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April 23, 2018 by Registrar

Spirit Journal – April 2018

Preview

This April issue continues Spirit in the Wild — a story that began in last month’s Spirit Journal in which Phil Jackson describes and reflects on his solo wilderness journey in the High Sierras last year.  We also remind you to save the date this fall – November 3 – when you’ll have an opportunity to encounter the transformative wisdom teachings of Cynthia Bourgeault at our seventh annual One-Day Fall Workshop.

This issue also includes a “call for new volunteers” to help Contemplative Outreach – Chicago continue and expand its mission in support of the practice of Centering Prayer, along with information about a number of upcoming contemplative activities and events, locally and regionally.  This month’s Insights come from Chief Seattle, Rachel Carson, John Muir, and Pema Chödrön.

To all who have written in to help us make Spirit Journal an open and interactive forum – thank you so much!  We always invite your active participation: use the email address provided at the end to send in your responses, ideas and insights.  We love hearing from you!

Save the Date: November 3 – the Annual One-Day Fall Workshop with One of the Leading Spiritual Teachers of Our Time, Cynthia Bourgeault

Our seventh annual fall workshop will bring Cynthia Bourgeault to Benedictine University in Lisle to offer a full day of wisdom teachings to Chicago-area contemplatives.  Please mark your calendar now and save the date: Saturday November 3. Registration will be available in June.

About Cynthia Bourgeault:

The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault is a modern-day mystic, Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally known retreat leader.  She divides her time between solitude at her hermitage in Maine and a demanding schedule traveling globally to teach and spread the recovery of the Christian contemplative and Wisdom path.

Cynthia has been a long-time advocate of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer and has worked closely with fellow teachers and colleagues including Thomas Keating, Bruno Barnhart, and Richard Rohr.  She has actively participated in numerous InterSpiritual dialogues and events with luminaires and leaders such as A.H. Almaas, Kabir Helminski, Swami Atmarupananda, and Rami Shapiro.

Cynthia’s most recent book is The Heart of Centering Prayer and she is the author of eight additional books: The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, The Wisdom Jesus, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, Mystical Hope, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, Chanting the Psalms, and Love is Stronger than Death. She has also authored or contributed to numerous articles and courses on the Christian spiritual life.

Cynthia Bourgeault is currently one of the core faculty members at The Living School at Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation. She is a member of the GPIW (Global Peace Initiative for Women) Contemplative Council, recipient of the 2014 Contemplative Voices award from Shalem Institute, and a founding director of both The Contemplative Society and the Aspen Wisdom School. She continues to contribute to The Contemplative Society in her role as Principal Teacher and advisor. 

A Call to Volunteer

by Alan Krema

Our mission in Contemplative Outreach is transformation in Christ via the practice of Centering Prayer.  This transformation shows itself in mindful actions of compassion and mercy.  Our contemplative path bears the fruit of mercy and love for others in action.  That is why Centering Prayer is so important to our times and our social consciousness.  It’s about learning who we truly are in Union and connection with others.

I am making a call to each of you to consider joining our service team in Chicago to aid and assist the various activities we sponsor in order to further Centering Prayer and the contemplative path.

You can join in the events we currently have planned or help us create new events and activities.  We would love to have you join our service team.  You can assist one activity for a year or just come to a meeting and see how we gather and discuss our work.  If something is attractive to you, you are invited to pitch in.

If you feel that you might be interested in joining our volunteer team and you would like to learn more, please contact me at coordinator@centeringprayerchicago.org.

Upcoming Events, Retreats, and Conferences

Here are some upcoming contemplative activities that may be of interest:

Ongoing Centering Prayer “11th Step” Programs in Northfield and Chicago

In AA 12-step programs, the 11th step is making a personal effort to get in touch with a Higher Power, however one understands it.  Increasingly, people in 12-Step programs are deepening their relationships with their Higher Power using the method of Centering Prayer.

Here in the Chicago area, two new Centering Prayer-based 11th step groups have formed.  One meets on Sundays, 4:30-5:15, at 319 Waukegan Road in Northfield.  For more information, please contact Leonette Kaluzny – leonettekaluzny@aol.com.

