I came across these wonderful words written by John O’Donoghue in his book:” To Bless the space between us”. Below are a few of the many verses of: “For a friend on the arrival of illness”.
Personally, I found the suggestions and guidance of his questioning and giving myself some time to stop, ponder and reflect on the arrival of my own diagnosis of illness. Illuminating to say the least.
“May you learn to use this illness.
As a lantern to illuminate
The new qualities that will emerge in you.
May you find the wisdom to listen to your illness:
Ask it why it came. Why it chose your friendship.
Where it wants to take you. What it wants you to know.
What quality of space it wants to create in you.
What you need to learn to become more fully yourself
That your presence may shine in the world.
May you be granted the courage and vision
To work through passivity and self-pity,
To see the beauty you can harvest
From the riches of this dark invitation.
May you learn to receive it graciously,
And promised to learn swiftly
That it may leave you newborn,
Willing to dedicate your time to birth.”
Given that the modern science of ecology came into being as part of an effort among biologists and other scientists to describe and interpret and theorize the complex interplay between living organisms and their environment. This, like many other scientific explorations seems to fragment matters into many distinct component parts without taking and intertwining the wholeness of the inquiry.
To argue for a broader ecology means, rather acknowledging that the ecological understanding ought to be set within the widest possible framework and include not only the effort to understand how organisms interact with their environment, but also how these ecological networks shape and are shaped by human culture and thought, including human emotion, reason, imagination, and yes soul. To speak of ecology in this way is to acknowledge that the term itself is being extended beyond its original strictly scientific meaning to encompass a much more extensive area of thought and experience, as Gregory Bateson did many years ago in his influential book ‘steps to an ecology of mind’.
In our present World and in particular our thought process and language, be it descriptive or generative, we need to question much more beyond the narrowness of the nominated frameworks. The invitation here is to stretch beyond the given narrative so that we can see for ourselves and qualify the core of what is being stated or omitted. We need to stretch ourselves beyond this scientific and mechanistic narration to include the ‘Imaginal World’. Our ancestors, before the industrial and scientific revolutions were in touch with this ‘Oneness’, the inclusion of all people and that of the natural World. Thinking, decisions, and actions that are inclusive of the mechanistic and imaginal, sitting equally, are sensitized and restorative of all that is.
Dawn is a refreshing time, a time filled with possibility and promise. Just as darkness brings rest and peace, so the dawn brings awakening and renewal. We stand at this threshold daily. Threshold is a hugely interesting phenomenon. In our search for lifelong meaning and achievement there are many thresholds to cross, and each filled with many possibilities. Martin Heidegger speaks about the ‘ontological priority’ of possibility. At the deepest level of being, possibility is that transformed destination of what we call events and achievement.
All things are shifting, moving and transient, silently and sometimes not so silently backwards and forwards over ‘invisible’ thresholds. One of the deepest longings and desires of the human being is the longing to be seen, to achieve and to continuously evolve and transform. To be wholesome, we must remain truthful to our wonderful complexity. In order to keep balance, we need to hold the interior and exterior visible and invisible, known and unknown together. Master Nan tells us that our most important work is to ‘resolve the separation of the division between mind and matter.’ The challenge is to remain centred, calm and hold equally the tensions of opposites in the process of creating deeper and more profound awareness. This can be achieved through the art of suspending habitual ‘ways of being’, and inviting forward new possibilities. From this place, we can access that part of ourselves that has a deeper meaning and purpose as the ‘observer within’ operates from a place wisdom and richness to meet the exterior with a greater depth of understanding and acting in the World. What was once invisible now potentially becomes visible and is expressed in our actions and ‘way of being.’ This is when the threshold of inner life expresses itself in the outer world of work, new imagination, creativity and innovation is awakened and greatest changes take place. The mind becomes unburdened from its dualism, and the inner light, so reminiscent of Rembrandt’s famous ‘Night watch’ shines through every aspect of living.