White gums at the foot of the Helena and Aurora Ranges in Western Australia.
We live in a web of Being and when we become open, grounded and still, the creation reaches out to us, writes the Rev’d Rodney Marsh. He reflects on the wonder of taking a solo, silent retreat in the Great Western Woodlands of Western Australia.
“Come away to a desert place all by yourselves and rest a while.”
Jesus in Mark 6:31
My desire for solitude and silence has deep roots. As a teenager I would sometimes ride a farm motorbike into the foothills south of Perth. There, I would spread my sleeping bag on the ground and sleep under the stunning summer evening stars. In later life, in the midst of grief and trauma, I retreated (literally) to a retreat centre near Margaret River for one week of silence.
I knew nothing then of the spiritual disciplines which could guide me into (and out of!) the silence, but, in God’s mercy, some angels (human) arrived at just the right time, to guide me. That was in 1990. It was not until about 2005 that I discovered my way into silence through a World Community for Christian Meditation seminar for teachers.
John Main’s teaching gave me the path I was seeking. I began to meditate twice daily for 20 minutes. I had found my contemplative practice and I practised it! Since I have retired, I have upped this to 30 minutes meditation twice daily, a leap which I have found to be more difficult than establishing the practice in the first place[1].
After I became a regular meditator, Jesus’ invitation to come away to a deserted place kept resurfacing. I took several two-day retreats, camping by myself in the Jarrah Forest, but it was not until July 2022 that I fulfilled my ambition to go away to a ‘real’ deserted desert place - the Helena and Aurora Ranges.
The Helena and Aurora Ranges (Bungalbin)[2] are a pristine area of The Great Western Woodlands and are, according to the Wilderness Society, “…one of the world's last Wild Places" and "...the largest and healthiest temperate woodlands left on Earth …”.
These Ranges have no natural surface water, so have never been degraded as a pastoral lease, and, though there remain several mining leases over them, Bungalbin is now on track to move from being classified as a conservation reserve to becoming a national park.
This spot certainly met my criteria for isolation. For five days I neither saw nor spoke to anyone and there was no mobile phone coverage.[3] During the sunny warm days I meditated and walked, walked and meditated. Each night was cold and clear, and I sat by a big fire under a magnificent ‘starry starry sky’.
During my self-designed retreat I attempted to become silent and still under my ‘meditation tree’ three times in the morning, with three short walks, and, in the afternoon, two meditations with a long walk in between. As expected, my mind began “to slow down, to calm down, to become more clear”.[4]
My experience of meditation at Bungalbin was wonderfully ordinary. It became easier to be where I was. During my ministry as a Pastor and Chaplain I was, to my shame, too often ‘absent’ in my interactions. My body may have been there, but my mind and spirit were elsewhere! Meditation requires our presence in the only place we can be present - the present moment. When meditating I am practising being present to Presence in the present moment.
All things flow together from, in and to the Creator’s Being, and the only way I have found to sense oneness with all creation is by being still and silent in the present and going with the flow. For our lives flow with all creation and the flow of all things is the eternal now (the present moment).
This flowing to and in all things can never be anticipated, caught or held, and so the prayer of the heart is simply a time set aside to join the fullness and eternity of the flow, a time to be present to the Presence in all things.
I have discovered that being present to and in the present moment is a transferable skill. I can now, more frequently anyway, be present where I am and with whom I am. At least now I know when I am absenting myself, and renew my attention. Meditation has taught me to pay attention.
I have always found that nature also helps me practise presence. Presence and attention require conversion and then “When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world” (2 Cor 5:17 NEB). The conversion required is to become simple, humble and open. The prayer of the heart does this.
I can recall about a month after I began meditating, it was as if “the scales fell from my eyes” (Acts 9:18). It sounds dramatic but it was more a discovery of the ordinary as real (including other people), and the desires, thoughts and dreams of my external self to be unreal.
If humankind is to have a future, the human being must rediscover the gift of his or own existence; the life of, and for, others; and the purity of nature herself. If we choose instead to invest our energy in a future designed by an AI vision of what is real, we will surely destroy ourselves, our neighbour and our world.[5]
When we learn to practise presence and pay empty attention to what is, there is a natural consequence - we see nature as it is - God in all things and all things in God. In “The Way of a Pilgrim”,[6] after the Jesus Prayer descends from Pilgrim’s mind to his heart, he notes, “everything around me appeared wondrous to me and inspired me with love for and gratitude to God. People, trees, plants and animals—I felt a kinship with them all and discovered how each bore the seal of the Name of Jesus Christ”.