Another Centering Prayer 11th step program meets on Fridays at 6:45pm in conference room “C” on the 7th floor of the Community First Medical Center, 5645 W. Addison Street, Chicago. For further information on this program, please contact Philip Lo Dolce — stuffer1@ameritech.net.) 

Transformation in Times of Uncertainty, a Weekend Retreat with Nancy Sylvester at Siena Retreat Center in Racine, May 18-20

Led by Nancy Sylvester, IHM, Transformation in Times of Uncertainty is a weekend retreat exploring the power of contemplation as a transformative practice so necessary in our world today.  The weekend will include presentations and processes rooted in individual and communal contemplation.  The retreat will be held at the beautiful Siena Retreat Center on Lake Michigan between Chicago and Milwaukee.

Nancy Sylvester is the former President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and former Vice President of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Monroe, Michigan.  Her experience also includes leadership with the national Catholic social justice lobby NETWORK and founding the Institute for Communal Contemplation and Dialogue in 2002.  She currently serves as its President and brings to this project her commitment to dialogue, collaboration, contemplation, and an understanding of transformation through the lenses of Catholic social justice teaching and the emerging universe story.

For more information, please visit the Siena Center website.  http://sienaretreatcenter.org/events/transformation-times-uncertainty

Healing Gardens 2018 Programs Include Introductory Centering Prayer Workshops and Enneagram Workshops

Healing Gardens at Stonehill Farm invites you to enjoy two acres of perennial gardens in a quiet wooded setting in St. Charles.  A growing list of contemplative activities take place at Healing Gardens, including the following:

Level Two Enneagram Workshop, Saturday July 14, 8:45am – 3:30pm

Introductory Centering Prayer Workshop, Saturday August 4, 8:45am – 3:00pm

For more information and registration, please visit the Healing Gardens website.

This Summer: Advanced/Post-Intensive Retreats, Benet Lake, Wisconsin

Contemplative Outreach of Southeast Wisconsin offers this year’s eight-day retreat July 15-22 at St. Benedict’s Abbey and Retreat Center in Benet Lake, Wisconsin.

The retreats, guided by Kathryn Ann Kobelinski, SSND and Ann Koerner, CSA, will immerse participants in the practice of Centering Prayer as taught by Contemplative Outreach, Ltd.  These Advanced/Post Intensive retreats allow participants to come together for Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina and meal times. They provide an atmosphere of silence, solitude and community.

For further information, please contact Sr. Kathryn Ann at 414-282-7310 or kkobelinski@ssndcp.org. To register, use this mail-in form. 

 Midwest Wisdom Schools in Dubuque Iowa in August and October

If you are longing to go deeper in your Centering Prayer practice, and perhaps yearning for a community of like-hearted seekers, you are invited to participate in one or more Wisdom Schools being offered next year at the Shalom Spirituality Center in Dubuque:

August 6-9, 2018             Wisdom School:  Surrendering Into Presence (Centering Prayer and Non-duality)

Oct 15-18, 2018               Wisdom School:  Placing Our Mind in Our Heart (Introductory Level Wisdom School, Part A)

These Wisdom schools are led by Beth O’Brien, Benedictine oblate and Founder of Contemplative Presence.  A long-time Centering Prayer practitioner, Beth has been a direct student of Cynthia Bourgeault.  In 2014, she received Cynthia’s blessing to teach and carry forth the Wisdom lineage.  Beth led a one-day workshop on Mary Magdalene that was part of Contemplative Outreach – Chicago’s Living Wisdom Series earlier in 2017.  For more information & registration, please visit the Contemplative Presence website.

Spirit in the Wild Chapter 2 – The Journey Begins

by Phil Jackson

Last year, Phil Jackson (until 2016 the coordinator of Contemplative Outreach – Chicago) went on a two-week solo backpacking trip in the High Sierras of California.  It was a spiritual journey as well as a physical challenge, and it became a surprisingly intense experience.  Phil has now documented his journey in writing.  The first chapter was published in last month’s Spirit Journal.  Here is Chapter 2; additional chapters will be published in upcoming editions of Spirit Journal.

“Life is hard . . .  most neuroses are caused by people not acknowledging this simple truth.”

– M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled

“Life is hard.”

– Richard Rohr, Adam’s Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation.

