The article highlights the profound effect that nature can have on human sensibilities when we take the trouble to take notice of the beauty of the natural environment that surrounds us in this world.

WHEN NATURE SPEAKS

Listening to the Spirit of the World

John Herlihy

"I said to the almond tree, 'Sister, speak to me of God.'
And the almond tree blossomed."
(Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco)

We make reference to Nature today as though referring to our beloved mother who has left us on our own without her comforting presence. Where has she gone; why has she abandoned us; will she ever return to be appreciated and loved as nothing else comparable in this world? Will we ever again stand in awe of the night sky as the city of God? Will we fall to our knees in a primeval forest to witnesses the sun’s rays illuminate the forest floor with the signature of the Divinity? Will we ever again study the snowflake, the crystal or the spider’s web to witness firsthand the symmetry of God’s perfection? Will we once again look into the cup of the lily or the blossoms of the almond tree and remember God?

We love the ocean for its angry moods. The summer thunder-storm thrills our sensibility if not our soul with the sound of its thunder, the awe of its lightning. We may take delight at the rare sight of a rainbow after rain; but we take no notice of the road-side trees or the darkness of the night sky because of their everyday presence, and the placid lake leaves us cold because it harbors no thrill or adventure. We no longer relate to Nature in the same way people of earlier times did, living in the midst of its awesome splendor out in the countryside in the enveloping folds of Nature’s finery. We live now in big cities that show us the blue canopy of the heavens in daytime patches; the night-time city lights wipe out the sparkle of the galaxies that drift down to earth in remembrance of the city of God. We drive through man-made tunnels that imperiously make their way under rivers and ocean channels. We denude entire forests to service the furniture and housing industries, and we pollute our oceans and rivers with waste that will take many millennia to decompose. We never sleep outside in situ under the stars, and apart from the occasional jog through the park or walk through the woods, we never leave the confines of modern-day civilization to have a taste of what it means to be enclosed within the sacred ambiance of Nature’s silent places. Who can forget the austerity of the desert or the grandeur of a forest once you have experienced the force of their sublime presence?

Last summer, I had the good fortune to stand at the edge of the Cliffs of Moher along the rugged west coast of Ireland, whose sheer vertical cliffs still stand aloft in face of the magisterial Atlantic Ocean as they did thousands of years ago. Not surprisingly, I felt myself drawn back in time to an earlier era to imagine the terror and awe of more primitive peoples as they confronted this mysterious panorama of earth, ocean and sky every day of their lives. The experience led me to wonder what it must have meant to these people to live every day under this canopy of heaven; to confront the vast panorama of the ocean with all its angry and docile moods punctuating the hours of their day with its relentless presence. No doubt, they absorbed readily enough the sobering sensibility of ocean meeting land and sky in a mutual embrace that included all of humanity.

Standing at the edge of these massive cliffs with their stark, vertical drop into the ocean below, one cannot help but feel—in addition to an intense sense of vertigo—the evocation of the sacred that this stark precipice summons as though by command into the mind of modern individuals. This unique natural setting creates the perfect symbol because it highlights the difference between the life of modern-day civilization with its lack of appreciation of Nature except as something to be analyzed and the traditional way of life, with its emphasis on the spirituality of Mother Nature as a living perception that gives coloration to the way humans perceive their world and shapes their sensibility into the life of the spirit in ways they may not fully understand, but are willing to take benefit from. At my back lay the solid ground and physical presence of present day Ireland, haunted still by the primitive forces of the pre-historic fortress located nearby whose ancient spirit still lingers over the area. In front of me, I beheld the infinity of ocean and sky finding finitude at the place where Heaven meets Earth, linking these two worlds into a seamless unity, These symbols of nature raise a perennial question facing every individual living in the modern world as it did the pagan peoples of pre-historic times, a question that lives within the well of our beings as an eternal mystery and beats within us like a second heart.

Like the watermark in parchment or the seal in hot wax, a mystery and a question lie within our conscious minds as an indelible mark of the unknown forces at play in the world. The questions that we seek answers for, either through the traditional knowledge found in one of the great world religions, or the theories and discoveries of modern science that inform the contemporary worldview, keep reappearing in the modernite psyche like a ghost in a haunted house. How do we reconcile the knowledge that separates these two great worldviews, the traditional knowledge embodied in the religious traditions of the world and the modern scientific knowledge that forms the ground of the empirical, secular worldview? Between these two perspectives, there is no sign of resolution and no promise of compromise that could lead contemporary and future generations of humanity to a unity of purpose in coming to terms with a world that does not explain itself. As a result, we are left as orphans in the modern world, without the guiding principles of the traditional world to give shape to our lives, and without the messages of nature to offer to our hungry and impoverished souls the possibility of an alternative reality that could take us by the hand and lift us out of the routine tedium of our lives.

Late one afternoon recently just after sunset, I drove out into the virgin desert that lay wondrously close to the small, university town in the United Arab Emirates where I work. The flaming orb of the sun sat on the rim of the horizon for several seconds as if in final salute to the tribulations of the day, before sinking like melted butter beyond the hem of the world. As I approached the rolling dunes that swept across my vision like a predatory ocean of undulating sand, I abandoned the car as the final vestige of all that I hold dear to the routine of my day. Alone and on foot within this dusty sea of shadowy dusk, with nothing but the sand under my feet and the thin line of the horizon to define my vision of the here and now, I suddenly feel alone and afraid, wrapped within the sheer physicality of raw nature, allowing me to finally feel the power of something pure and uncompromising. An unchartered fear of the unknown takes hold and seizes my heart, throwing it unceremoniously to powerful forces beyond my reckoning or control, forces that render me momentarily under the inscrutable gaze flowing out of the aesthetic face of Mother Nature.