Similarly, a traditional custodian of Kakadu, Bill Neidjie, gives witness to this oneness with country and asks other Australians to “listen carefully, careful and this spirit e come in your feeling and you will feel it … ask that animal same like us. Our friend that”[7].
Quiet open attention and presence to nature naturally leads to union with the Creator. As Quaker Parker Palmer says, “The function of contemplation in all its forms is to penetrate illusion and help us to touch reality”, and in order to penetrate past the illusions of unreality it is essential to be still and join the flow of all things.
There is another aspect to the prayer of the heart that is vital for making contact with nature: watchfulness. When Jesus said, “Watch how you listen” (Luke 8:18) he wasn’t confusing sight with hearing, but emphasising that both looking and listening are one in the heart/mind of a disciple who is truly paying attention.
Watchfulness means to attend to the ‘this-ness’ of a particular leaf, tree, rock, hill, bird or person. Trees, rocks or people do not exist except as human invented categories. In reality, every individual leaf is unique in its ‘this-ness’ at this particular time and place. This specific tree, this unique person, this individual rock is present to us in this precious moment. Every rock, person and tree in every particular moment is not only unique, but also a sign or sacrament of the One who made them, is in them and with them.
A mystic, according to Quaker Rufous Jones, is one who senses this connection with what is real and has a personal conviction that their “human spirit and the divine Spirit have met, have found each other, and are in mutual and reciprocal correspondence as spirit with Spirit”[8].
In reality, the divine Spirit is reaching out to us, in each moment, seeing us and asking us to join the flow. For that to happen we need to be still, simple and look and listen with our own unique centre to recognise the other. Each one of us is born to be a mystic in this way. As Bob Dylan sang, “those who aren’t busy being born (again each moment) are busy dying (in each moment)”.
I have two memories of times of ‘reciprocal correspondence’ with nature at Bungalbin: When I saw the Inland white gums shimmering red in the setting sun, I thought of Bill’s words, “I love it tree e love me too. E watching me same as you” and my heart stirred with joy. Bill had the watchfulness of someone who knows.
Another moment of joy at Bungalbin was when a pair of small birds[9]… quietly entered my camping space. They were not wary or frightened. They were just there with me. We were there together. Perhaps they sensed that this was a safe place.
In the matter of making friends with wild things, there are numerous stories of birds and animals spontaneously being attracted to living saints. Perhaps when the human desire to seize, to control, to use, to own, is reduced or eliminated, then we can begin to restore our relationship with ourselves, one another and nature herself. Living constantly with our prayer word is one way to do that.
We live in a web of being and when we become open, grounded and still, the creation reaches out to us. We need do nothing except to dwell in the eternal now with all the trees, grass, rocks, hills and stars around us. They never stop being who they are and they reach out to us.
The miracle of Being then becomes clearer in us, because when the Being in all reaches out to us and we see and respond, we realise “I am” and “I too belong”. This experience is simply being who we are, where we are and with the things that are, so it can never be described in images, words, desires, feelings, experiences etc. But this presence to us, with us and in us has dependable markers: deep peace and joy. With William Wilberforce we see “… with an eye made quiet by the power/of harmony, and the deep power of joy,/we see into the life of things.”[10]
In June, Rodney will be Meditator in Residence at Campfire in the Heart, Alice Springs, and will lead two three-day silent retreats. One focusing on nature and meditation and one on the body and meditation. For more information and to register, see: https://campfireintheheart.com.au/deep-silent-retreats/
References:
[1] My experience had similarities with Clare Boyd-Macrae’s journey. See www.thelivingwater.com.au/blog/leaving-the-house-of-fear
[2] https://www.helenaaurorarange.com.au/
[3] My phone, which I was using as a GPS guide, notified me that I hadn’t checked it in the last few days - it was concerned for my welfare (O Yeah!)
[4] https://wccm.org/articles/whats-a-deep-silent-retreat-like/
[5] Hannah Arendt writes: “This future man, whom the scientists tell us they will produce in no more than a hundred years, seems to be possessed by a rebellion against human existence as it has been given, a free gift from nowhere (secularly speaking), which he wishes to exchange, as it were, for something he has made himself.” See: https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-dystopia-of-knowledge-2014-02-17
[6] “The Way of a Pilgrim” is the story of a 19th-century Russian pilgrim learning to pray constantly using the Jesus Prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner’.
[7] “Story About Feeling”, Bill Neidjie Magabala Books 1989
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Jones_(writer)
[9] I was frustrated by not being able to identify this bird from various bird books, then I found it on the Bungalbin website - they were a pair of Rufous Treecreepers.
[10] From “Lines Composed above Tintern Abbey” https://wccm.org/weekly-readings/being-still-at-the-centre-of-your-being/