This morning before I began to write, I paused and watched the video on YouTube that accompanied the soft, relaxing music I was playing in the background.
The streaming scenery included aerial and close-up shots of wintry landscapes from around the world: forests of snow-covered evergreen trees; majestic waterfalls; cliffs surrounded by the wintry, wavy sea; carved and edgy mountain peaks; snow covered branches and so much more ...
Truly awe-inspiring.
As someone who has lived in Central Illinois with its endless miles of prairie and fields my entire life, I have seen and experienced relatively few landscapes outside of the Midwest. And even then, I have only seen them during the season I have visited.
When I first traveled to the American Southwest, to the West Coast, and back to the Lake Tahoe area in the early 2000s with some family members, I pretty much sat in the back of the vehicle with my eyes and mouth wide open the entire time. My heart wanted — needed — to take in as much as I possibly could, especially as we traveled through New Mexico — “The Land of Enchantment” — which I have come to believe is my soul’s home away from home on Earth.
One good thing about technology is that those who rarely travel from their home base now have access to videos like these, to get some idea of just how vast and complex the planet’s landscape is. Seeing it on the screen can evoke feelings of wonder and awe, even though it still isn’t the same as seeing it in person.
There is just no substitute for encountering these wild and wonderful corners of the Earth, to make you feel, if only for a moment, just how small and limited we are as humans. And, of course, these landscapes are just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The endlessly expanding universe we live in with its mind-boggling numbers of galaxies and stars and other outer space elements is more than any one mind can comprehend. I get tired just trying to imagine it. I can’t.
As I watched this expansive and intricate scenery this morning, I couldn’t help but think of how it is a metaphor for the vastness, imagination, diversity and ineffability of the Intelligence and Heart that put us here.
Sometimes it is easy to pigeonhole this Being, according to our limited lived experiences, and surroundings. We think we know what this mysterious Being is like simply from what we have seen and heard. Some of us read the pages of various sacred texts and think that is all we need to know who and what created all of this and put us here right in the middle of it.
But is it? Really?
I mean, yes, I believe we can come to know a bit of this Mystery by mindfully living our daily lives, by paying attention to the world around us, and the lessons hidden in each of our experiences and interactions — indeed, within each and every breath we take.
That is the whole foundation on which I build this column each week. To see the world through the eyes of the soul and spirit, and not just the mind.
And yet, if we think we can truly know and describe this Infinite Mystery, from which we came and in which we live and move and have our being, based on our own limited experiences and views, we are sadly, sadly mistaken.
Maybe what I’m trying to say is that getting out of our familiar surroundings and seeing things and places — whether they are natural landscapes or bustling cities — is a good and necessary way for us to experience that little virtue called humility.
To illustrate to us this world and all that is in it and Whomever it came from, is far bigger than our often proud and arrogant minds would like to admit.
We sometimes think we get it, that we can grasp what this existence is all about.
But in the time it takes to inhale and exhale the life breath inside each of us a single time, we can just as easily fall back into darkness, confusion and uncertainty.
That is not necessarily a bad thing, if you ask me.
This seemingly endless cycle of not being able to get some lasting grounding in our lives, is enough to keep us searching and seeking and discovering with fresh eyes each day, the vast, complex and fully unknowable Mystery and Wonder that is our True Home and Ultimate Destination.
- SPIRIT MATTERS is a weekly column that examines spirituality. Contact Jerrilyn Zavada at jzblue33@yahoo.com to share how you engage your spirit in your life and community.