Moontime

This week’s blog will focus on some of my favorite exercises from the second section of my book “The Songbird In My Heart.” These exercises are called “Acts of Contemplation, Freedom for a Glad Heart” and are designed to put you in touch with your deeper self. Each day a corresponding prayer from the book will also be posted to Facebook.

The inspiration for these exercises came from two unlikely sources. The first are the beautiful books from Thomas Merton and his editors A Book of Hours, Seeds of Contemplation, and New Seeds of Contemplation. The second is the red Fieldbook by Peter Senge to his best selling business book The Fifth Discipline. While this part of the book bears little resemblance to these great books, they did serve as inspiration.

Please take some time and try them out! If you like, let me know how it goes. Best of luck. Mark

Acts of Contemplation, Freedom for a Glad Heart

Monday – Wake-up Time
Tuesday – Airtime
Wednesday – Mealtime
Today – Moontime
Friday - A Moment in Time


Moontime
Opening Thoughts
Our Moon was birthed from a collision of a Mars-sized planet with Earth about 4 billion years ago. In this act it is the progeny of Earth. The Moon is our planets’ little sister.

The Moon is always facing us with the same geography. As it revolves around the Earth its rotation assures the same view to us. In this way it is apparently worshipping Earth.

As little children we are fascinated by the Moon and its possibilities. As we grow older we learn of its influence on the tidal nature of all the bodies of water on Earth. There are those that believe it also affects plants and animal moods and behaviors.

Acts of Contemplation
Act 1 – On several successive nights at the Full Moon (consult a calendar or Almanac) go outdoors and observe the Moon. Appreciate its size, luminosity, and symbolism. Take ten minutes or so each time. Empty the mind and put aside today’s issues. Wait for the next thought to come. Patiently wait for the next thought. And then, translate the thoughts that arise from the emptiness. Write them down.

Act 2 – Repeat Act 1 for the New Moon. The New Moon occurs when the Moon is between the Earth and the Sun.

Act 3 – Repeat Act 1 for the Waxing and Waning Moons. The Waxing and Waning Moons are Quarter Moons; the Waxing Moon precedes the Full Moon with the outer curve to the right, the Waning Moon follows the Full Moon with the outer curve to the left.

Act 4 – Consult your almanac and determine the dates for the Apogee and Perigee. The Apogee is when the earth is furthest from the Moon and the Perigee when they are closest. The Moon will appear significantly larger during Perigee. These will be separated by six months. Reserve these dates and observe the Moon over several successive days. Take ten minutes or so each time. Empty the mind and put aside today’s issues. Wait for the next thought to come. Patiently wait for the next thought. And then, translate the thoughts that arise from the emptiness. Write them down.

Act 5 – Review your notes and consider making some part of these Acts a semiannual contemplative practice. Consider adding the stars and constellations to your repertoire.

Naturetime

This week’s blog will focus on some of my favorite exercises from the second section of my book “The Songbird In My Heart.” These exercises are called “Acts of Contemplation, Freedom for a Glad Heart” and are designed to put you in touch with your deeper self. Each day a corresponding prayer from the book will also be posted to Facebook.

The inspiration for these exercises came from two unlikely sources. The first are the beautiful books from Thomas Merton and his editors A Book of Hours, Seeds of Contemplation, and New Seeds of Contemplation. The second is the red Fieldbook by Peter Senge to his best selling business book The Fifth Discipline. While this part of the book bears little resemblance to these great books, they did serve as inspiration.

Please take some time and try them out! If you like, let me know how it goes. Best of luck. Mark

Acts of Contemplation, Freedom for a Glad Heart

Monday – Walking In Quiet Stillness
Tuesday – The Blue Skies Shine
Today – Naturetime
Thursday – Mindtime
Friday - The Universe in Time



Naturetime



Opening Thoughts
Nature is who we were before we became civilized. That is why we appreciate it so much. It reminds us of who we once were. As we separate ourselves further from it, we forget its best lessons.

In closer proximity, nature’s lessons bring us closer to the reality of life. We have the opportunity to do so as a silent witness. I recommend a digital camera to record the memories.

Acts of Contemplation
Act 1 – Place a birdfeeder within the view of a window where you can observe the birds. Identify the birds that visit. Take notes of the timing of the comings and goings. You will find that the birds come in waves, certain birds arriving with other species, some alone. Appreciate their beauty and aliveness. Take pictures for your friends and family.

I put out seed after the first frost and stop after winter comes to an end, usually November 15 until March 15. I mix my own combination of cracked corn, sunflower seeds and wild bird seed mix. Some areas will need to be careful about attracting bears if you feed too early in the fall or too late in the spring. If the squirrels bother you, put the feeder on a pipe covered with something slippery.

Act 2 – Install a bluebird house facing toward the sun and out of the wind in the late winter. Place it where you have a good sightline. If you like you can check it once a week to monitor progress. Keep notes. I only check mine at the end of the year these days. You may want to find the local bluebird club that monitors bluebird activity.

Act 3 – Place a hummingbird feeder outside of one of your windows in the late spring. Appreciate their unique splendor. Keep notes on your observations. The first ones appear in early April and usually migrate south in late September.