I lift my backpack, the journey begins. I walk into the personal — and real — frontier following my own call, my avocation. In a beautiful blue sky, the sun shines through the thin, High Sierra Mountains — “the range of light,” as John Muir called it. The sun, that god which can comfort us one minute then hide the next, seems to enjoy showing its power today.

Sweat brings chill as I walk, sun burns my face though I have my jacket on to warm my body. It is all beautiful and life-affirming now, as I leave the trailhead. I’m as ready as I ever could be, and as confident as I want to be — confident enough to not be deterred by needless fear, but realistic enough to know that things can go wrong no matter what. For all its attraction and beauty, this is still life. A life I’m entering with the mentality of a thrilled teen, something not felt for a long time. After only a few steps I realize I’m already at Virginia Lake, a beautiful alpine lake at the foot of a mountain. A postcard/screensaver setting. As if to complete the picture, a boat with two fishermen—or maybe it’s a young couple—drift by idyllically, quietly.

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Clearly, as the many cars in the lot indicated, this is a popular spot. Popular is not what I came for though and I’m glad to hike away from this viewpoint. I want to get as far away from people and cars and machinery as I can. As the din of people diminishes, my ears turn to the sound of bird and breeze, my breath syncs with my steps, my senses tune to this less-tainted world, leaving my old one behind.

The soft, lightly pebbled ground crunches under my feet, the clear, pine-scented air cleans my nostrils, the sun kisses my now-bare arms and face. I skirt the edge of the lake and enter the forest. There are fewer people here and I see a sign shaped like a huge arrowhead. Its aged warm wood seems both welcoming and foreboding — “Hoover Wilderness-Toiyabe National Forest,” it reads.  Though I’m technically in the Toiyabe part of this Forest, a Shoshone word meaning “mountain,” Hoover — the white man’s name and a specific area further from here — is listed first on the sign.  This sign, an old symbol, entrance to a new place for me, seems the appropriate place for a simple ritual. I kneel, facing the sign, with the sacredness of silence, signifying the unspoken, both ancient and modern. In prayer I pledge this trip –and all its lessons and life skills, the coming beauty and pain, and even the unlikely but acknowledged risk of life — to those I love back home. May this journey make me a better man for them, may they know my connection to them. The sound of footsteps coming tells me it is time to rise and walk on. This is too sacred a moment to shatter with another shallow greeting of “Hi, nice day isn’t it?” Beginning the steady pace I can keep all day, I leave roads and civilization.

This is the adventure I wished for. Immediately, the beauty surpasses my expectations. Lattice-barked pine trees of a species I have never seen before — a single tree capable of holding my attention for an hour, or a day, if I let it. But I want to put in some miles before I rest. These trees and shrubs mix with Ponderosa pine, lodge-poles, and eventually mighty Sequoias.  Some thriving, some rotting, all belonging. The terrain changes from ragged mountain to small smooth grass meadows and lakes. In my life I’ve spent months camping, even in wilderness areas, but I’ve seen nothing just like this.

Even the trail is different. Relatively close to the trailhead still, seeing occasional day hikers, the trail is sometimes very clear, sometimes worn and wide, but sometimes hard to make out.  The difference between deerpath and actual trail is hard to distinguish. I am “sort of lost” one moment as I text home in an honest answer to their question of how it is starting. This is one of the last moments my cell service works. Daniel Boone liked to say he was never lost, though he was “mighty confused for a few days at times”. My own “confusion” lasted only about ten minutes here, and I learned that I had to pay more attention to the trail each moment.

Another feature of these Sierra trails which I had never seen before is the many stream crossings. Rarely had I needed to cross streams of any size in the Rockies, Pacific Northwest or Midwest. It seems that at least once an hour here I cross one. The crossing is usually made by playing hop-scotch across half submerged stones, sometimes the streams required wet-footing it though, in the chilly water. Further on I will cross up to my knees or walk above water on whatever tree had fallen in. At first, when the path came to these riverlets (and thinking that paths don’t cross streams without bridges) I instinctively took the inevitable deer-path on the side I was on. Soon, after a couple of additional short “confusions”, I would look across to see if a trail continued immediately on the other side, and I would take that route.

