I Love You All (For Standing Rock Protectors)

“Every natural object is a conductor of divinity.”
-John Muir


Today I am grateful for you.  You magnificent miracle.  You wonder to behold.  I don't know exactly how to frame this in words as there is far too much to say, but I love you.  I love each one of your burgandy leaves and your coarse fur.  I love your four legs and wagging tail and your soft grey wings. You feathered birds that stand in the corn fields from now until the first signs of spring. And then, I love the beauty of your sprouting green-ness.  
I love the smell of your pine needles. Your intelligent consciousness is part of what  brings this earth plane to life, you plant medicine, you animal medicine. 

You who are mineral as well.  Secretly you speak of the early formations here.  You who are ancient. You teach each day the lessons of patience and being in the here and now.  

Today I am grateful for you.

You magnificent miracle to behold, you risen one of earthly delight.  You who are

the children of old growth forests.  You who are just emerging under the canopy.

You who are the

protectors at Standing Rock.

My teachers say: "Evolution does not go backwards."  I believe that must be true.

***
The mystics tell us that we need spiritual crisis. That we must enter the Cloud of Unknowing, the deepest despair, the most profound darkness within, without hope, in order to grow spiritually. They call such a time of deep crisis, of great uncertainty, the Dark Night of the Soul. There, in our radical desperation, in our absolute abandonment, it is said, the Divine Doctor awaits. Holy Darkness was Her medicine all along.
-Vera De Chalambert

Yes, I know that is correct.
On a personal level, I know what it is to go through the Dark Night of the Soul.  And thankfully, I know
what it feels like to be on the other side of that darkness. In the Divine Comedy, (and that is what life is, a crazy Divine Comedy) Dante says: I came to myself in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost.   My experience is that it is through surrender that we get to the other side and find our way through the darkness. That is where the Divine Doctor waits. In the letting go and letting something higher, more than our small selves, lead the way through. Surrendering the ego-self to something greater, to the mystery of all that is. It seems on many levels we are lost now, with no clear way through. But thankfully, there are those willing to stand for healing and the greater good.

Today I am grateful for all life on the planet, everything natural, every conductor of divinity.  I am grateful that there are places to go where Nature is still in evidence. Places where one can look around and see open space and evidence of life unobstructed by man-made structures. Yesterday I went to my favorite bird sanctuary to see the Sandhill cranes as they, like magicians on grey wings, appear again in the fields along the Rio Grande River to spend the winter months.  They congregate close together in the fields and delight in one shared community.  They are almost as if one organism, ever flapping its multitudes of wings.  We humans may be in an existential time of darkness on some levels in the outer world post-election 2016, but the cranes give me hope. The cranes and all those who are standing in their hearts, breathing through this time of metamorphosis.