This post continues the exploration of the qualities of kinship with Country explored in Seeing, feeling, and hearing the world; and of Tyson Yunkaporta’s suggestion in Sand Talk, ‘The assistance people need is not learning about Aboriginal Knowledge but in remembering their own.’
Just wanted to return here and offer a wave of thanks for nudging The Blue Sapphire of the Mind my way. I'd say it's been (along with Jonathon Lear's Radical Hope) one of the two most important reads for me during 2024. It's also offered an excellent frame for what 'learning how the land speaks' has been coming to mean for me, why haiku has become the most helpful of writing practices for me in that respect, and why a number of leading deep ecology (et al) voices like David Hinton and Jeremy Lent leave me with a 'Yes, but' respectful dissonance. A wonderful collection of lives and life stories among other things, among whom Etty Hillesum remains most powerfully in mind. Wishing you a great year.
So glad I was able to point you to Blue Sapphire! and thanks for letting me know. We all respond differently: I draw much from David Hinton but cannot get on with Jeremy Lent who seems to me entirely derivative! The notion of hope is a curious one. I am about to respond to @Jonathanrowson 's appreciation of The Spirit of Hope by Byung-Chul Han which I did not get on with at all. Happy New Year, trust you are keeping well
Thanks I’ll look up your reply to Jonathan. I enjoyed his take on the book and was interested to read it. I’m actually hoping to join the online waterways course in April that you recently flagged. Just weighing capacity before applying. Perhaps then or another time we’ll speak of David Hinton. Taken in the round I loved his Wild Mind, Wild Earth and keep coming back to it. I much value what he affirms and what he reveals in the ancient poets he loves - the undeparted palaeolithic mind - but find his contrasting take on montheism (etc.) a familiar Deep Ecology straw dog. Curiously I don’t mean that what he asserts is not miserably, catastrophically true. So why the reticence? I suppose the “Yes, but” is about the sense - to my ear - of having solved a problem by simply rejecting the whole bloodied mess of a Christian inheritance. Having tried the same I find myself unable to, which is in no small part why it was such a delight to encounter The Blue Sapphire of the Mind, and in particular ‘contemplative ecology’.
It would be great to have you as part of the next Living Waters inquiry! Re Hinton, I find his earlier books on the Tao perspective -- Hunger Mountain and Existence -- are the ones that draw me the most. My review of Wild Mind, Wild Earth is at https://www.peterreason.net/wp-content/uploads/Wild-Mind-Wild-Earth.pdf
Many thanks Peter, I really valued this post. Having recently come from Sand Talk your opening remark caught my attention, and having now begun Christie's book, am finding his reflections on contemplative ecology resonant and helpful.
Thank you for this post. Ages ago I read Thomas Merton's "The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings of the Desert Fathers" which left me as a thirty-something year old somewhat lost. With your article today, I feel encouraged to re-read Merton's book with a deeper insight as to what they were all about.
Yes, and as a lapsed Protestant Christian I became fascinated by the complex theology that lies behind notions of The Word and other themes that in my upbringing we took quite literally. Good luck with Merton!
Thank you. I'm less lapsed and more a survivor of (evangelical) protestant Christianity - and it's taken about three decades to unravel - well, still unravelling. And in the past I then found more a home with either the Mennonites (social action) or Quakers (sitting quietly, pacifism, and a different kind of social action). But with "Nature worship" having been brutally exterminated by the Catholic church in bygone centuries, in the end I could have nothing more to do with Christianity.
Panpsychism (which you have introduced me to) resonates well in my soul because it goes far beyond mere 'respect for Nature' or 'we like Nature because it has utility value', and takes it to deep connection with divine source by communicating with Nature (if I've understood at least one aspect of it). The river is very low at this time of year, the birds are quieter, the slow change to Autumn (still 30degC with high fire risk), the absence of rain for three months, the harvesting of so much fruit (dehydrated as fruit-leather) all speak to me communication by a living essence.
The guidance in your writing is greatly appreciated. Indeed, it is life-changing.
(I have tracked down a copy of Geoffrey Moorhouse's book, Sun Dancing. So I will soon be reading it. And I recommend Robert L Harris's memoir, Returning Light: 30 Years of Life on Skellig Michael.)
This is beautiful and I totally agree about the apparent need for a contemplative practice that mourns the destruction of our world while also cracking open our hearts to love for it — thanks for sharing!
