~ by Craig Hanson ~ Some years ago I had the good fortune to travel to England. I spent an early morning meditating inside the enormous, ancient stone circle at Stonehenge. It’s very easy to feel the two divine forces there—one vortex descending through the crown of the head, the other vortex ascending up the spine.
As I completed my meditation I glanced down at the grass in front of me and saw a dark green, humble plant. What struck me was that it’s leaves formed a perfect five-pointed star. I realized it was the same shape as the five-pointed star I’d seen in meditation.
By studying nature we begin to understand the imagination of our divine Creator. Studying nature can mean looking at a beautiful sunset, listening to the chirping of birds and the myriad sounds of the other animals. The great beauty of spiritual vision is that it feels so natural. Wondrous it is that we can use our senses to understand some of God’s nature. It’s a great blessing that what we find within ourselves, we may also see reflected without, and vice versa.
The deeper science delves into the mysteries of creation, the more it has to go within, to the spiritual mysteries behind it. Spiritual disciplines help to fill out that understanding. The more we reflect and experience within ourselves, the more we’re able to understand the processes of creation around us. The patterns of nature, the two forces of vortex, mirror the Kriya meditation tool that we’ve been given.
Brother Norman talks about the importance of being in nature, of deeply studying it, and meditating on it and in it. He recommends the greatest book we can ever read: our own Book of Life, so unique and personal for each one of us. We read it each time we sit down to meditate, and we read it when we engage with nature.
Oh Great Spirit, bountiful are your gifts to us.
You pour out all the knowledge of the universe upon our heads.
We have only to open, to see.
You are not complicated; You are simplicity itself.
You are the Divine; You are the spiral,
the architect for everything in creation.
May we come to be as Christ Jesus, a son, a daughter
forever conscious in every particle of your creation.
And someday we will smile within the shape of a flower,
and within the spiral of a breaking wave upon ocean shores.
Amen