changes in daylight and weather.  Just a small change in the speed of the wind makes a place altogether different.

That’s why I spend so much time on the same trail and in the same wooded area over and over again.  It’s also why I’ll never tire of the woods and trails within ten miles of where I live now.  To me, going ten miles away is to the outer limits of my territory.  Ten miles!  In eight months of living here, I don’t yet know one percent of the public land within three miles!  (I’m surrounded by public lands … one of the best things they do with my taxes.)

An example of this phenomenon of being unconscious of reality is that I believed I had to carry-in rocks to make a fireplace at my little “Big Pine Refuge,” a plot 200 feet off a certain trail.  So I dutifully hauled in dozens of rocks from the trail and the creek, a few at a time, over many visits.  But with each visit to the place, and repeated observations of the surrounding fifty feet, I learned more about it.  Finally I found that there were enough large rocks within fifty feet to make a wonderful fireplace that could be there for a hundred years before nature buries it in her inexorable progressions through changes of state.  In just two days, using only what I found within fifty feet, I built a fireplace larger and more fortified than I could have made in months with scores of the rocks I had strength and will enough to carry from the trail or the creek two hundred feet away.  Now, mostly for the sake of tradition, I still bring in at least one rock on every visit, to build a cairn, a monument, a cenotaph in memoriam to billions like myself who have died and have been dying of life detached from reality.

I am aware that at any moment a microburst of air can blow down the huge Pine (of nearly a three-foot diameter) nearest my fireplace, or that it may just fall over of its own weight at any time.  When the great Pine goes down, its roots will flip up and toss about my silly little monument like a house of cards in a gale.  I’ve considered this carefully, and determined that it is no matter for concern.  The joy has not been in having it, but in building it, in being there, in all the hikes associated with each visit to the place, in all the real living simply and joyfully lived there and nearby.

It is much more a monument in homage to the God who loaned me the Big Pine Refuge than it is a fireplace.  There I am much more naturally inclined to prayer than in church or in my apartment.  That place is a church to me.  (I may yet learn truly that every place and every moment is sacred.)

I should write a Will to have the ashes of my carcass dumped into this fireplace by a few friends gathered to build a fire in it, with the supply of wood I stacked little by little in a hidden stash nearby, burning a tribute on top of my ashes to celebrate the passing of life enjoyed there.

Though it seems that I enjoy such things more alone than in most kinds of company, it would thrill me no end to know that someone else came to regard and enjoy the place as I do.  But that may be impossible for anyone who did not experience the transformation of the plot from just another spot in the woods to a refuge.

I don’t have a fireplace there.  I have an altar.  And I did not build it.  It was there already, just waiting for some idle arms and legs to bring it together, and a heart to appreciate it and the process of its appearing.  In a sense, it has been there always, partly inside of me and partly scattered in pieces on that little plot of ground, waiting for a long time to materialize, using me as part of its process, not at all anything that I can call mine.  It is a temporary gift for me to enjoy while I can.

I cherish it more in knowing that at any moment it may disappear, as do all things, and as will I.  Everything changes.  Nothing is forever but God, the All, the Nameless, the Placeless, the Presence in all presence, the Conscious in all consciousness.  I seem to know this best when I am alone in the woods.

I think it’s true that I’ve never been to the same place in the woods twice without finding it different (and I add to the changes by my repeated presence).  Not so in our cloistered world of houses, offices, stores, cars, roads, and sidewalks.  We do all we can to create sameness and familiarity, which is the opposite of what Nature does … and what God does.  We box ourselves into a fabricated reality for security, but it makes us falsely insecure when pushed out of the box, which is inevitable and frequent.

Not that I don’t appreciate my little boxes, like my stone fireplace/altar.  I enjoy creating them, too.  It’s human nature to do so.  But again in the words of Thoreau, “To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it.”  Even a sacred refuge can become as boring to me as a TV commercial if I abuse myself of it with exclusive attachment.  The fact that my “Big Pine Refuge” will be destroyed eventually by nature is something good to know.  So I happily regard it as a temporary gift, and gratefully acknowledge that there are many more to be experienced everywhere.

I laughed out loud when I read in the same Thoreau essay of 1862, when this country was still almost completely wilderness, “When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shop-keepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too … I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.”  No wonder I’ve felt suicidal at times.

Besides … getting back to the matter of the weather … many forecasts couldn’t be more wrong if they intentionally lied.  Many are the most pleasant days, with just a few quickly passing showers, when they had predicted rain for the whole day.  So if I depend on the forecasts too much, I’ll miss a lot of “good” days, and there have been many “good” rainy days, and snowy days, and dark nights, too.  They’re all good.

Zivara

In the name and by the power of all that is good, true and beautiful operating in me, through me, as me, with the help and inspiration of all that is around me here, I bless this place, Balsamea, my forest host.