I pass day-hikers, regular nature lovers and a glamorous couple from the nearby resort — he’s having a hard time but the older woman with him seems like she’s a natural at it. Another couple with two dogs somehow grab my attention. Usually I ignore dogs, but these are different. They have the narrow shoulders, wide feet, drooped tails and size of wolves. I’ve run across such animals, wolf-dogs or wolves, at important times in my life. The first one here is the very color of a grey wolf, the second one is white. Heavy leashes are used to walk them. I ask in admiration about their breed. He is a bit cryptic in his answer, “Maybe a husky mix,” but they are not huskies. After my suggestion about wolves she implies “they may have wolf in them”. Then the lead creature glances at me, the amber eyes of a wolf, spooky, from another place. It gives a sideways glance which locks onto my eyes just long enough, as if to say “Yes, I am who you think I am… and I know you fully too.” This disarms me, I don’t like to speak with animals, what’s more I don’t even know who I am.

Moving on, I pass another alpine lake, then another, each a different beautiful panorama: valley, meadow; one looks like a floating lake or infinity pool poised over a mountain valley. I stop to examine an old miner’s cabin. A hiking couple, Jan and Layne, tell me of the miner that Jan’s father met, 70 years ago, in walks as a child with Jan’s grandfather. Apparently, the hermit miner lived here year-round, with a dog who allowed safe passage for anyone on-trail, but the dog would threaten attack if one step was taken off the path. In the cabin remains the frame of a bed, a small table, old empty food cans and an empty old flour sack. Though the cabin tilts to one side, Layne quips how welcome it would be to find this in bad weather. I cannot imagine anyone who would risk sleeping in such a shaky shack. Yet oh, how I would long to reach this shelter two weeks later.

The trail rises much more steeply now, with more frequent switchbacks, it is more difficult. I have been ascending all day and have reached the mileage that I wanted to achieve on this first day of acclimation.  But it’s too rocky to set up camp, and the map promises more beautiful lakes and woods ahead, with flat land for camping. The woman from the “glamour couple” walks beside me for a while, then moves ahead, she left her husband behind a mile ago, to get to the peak. My pack and the altitude slow me. I see her in half an hour, she’s returning without summiting. As a flatlander, I’m not used to the 11,000-foot altitude, and my oxygen-reduced blood affects me through a reduction in my energy. It becomes hard, very hard, but that’s OK, I push through. I’d already stopped for a nice lunch, but I’m more fueled by the adrenalin of the new experience and the beauty of what I’m in.

I am within sight of Summit Pass when I see a string of empty saddlehorses led by a cowboy, heading toward me. Then I see that it’s actually a young cowgirl as she gets close, and some of the horses are mules. The passing is slow, the trail too narrow. I pause to avoid frightening the animals and to admire them, moving to the downhill side which the cowgirl says will not scare them. They ignore me until the third horse, chestnut in color, surprises me with another glance, just like the wolf-dog, “I know you.” This is strange, again I don’t talk to animals. I’m just truthful to what I felt: I’ve received a blessing to launch my journey.

The Trail is even steeper now, the going gets even slower as Summit Pass seems to keep moving further away with each step. Yet with the added difficulty comes the promise of reaching the high point, with the reward of vision and an easier way as I will go downhill for a while. I finally reach the top, admire the view briefly and begin the descent toward Summit Lake. It starts to drizzle, and I ignore it at first; this is a very dry mountain range — on average, one day of precipitation in all of September. Soon though, it is real rain, I don my poncho and sit below a boulder, trying to avoid possible lightening up here.  I enjoy a snack of an orange, trail mix and water. This could be nice if I get the one day of rain out of the way so early. I have a Centering Prayer session. The simple joy of a needed and earned refreshment and rest. Soon the rain stops and I take the easier walk down-hill. The downhill view allows me to choose spots ahead to camp.  My permit allows me to sleep anywhere I like as long as it is 100 feet from water.  I see a hundred yards below what could be a gorgeous flat spot with a commanding view of a lake, maybe of two lakes. It surpasses my expectation for a view.  There is no water here, but I am still carrying enough to get me till the next morning when I will pass Summit Lake. I go off trail to that spot.

