"Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place." Rumi
Like most of the blogs I write it begins with a quote that I find "speaks to my heart". I can read a quote and if it stops me and I want to re-read it again and again, then I know there is something I need to learn from it.
What does Rumi mean by being "the soul of that place"? I believe that when we love something, we grant it soul, we see its soul, and we let its soul touch ours. We must love something deeply to know its soul (anima).
I am not sure if this is where Rumi, the great 13th century Sufi mystic was going with this quote or not. I will simply let this be a starting point for my contemplation on this quote.
I believe that to see the soul of a place we need "eyes of love" that lead us to love with our heart open and undefended. With a spacious heart that sees the "very soul" of people, places and things.
On a recent hike, I carried around a quote on a piece of paper and read it to myself throughout the day. I repeated to others I was hiking with to help me absorb its meaning that day. It goes like this:
"Many things gave me completeness
Some things did not only touch me
My hand did not merely touch them,
But rather, they befriended
my existence." Pablo Neruda
Throughout the hike I passed and touched "many things" on our way up to Goat Lake. I was loving and letting the "soul of that place" love me back. There where a number of very large old growth trees along the trail. I think some of them were 600 to 700 years old. I love spending time next to them taking in their immense size and breadth. Loving them deeply and letting their "soul" touch mine. Letting them "befriend my existence". You see they give me completeness.
This quote from Richard Rohr speaks directly to idea of love being about relationship first and foremost regardless of the "supposed worthiness of the object loved."
"The precise object of your affection is not really important all all...The power is in the relationship itself. In other words, we might be able to love a tree or a frog with the full flow of divine love, and we might love other humans just because they are an advantage to us. The first love can and will "mend the world"; the second is just passing show and hardly love at all. The power is always in authenticity of the relationship itself and not in the supposed worthiness of the object loved. Think about that."
You see for me, in the natural world I am able to see the fingerprints of God everywhere. It comes very natural to me when I walk though nature. I am seeing the very "soul of the place". I am loving what is right in front of me. I believe that this helps me to more easily to see God in my neighbors and then it leads me to see God at work in the entire cosmos!
"We know God through the things that God has made." Richard Rohr
The first step is to learn how to learn how to see and love what is!
I leave you with this affirmation from Eleonora Duse:
"If the sight of blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simplest things of nature have a message for you to understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive."
The first step is to learn how to learn how to see and love what is!
God's grace abounds,
John
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