May all here, from deep in the earth to high in the sky, be blessed, safe, and healthy. May they continually thrive in peace, harmony and balance. May all who visit here be blessed, and leave it as good or better than they found it, harming nothing and harmed by nothing.

Thank you, Balsamea, for all you are, all you do, and all you mean to me.

Help me to live in harmony with your ways, to embrace and to cultivate your nature within myself.

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
– William Shakespeare, in As You Like It

The groves were God’s first temples.
– William Cullen Bryant, in A Forest Hymn

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There is no book like that written into the heart by the voice of the forest. Human nature, if allowed, can be the tablet on which the forest writes her instructions, songs, and inspirations.

Aranyaka is a Sanskrit term referring to trees, forest or wilderness (ara, aran, aranya) and scripture. It can be loosely translated “The Wilderness Books.” It may also connote forest monks or their writings. The Aranyaka is part of the ancient Hindu texts contained in the Vedas. The Princeton University lexical database WordNet defines it as “a treatise resembling a Brahmana but to be read or expounded by anchorites in the quiet of the forest.” For more information, see the Wikipedia article about the Aranyaka. There is also a Hindu scripture known as the Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad (“great forest book”), regarded as one of the oldest texts of the Upanishads.

(For more about the Aranyaka, see this search listing at sacred-texts.com, or go to www.sacred-texts.com and click on Search.)

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Did you ever come upon a place and felt that there was “something special” about it, but you could not say specifically why you felt that way?

This is how the owner of Balsamea Forest Refuge felt about a certain stretch of land many times while driving by it. After about two years of being only generally familiar with it as viewed from the road, an opportunity arose to purchase a piece of that land. That piece is now called Balsamea, or Balsamea Forest Refuge.

What does this have to do with Aranyaka? Actually, nothing, except in our imaginative pleasure with finding words for what we feel at Balsamea. We chose the name “Aranyaka” as a way to refer to the spiritual enrichment of communing with the forest. More specifically, it is the name we gave to a special location within the Balsamea Forest Refuge, located in the heart of its denser balsam fir and spruce stand, at the feet of three giant pines (two white and one red) that are among the oldest on the property. We are slowly, carefully developing that spot into something like a natural chapel, as a hub of special refuge, with trails extending out from it in four directions. It is just one of those spots in the forest that somehow “speaks to you,” if you happen to be someone susceptible to hearing its particular voice.

Because they are primeval, because they outlive us, because they are fixed, trees seem to emanate a sense of permanence. And though rooted in earth, they seem to touch the sky. For these reasons it is natural to feel we might learn wisdom from them, to haunt about them with the idea that if we could only read their silent riddle rightly we should learn some secret vital to our own lives; or even, more specifically, some secret vital to our real, our lasting and spiritual existence.
– Kim Taplin, Tongues in Trees, 1989, p. 14.

One day after meditating on the pine needle laden floor of this special three-pine Aranyaka natural chapel, the Balsamean took a notion to remove some trees to make space for sharing it with friends. He walked slowly amidst the open spaces under the three great pines, carefully considering which to cut down of the smaller trees growing densely around the perimeter, and how they might be used to make things for the Aranyaka natural chapel, or just stacked as firewood.

For an unknown reason he looked up into a tree as he stood thinking on the east side of the three-pine Aranyaka chapel site. He found a small owl quietly watching him from a balsam fir branch only about two feet above his head. They studied each other intently until the Balsamean slowly stepped away. The owl did not move.

“Okay,” said the Balsamean, “I will not cut down your trees.”

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In the sense that aranya means “belonging to the wilderness” or forest, we enjoy the feeling of belonging, of being truly “home,” of being solidly grounded and safe in the forest, among friends, even while “alone” in terms of having any human company. Our reverent feelings for the forest make us never lonely there.

We don’t quite think of the forest, our aranya, as something to worship, but as a community of peaceful fellowship with the nature of things as they are. Although we do not institutionalize this sense of reverence in any specifically religious way (though friends among us may, and can if they wish), for all Friends of Balsamea the forest — at Balsamea and everywhere — does involve some degree of recognition of Nature as sacred.

Balsamea is our Aranyaka because we find written in its nature, and arising from our immersion in that nature, a kind of “scripture” or “writing” or teaching. It is the ineffable soul of Nature inspiring the souls, hearts and minds of people.

Lead Us From the Unreal To Real,
Lead Us From Darkness To Light,
Lead Us From Death To Immortality,
Aum (the universal sound)
Let There Be Peace Peace Peace.

- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.3.28.

Immortality? Is there such a thing? We don’t know, and don’t really concern ourselves with it. We know only that through immersion in the natural Aranyaka, breathed continually in and out by the forest, we enjoy a sense of the interconnectedness, the “interbeing” of everything, and the continuity of life streaming from long before us, through our present moment, into whatever comes next, not as separate times but as a continuum solidly grounded in the earth.