🤗🤗🤗
Just wanted to return here and offer a wave of thanks for nudging The Blue Sapphire of the Mind my way. I'd say it's been (along with Jonathon Lear's Radical Hope) one of the two most important reads for me during 2024. It's also offered an excellent frame for what 'learning how the land speaks' has been coming to mean for me, why haiku has become the most helpful of writing practices for me in that respect, and why a number of leading deep ecology (et al) voices like David Hinton and Jeremy Lent leave me with a 'Yes, but' respectful dissonance. A wonderful collection of lives and life stories among other things, among whom Etty Hillesum remains most powerfully in mind. Wishing you a great year.
So glad I was able to point you to Blue Sapphire! and thanks for letting me know. We all respond differently: I draw much from David Hinton but cannot get on with Jeremy Lent who seems to me entirely derivative! The notion of hope is a curious one. I am about to respond to @Jonathanrowson 's appreciation of The Spirit of Hope by Byung-Chul Han which I did not get on with at all. Happy New Year, trust you are keeping well
Thanks I’ll look up your reply to Jonathan. I enjoyed his take on the book and was interested to read it. I’m actually hoping to join the online waterways course in April that you recently flagged. Just weighing capacity before applying. Perhaps then or another time we’ll speak of David Hinton. Taken in the round I loved his Wild Mind, Wild Earth and keep coming back to it. I much value what he affirms and what he reveals in the ancient poets he loves - the undeparted palaeolithic mind - but find his contrasting take on montheism (etc.) a familiar Deep Ecology straw dog. Curiously I don’t mean that what he asserts is not miserably, catastrophically true. So why the reticence? I suppose the “Yes, but” is about the sense - to my ear - of having solved a problem by simply rejecting the whole bloodied mess of a Christian inheritance. Having tried the same I find myself unable to, which is in no small part why it was such a delight to encounter The Blue Sapphire of the Mind, and in particular ‘contemplative ecology’.
It would be great to have you as part of the next Living Waters inquiry! Re Hinton, I find his earlier books on the Tao perspective -- Hunger Mountain and Existence -- are the ones that draw me the most. My review of Wild Mind, Wild Earth is at https://www.peterreason.net/wp-content/uploads/Wild-Mind-Wild-Earth.pdf
Many thanks Peter, I really valued this post. Having recently come from Sand Talk your opening remark caught my attention, and having now begun Christie's book, am finding his reflections on contemplative ecology resonant and helpful.
Thanks, Mat. I read the book quite a while ago so it was interesting to return to my review (a longer version at https://www.peterreason.net/wp-content/uploads/The-Blue-Sapphire-of-the-Mind.pdf if you are interested.
I am indeed, thanks
Thanks for this post, it sounds like a book worth reading. On my 'wish list'.
Thank you for this post. Ages ago I read Thomas Merton's "The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings of the Desert Fathers" which left me as a thirty-something year old somewhat lost. With your article today, I feel encouraged to re-read Merton's book with a deeper insight as to what they were all about.
Yes, and as a lapsed Protestant Christian I became fascinated by the complex theology that lies behind notions of The Word and other themes that in my upbringing we took quite literally. Good luck with Merton!
Thank you. I'm less lapsed and more a survivor of (evangelical) protestant Christianity - and it's taken about three decades to unravel - well, still unravelling. And in the past I then found more a home with either the Mennonites (social action) or Quakers (sitting quietly, pacifism, and a different kind of social action). But with "Nature worship" having been brutally exterminated by the Catholic church in bygone centuries, in the end I could have nothing more to do with Christianity.
Panpsychism (which you have introduced me to) resonates well in my soul because it goes far beyond mere 'respect for Nature' or 'we like Nature because it has utility value', and takes it to deep connection with divine source by communicating with Nature (if I've understood at least one aspect of it). The river is very low at this time of year, the birds are quieter, the slow change to Autumn (still 30degC with high fire risk), the absence of rain for three months, the harvesting of so much fruit (dehydrated as fruit-leather) all speak to me communication by a living essence.
The guidance in your writing is greatly appreciated. Indeed, it is life-changing.
(I have tracked down a copy of Geoffrey Moorhouse's book, Sun Dancing. So I will soon be reading it. And I recommend Robert L Harris's memoir, Returning Light: 30 Years of Life on Skellig Michael.)
Thank you for your kind comment. I will keep an eye out for the Harris book. Those rocks are amazing!
This is beautiful and I totally agree about the apparent need for a contemplative practice that mourns the destruction of our world while also cracking open our hearts to love for it — thanks for sharing!