I have six feeders near my house. There are as many as twenty flying nearby at any time. Last year they nested in back of the house along the woods edge. The sugar mix is 1 sugar to 4 water to be changed every 3 to 5 days depending on the heat. These are the most magnificent creatures on earth.

Synchrony

Each day this week I will discuss the evidence for our interconnection in the world. Our feelings of separateness can lead us to feelings of dissatisfaction because we have lost our connection to the universe, to who we really are.

Monday – Origins - A Moment in Singularity (a.k.a. The Big Bang)
Tuesday - Holarchy
Wednesday - Chaos and the Hidden Order of Life
Today - Synchrony
Friday - Time and Place

In the simplest of nature’s creatures we find valuable lessons. In some parts of the world, as the sun goes down, and darkness descends, fireflies appear and slowly begin to blink in unison. Witnesses to these events know deep inside that this is not by chance.

Scientists have studied the firefly and now better understand these and other similar events like crickets chirping in rhythm. Apparently there are biological oscillators within us that seek connection with others around us; a natural rhythm within the beat of change, the beat of time, the beat of life.

The human heart has specialized pacemaker cells that are responsible for the rhythmic beating and subsequent movement of the blood through the body. This is an integrated complex of thousands of cells all working together to maximize heart muscle efficiency.

Studies of people clapping in an audience, human sleep cycles, and the nature of traffic jams have found patterns of hidden order. On college campuses, females who live together in close daily contact tend to experience their menstrual cycles together.

Consider for a moment your ability to read and comprehend this material. Ponder your capacity to solve problems, think creatively, and consciously change the world around you. After all you are only a bag of chemicals made up mostly of water. The neural network we call consciousness is truly a miracle of connectedness and interdependency.

Duncan Watts’s “Six Degrees” found strong evidence for his hypothesis that every person on the planet is socially connected to within six degrees of separation. A successful play and movie were produced around this idea.

In nature’s ecosystems, thousands of interdependent connections exist in what at first appear to be otherwise simple relationships. As we have found the hard way, any intervention has unpredictable, even unintended results.

Do you see it? Do you see the connectedness that surrounds us?

There are some really great books on these and other examples of synchrony that I can recommend:

Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo. Linked, How Everything is Connected to Everything Else and What it Means for Business, Science and Everyday Life. New York: Flume Books, 2003.

Buchanan, Mark. Nexus, Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks. New York: WW Norton, 2003.

Holland, John H. Hidden Order. New York: Perseus Books, 1995.

Sole, Ricard, and Brian Goodwin. Signs of Life, How Complexity Pervades Biology. New York: Perseus, 2000.

Strogatz, Steven. Synch, The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order. New York: Hyperion Books, 2003.

Chaos and the Hidden Order of Life

Each day this week I will discuss the evidence for our interconnection in the world. Our feelings of separateness can lead us to feelings of dissatisfaction because we have lost our connection to the universe, to who we really are.

Monday – Origins - A Moment in Singularity (a.k.a. The Big Bang)
Tuesday - Holarchy
Today - Chaos and the Hidden Order of Life
Thursday - Synchrony
Friday - Time and Place

There was a time, when the complexity of nature and even life in general looked to be a series of random events. As time has progressed our perspective has broadened and now there are many reasons to see order, connection and interdependence in the apparent chaos.

When computers first became available, scientists started using them to solve mathematically intensive problems. What they found were complex hidden attractors behind their observations and calculations. These attractors organized the apparent chaos into patterns not previously understood.

One of first of these was in the study of weather and the “butterfly effect”. The naming of the “butterfly effect” came from the idea that a butterfly beating its wings in one area will cause a weather storm in another. So began the study of nonlinear dynamics also known as Chaos Theory.

The nonlinear nature of the weather makes the measurements difficult. Any small mistakes are dramatically amplified in the subsequent calculations, reducing the accuracy of the longer term prediction. This key finding is generally true in all nonlinear situations. Considering life’s nonlinear nature, could this give us any insight into our personal destiny in the near term versus the longer term? Does this help confirm that as each moment arises, an infinite set of possibilities appear?

So, beginning with the idea that the natural condition was chaos, a hidden order has been found. Now with the discovery of fractals, repeating patterns from the smallest sub segments throughout the Holonic hierarchy, hidden order and connection is found where chaos was expected. As this can be a highly technical subject, I suggest further reading in James Gleick’s “Chaos, Making a New Science”, or Gary Flake’s “The Computational Beauty of Nature.”

Picture by: the-square-root-of-3 via deviantart.com

Nine Things I Wish had been Taught in School

1. The interconnected structure of the local ecosystems.
2. Identification of the local plant, tree and animal species.
3. Respectful interaction with nature.
4. How to recognize the tracks and signs of animals in nature.
5. Basic survival techniques.
6. How to design, plant and harvest an edible garden.
7. Basic construction techniques.
8. Introduction to philosophy as a path to wisdom.
9. Respectful introduction to the world’s religions as a path to spirituality.

Nature’s lesson

While there may be many lessons in nature, the one I am most struck by is in its simplicity. Nature mostly just is. There is no ego or personality to nature. There is no illusion or judgment. There is only truth. In a world of only truth there are no lies.

The simple beauty of nature is its majesty. Without human judgment, there is a simple integrity completely immersed in only peace and grace.

Perhaps, a lesson for us all?