What we write at Balsamea is our Aranyaka, our forest-inspired book. Thus, we arrive at the name of this blog, Balsamea Aranyaka.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the ages can.
– William Wordsworth, The Tables Turned

By the way, when contemplating names for this felt-sense of harmony with the forest, we also contemplated a concatenation of two German words, Kiefer (pine tree) and Zuflukt (refuge), for the term “Kieferzuflukt.” We just like the sound of the word! Some day we may use it to designate another special spot in the forest, perhaps one to be known for a spirit or sense of playfulness.

- The Balsamean

… the refuge …

April 23, 2008, revised May 5, 2008.

This is a preliminary statement of how and why we regard and use Balsamea Forest Refuge (BFR) as a REFUGE. Over time, we will expand on this topic with information and essays, and welcome your participation.

A Nature and Wildlife Refuge …

BFR is certified wildlife habitat under the auspices of the National Wildlife Federation. In keeping with NWF’s conservation principles and other environmental concerns we support, we do all we reasonably can to protect and conserve flora and fauna. We avoid unnecessary killing or damage to any species or its habitat, prohibit hunting and trapping wildlife, restore damaged or spoiled habitat, conserve energy and water, and avoid chemicals, substances and activities harmful to the environment. All development of the BFR property for things like trails and campsites, and disposal of human wastes, must be done in a responsibly low-impact manner that protects and conserves the natural habitat. Thus, BFR is a refuge for nature and wildlife.

We strongly believe that this makes BFR an ideal refuge for human beings, too. BFR is a place where people can gently open themselves to the restorative, invigorating, and rejuvenating influences of Nature, helping us to be all we can be as earthlings. Of course, our Balsamea is not the only place people can do this. We hope this blog encourages you to find or create your own refuge in Nature, and to share the experience with us, if only as a “remote” friend of Balsamea.

Our Ecopsychology, with Nature as Refuge for Mind, Body and Soul …

We are not affiliated or allied with a specific religious orientation or dogma, but we respect the eco-centric ways of aboriginal peoples, and we make use of the buddhistic concept of “taking refuge.”

In Buddhism, taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha is a process of affirmation of one’s commitment to an understanding of reality and a way of life harmonious with that reality. The Buddha is the awakened or enlightened consciousness. The Dharma is the practical and conceptual teaching, or “the way.” The Sangha is the community of practitioners of the way.

Our concept of taking refuge in Nature is somewhat similar, where our notion of awakened or enlightened consciousness relies upon communion with Nature as a primary cause or source of such awareness, combined with the special faculties of human intellect and insight as it comes under the influence of Nature.

Our dharma is what we can learn, sense, and realize from direct experience of Nature, how we develop practices and ways of living in harmony with Nature, and what we learn from others about it. Nature teaches us to be enlightened humans in subtle ways that transcend cognition, too. Its influence exists regardless of whether we realize it, recognize it, understand it, or even think about it.

Sometimes it is better not to think at all about it, but to simply experience it, be with it, and let it be with you, in non-destructive, tolerantly accepting ways. This is akin to meditative processes, and we encourage meditative practices within periods of taking refuge in Nature.

Our sangha is not only other people pursuing such understandings and practices, but also the community of all species and things in Nature. This includes rocks and soil, animals and insects, plants and trees, air, water and fire, everything in the sky, and all states and phases of things. It includes the varieties of weather and seasonal climate — from dry, hot sunlight to darkly overcast skies. It includes soft wind and fierce gale, all forms of precipitation and their accumulations, and all hours of the day from dawn to dusk, and from bright noon to dark, silent midnight. It includes moonlight and starlight as much as daylight, and the pitch black of the darkest night.

In this sense of Nature as Sangha, we regard everything in Nature as much like family or brethren, cousins, brothers, sisters, ancestors and even children. When we plant, prune or cultivate something, it can be regarded as something like our own offspring, the offspring or outcome of our investments and our intercourse with Nature. We arose from the natural environment, upon which we depend for survival, making us children of Nature, too. In cultivating our natural environment to protect and conserve it, and our relationship with it, and in learning from it, we cultivate ourselves.

Immersion in the natural environment for extended periods, involving minimal use of unnecessary human inventions, or what we like to call “living close to the ground,” naturally evokes and inspires the best of humanity. We believe that there is a scientific basis for this, a natural process that automatically occurs within our human bio-psycho-social nature as it is immersed in wild nature, especially when done frequently for prolonged periods.

Nature therapy, wilderness therapy, and outdoor recreational therapy are recognized modalities for treatment of a variety of human troubles, with a number of colleges now offering related degree programs. Why use Nature only to treat or manage dysfunction or disease? Why not let it nurture us, aid and protect us from the imbalances caused by life too far separated from Nature? The dualistic notion that there are TWO natures, one “natural” and one “human” is unnatural, even for humans.