I make camp, setting up my small tarp first, in case the rain returns, then I cook a simple dinner. The view is gorgeous, I am living in an Ansel Adams photograph, and in color! I am perched on a high, small bluff, overlooking Hoover Lake to the north in a valley a few hundred feet below, with two mountains gracefully sloping from either side toward the far outlet of the lake. Birds slowly circle the blue sky, cawing. The faintest breeze in a perfect temperature adds to the feeling I am in Eden. I have no desire to read, to reflect, to do anything but look. This is true Contemplation, by the definition of the Trappist Monks I love, like Father William Menninger. I formally practice Centering Prayer here again, but my eyes lead my body and soul to simply look; just being here is the state to which mediation is only a doorway. I’ve been in this state most of the time since my Centering in the rain earlier.

From the other side of my campsite, ten yards up a small slope to the west, I can see Summit Lake, where I’ll head tomorrow, nestled near the pine trees. Night settles and a full moon comes out, so bright I can still clearly see the far-away lakes. Still up near 11,000 feet, the clear air allows me to stargaze as well. I don’t like sleeping under anything that blocks my view out here, so I pull my sleeping pad and quilt away from my tarp and lie back on the earth, totally in the open, watching the stars, recognizing the obvious constellations; the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, and Orion. Mostly I just gaze with wonder but with little thought, being part of the sky, as in truth we are, rather than imagining its distinctions from us.

The day has been surprisingly hard. I do not for a moment wish I weren’t doing this, though. Happiness scholar Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi speaks of experiencing difficulty — as long as it’s manageable — as part of being in Flow, in true Happiness[1] .   We feel this urge for manageable challenge as a physical urge during a Health Club visit or at a yoga class, and this formula for happiness is true emotionally or spiritually too: the right amount of difficulty enables growth, while ignoring that life is hard leads to neuroses, as M. Scott Peck famously pointed out.  Recognizing that life is hard is simply the humility of recognizing what is true.  I recall that this is also the first lesson we were given in Men’s Right of Passage training by Richard Rohr: “Life is Hard.” To this Truth Rohr later adds an addendum by none other than Jesus: “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Right now, the physical difficulty is somehow an easy tradeoff for this heavenly place, this contentment, this exhausted joy.  After the tiring day, away from all people, all pressure, I sleep. I’m sure if someone saw me they would see a smile on my sleeping face.

At 2:30 in the morning I wake imagining the sound of a four-legged creature running by me. I’m not sure if it’s dream or reality so I turn on my headlamp and use it to sweep the ground as far as I can see. Nothing. It is a chance to look at the view and stars again, they’ve clearly completed a good part of their rotation around the North Star for the night. So peaceful, no sounds at all. But just as I am about to drift to sleep again, I hear the four-legged creature running again, it is real after all. My light circles the area, but I see it outside the light beam, in the moonlight. A coyote, standing calmly, with its head facing me. It stands in front of and becomes part of the wonderful view, where I’d eaten before. The coyote is on the bluff with Hoover Lake and the mountain valley clearly visible behind it in the moonlight, stars abounding above. The wild animal completes the picture, adding fauna to the flora and landscape. Did this wild creature come to see the view also? To examine me? To hunt? Coyotes are carnivores. Native Americans call them tricksters — a lone coyote will encourage their kill to chase it, luring it to the pack where it turns, and the prey devours its predator.  The noble creature just looks at me. I gaze back from my bed, “Hello brother coyote.” Like a Sacred Word while Centering, attachments to misplaced thoughts and emotions go away, over-identification with needs for safety or control fade. I just gaze at the scene, becoming part of it.

I sleep till sunup.

[1] Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) Paperback – July 1, 2008

© Philip Jackson 2018 

Insights

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. . . all things connect.

– Chief Seattle

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

– Rachel Carson

Keep close to Nature’s heart . . . and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

– John Muir

We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.

– Pema Chödrön

Your Turn

Please write in to comment on or add to any of the items in this month’s newsletter.  Let us know if you are aware of an upcoming event you think others should know about, or send us an inspirational quote you’d like to share, or information about a book, website, podcast, or video you recommend.  You are invited to contribute by emailing the newsletter editor at news@centeringprayerchicago.org.

 

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