Early this fall, I was camping with my son in the Wind River Mountains. I have been doing this for over thirty years. Lately, and in particular this year, I have come to recognize that I am approaching the end of the trail with regard to the rigors of this trip. With that in mind, I decided that I would leave the comfort of my tent – nights often fall below freezing at this time of the year – and go out and observe the late night sky… that time of night that reminds us of the old saying, “It is always darkest before the dawn.”
Over the years I have come to see and appreciate how different the night sky looks at this time… not only in terms of where particular stars are, but also for the experiencing of the vastness and depth of the universe, uniquely present at this time. This year I was camped in a spot that was especially suited to late night appreciation of the sky. My tent was set up in the open, about thirty feet or so from the edge of a lake… an edge that itself dropped sharply into the water.
On the particular night of memory I crawled from my tent – one man tents require such an exit – pushed myself erect and walked towards the edge of the lake. As I approached the lake, I was struck by its calmness, an icy calmness, a smoothness of surface unlike any I had ever witnessed. Off to my right, I noticed the bright reflection of a star; and as I squared myself to better see Mount Victor – the organizing landmark for our campsite – I saw before me, at my feet, the Big Dipper… upside down, with its mouth open to me… an opening that created within me a compelling sense of being drawn towards, of being invited in… a real impulse of stepping off the edge… of jumping joyfully into the waiting arms of the Big Dipper. As I paused to contemplate this, I looked up and saw the Big Dipper sitting, perfectly balanced on the top of Mount Victor; Victor not being reflected upon the water given the level of darkness and the absence of light beyond starlight. As I stood before this scene, the natural amazement of “Wow!” continued to deepen… to penetrate within, innerly reaching depths not previously experienced. And, as is not uncommon for me, a process of reflective questioning began… a questioning of what is this… this which I am seeing and so deeply experiencing… a questioning that eventually brought forth clarity, a clarity of seeing, of thought, that this is beauty… an expression and experience of beauty present in the creation, a beauty possible only through the Source of creation… a true connection to the Source beyond anything I had known.
Throughout the trip, I did live up to my intent, rousing myself from my tent to breathe in and feast my eyes on that which appeared before me. And on several of those nights, I did see the reflection of the Big Dipper in the water… but a much fuzzier picture than that night, a night when the reflection on the polished mirror of the lake was clearer, more intense than the actual image of the dipper against the darkest of skies. So while I did not have a repeat of that forever special night, I did have another late night experience, a very different experience, a very intense experience. A few nights after the night of beauty, I found myself fully awake, preparing myself to leave my tent and embrace the late night sky. As I lay there, some images entered, imposing themselves on my mind… a mind occupied with expectations of beauty. Beauty expectations were quickly and forcefully displaced with a plethora of ever changing, fast moving, increasingly alive images… images I began to experience as a cacophony of image and voice… an overwhelming crescendo of negativity, of coarse energy… of faces and voices urging me, compelling me to purchase, to do, to hate, to follow them, and on and on… an intensity that kept increasing, penetrating further within me… a suffocating grasp that I could not turn off. From a growing sense of helplessness and fear, an inner voice began to cry out: “No!…No!…No!..” As breathing became more difficult, I, with anxious vigor, unzipped my tent, and rolled out onto the ground. As I lay there looking up at the sky, breathing began to return; and slowly the unnerving voices and images began to diminish and disappear. At last I could freely breathe again, fully inhale the crisp fresh air. I got up and walked to the edge of the lake. The dipper was fully visible in the sky. The lake was gently rippled; a fuzzy but reassuring image lay upon it. And as is my pattern, that which I had innerly experienced was the source of a questioning, a prayerful questioning common to this time of potential… a process of reflecting and contemplating out from which emerged a clear answer… that this was an experience of hell – of being disconnected from the Source, the Source of all, of the whole of creation.
After returning home, some ongoing reflection and interaction has brought forth some additional seeing and understanding… seeing and understanding relevant to this time of potential… a time for moving towards wholeness, away from that which divides… a time for working for all children, all children in the world.
Beauty, the inner experience of the beauty of creation, works to keep us connected to the Source, to that which is beyond ourselves, the Source of each and all. It works to remind us that we are not the source. It moves us in a direction of a more wholistic seeing and honoring of the Source… a wholeness that embraces the creation side of the Source, the intent and intended ways of working that lie within the whole of creation… within ourselves, within the whole of life… an intentionality that is frequently not present in our ideologies and pursuits.
Moving towards wholeness, within and among ourselves, will require a more wholistic seeing and understanding of the Source… a coalescence of intent… intent and intended ways of working as lifted up in the word and the works… a coalescence made possible through the intuition of wholeness… the intuition we call upon to access wisdom, the wisdom of intent. Moving towards wholeness is much more akin to a path of beauty, than the path depicted in my experience of hell.