The experience of Nature immersion is good for body and mind in numerous ways. It also carries psychological and emotional benefits. Many people feel what they understandably regard as spiritual grounding or uplifting through immersion in experiences of Nature. Nature inspires epiphany for some people.

Recognizing the natural value of wild nature to human nature, we believe that disconnection from Nature, living continually in “boxes” (houses) and vehicles, using artificial light and shade, heating and cooling, cutting ourselves off from Nature, diminishes our truest and best humanity. Conversely, frequent and repeated immersion in the natural environment energizes and inspires us to be all we can be, to be the best of what we were naturally born to be. It makes us more truly and genuinely human.

Our innate attraction and identity with Nature has been dubbed “biophilia,” most notably by Pulitzer winning Harvard University science professor Edward O. Wilson. Wilson defines biophilia as “the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes.” He asserts that “to the degree that we come to understand other organisms, we will place greater value on them, and on ourselves.”[1]

There is growing evidence that we rely on our natural biophilic tendency for health in mind and body. Increasing separation from Nature alienates us from an aspect of ourselves that is a formative root of our own nature, a uniquely human problem. We depend on natural systems to orient and regulate our human nature. Alienation from Nature may be a significant cause of an increasingly disoriented and imbalanced regulation of our own being. Wilson explains, “For more than 99 percent of human history people have lived in hunter-gatherer bands totally and initmately involved wiith other organisms … the brain evolved in a biocentric world, not a machine-regulated world.”[2]

With a brain and a nature evolved in a biocentric world, what will become of it in a lifestyle and culture disassociated or detached from Nature? Absent frequent and prolonged intimacy with Nature, we may be losing critical faculties of being human, not only as an evolutionary development over generations, but within our individual lifetimes.

The solution is a natural process, requiring nothing special of us except to open ourselves to the influences of Nature, preferably by extended periods of immersion, to the degree you are able just as you are, easing yourself into Nature as you might ease into a soothing hot bath for its positive influences.

Sometimes there are challenges involved, especially with things unfamiliar to us because of our disconnectedness with Nature. These challenges, pursued cautiously with respect, are part of an awakening, enlightening, and healthfully restorative or uplifting process.

Taking refuge in Nature, we need no allegiance to cultic dogma or doctrinal orientations, no guru or master to tell us how to let Nature minister to us. We need only a positive, open-minded, healthy respect for the concepts mentioned here and willingness to experiment responsibly with them, both solo and in small groups. There is a value to the “group dynamic,” sharing our experiences, their effects, and our insights about them.

Mother Nature and our shared experience of Her are our teachers. Life is its own guru, living in its own diverse ways within each of us as individuals, in all of us as a community of people with related interests and mutual respect, and in all that surrounds us and inspires us along the lines discussed here.

In our idea of taking refuge in Nature, just as diversity exists in harmony in Nature, we embrace racial, ethnic, cultural and spiritual diversity. We shun patriarchalism and misogyny, holding the female spirit in the highest regard, by no means anything less than the male, recognizing the interdependence of degrees of the “yin and yang” within and between all. Likewise, we respect the value in community of both young and old and all between.

We also recognize that there are limiting kinds of subconscious or unconscious conditioning infused into people by their particular cultural and social background, experience, education and degrees of awareness or ignorance, understanding that nobody is perfect in their grasp of high and noble ideals. We believe that taking refuge in nature, alone and in groups, helps to foster insight, understanding, and peaceful ways in human relationships, but this is a lifelong process of maturation and development. Thus, we encourage tolerance and patience with others, just as we must with Nature’s sometimes-difficult or challenging ways. The shared human effort of engaging Nature’s challenges together can inspire and encourage human interpersonal harmony and respect, when pursued in a generally kindred spirit.

As we said at the outset here, this is only a preliminary summary of what we mean by an “ecopsychology” involving “taking refuge” in Nature. Visit this website again for information and essays expanding on these concepts in the future. We welcome contributions, too. See our Aranyaka Yahoo! Group for online participation and discussion, or post comments here in our blog. Or, email us at aranyaka-owner@yahoogroups.com. Please allow three weeks for a reply, as we are often out there in the woods, off the grid and the electronic web! We are not “anti-technology,” but currently there are limited means of access to it at Balsamea. We like it that way!

- The Balsamean

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[1] – Scott McVay quoting Wilson in Prelude: “A Siames Connexion with a Plurality of Other Mortals,” foreword to the book, The Biophilia Hypothesis, by Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson; Island Press, 1993; pp 4-5.

[2] – Edward O. Wilson, The Biophilia Hypothesis, p. 32.