What is it about the great deserts, forests, and oceans of the globe that render us as insignificant mortals when we confront them alone in all their sublime grandeur? In fact, if you ponder the possibilities, Mother Nature has no real outside or inside—no skin and no heart—but instead presents itself as some vast combination of outer and inner worlds whose unity creates a reality that cannot be denied, a metacosmic symbol with a sack full of wonders that transcends itself by being much more than the sum of its materiality or even its power to imprint upon the soul its sense of the Other. In the presence of raw nature, we stand truly alone, while the mind is enveloped by the innocence of Nature’s beginning and enduring timelessness.

By the time I had left the road and walked beyond the crest of a nearby dune, an eerie darkness had overtaken the land. Sunsets are swift in such places without the noise and glare of city life to foster the illusion of a lingering day. The immensity of the desert had suddenly become the venue of some vast infinity. I had fallen through a crack in the universe; something within me had broken open to allow the in-pouring of knowledge that transcended the mere input of the senses. Overhead, the night sky was rippling with stars, like diamonds set against black velvet, highlighting in their infinitesimality the blackness of the heavens and sending their minute specks of light across light years to create a profound sense of reverence, complementing the halo of descending dusk that cast shadows across the land. The faint light of multiple star clusters seemed to pulsate and beckon one another through that vast ocean of night as thought they were in conspiracy to confound the insignificant mortals that gazed up at them in wonder. Their twinkling amounts to whispers in the night. Far above the desert below, the canopy of stars created great rivers of light across the celestial dome. The Milky Way streamed across the sky with its multiple tributaries, creating a grand promenade through the city of God. There seemed to be no ground under my feet, but only the abyss of a star-studded space falling away forever; while those fragile stars fell into my open soul like affectionate children, whispering comforting thoughts of the magnificence of God.

Also, we should not forget to mention the awesome silence that bears witness to the reality of sound by virtue of its sheer emptiness. “Nature’s silence is its one remark,” Anne Dillard has written, as if in making this one remark, silence has uttered the iconic essence of what needs to be known. I was no longer in the desert and beneath the night sky; I floated above and beyond it, as though I had passed through these symbolic images of nature and arrived on the other side of some invisible door to witness a revelation whose significance presented me with an insight that would last me a lifetime. “What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince to his pilot in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s well known book The Little Prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well.” The hidden presence of the Spirit is my hidden well and I am willing to cross vast stretches of the desert within me to give expression to what lies beyond the landscape of the mind and heart.

* * *

The sense of the sacred that I found that evening in the desert escapes our mental and even our intuitive grasp. It arrives as a momentary experience and then quickly departs, leaving us abandoned once again in the numbing physicality of this world. Perhaps the problem lies in the relentless forward movement of time, dragging us along the earthly plane, giving rise to the feeling of being taken into places where even angels fear to tread. Time’s perpetual motion wraps us within its fluid embrace. We never see the world as a moment frozen in time. If time stopped suddenly, like the feeling of time lapse during an earthquake, then a glimpse of eternity may momentarily become possible, producing a genuine sense of the eternal within the continuum of temporal time.

The temporary cessation of time’s arrow would create a static and frozen world, held in reserve as a parenthetical pause in life’s perpetual movement, to reveal a crack in the forward movement of time’s continuum. Birds would halt in mid-air as though frozen in time to reveal a beauty of grace in formal flight. The voice of the river would freeze up to become as silent as stone. Snowflakes would fall; but never land; the bud would open, but never fully bloom. All movement would suddenly halt and all sound would immediately be reduced to silence. It is the pause between breaths; ice at melting point, the moment when water disappears into steam, a moment to question whether that quantum speck is a particle or a wave. Rainbows and mirages would freeze in situ to become visible and never disappear. Bees would halt in flight in the pause between the flutter of wings. The progress of earthly life would be brought to an abrupt and unexpected standstill. There would be silence within sound and darkness within vision and a blackness so fleeting it would capture the mystery of eternity in a single blink of the eye. What touches the mind may be perplexing; but what touches the heart is never forgotten. A hunger would develop for the understanding of these mysteries, to feel their presence and enter their depths, before eternity would disappear once again and time’s arrow would go on its merry way once again.

Look to the night sky. What would happen if these milky promenades of light appeared only once in a hundred years. How people would wait patiently and savor the privilege of viewing this miracle of the night sky. At the appointed hour, they would flock out of their houses at twilight to witness the city of God that would suddenly appear before them as a tribute to the enduring presence of His Spirit. For one brief moment, the mystery of the night sky would be revealed in full dress, resplendent to the eye and bewildering to the imagination.

Never having seen it before and having waited for its arrived for untold ages, we would marvel at its appearance and search within the cavern of our deepest sympathies for an explanation that would make sense to us and serve as an enduring revelation of all that is true and real. One person might see a pitch black drapery that harbors within its folds pin-pricks of light from a realm beyond the darkness of heaven. Another person might see a blue-black bolt of velvet cloth replete with star dust that glows as twinkling stars against the dark mystery of the universe. Whatever individuals might see with their eyes, its singular message could not be denied, namely worlds are born and universes created that bear no direct relation to our own humble existence, except to extend to us messages of wonder and mystery of what lies beyond the horizon of the mind.

Nature traces back its infancy to the Garden of Eden. In fact, the realm of Eden still exists as a reflection within the world of nature, and the silent sanctuaries of nature around the globe still remember the ethereal ambience and beauty of the original, primordial garden that humanity’s father and mother once enjoyed as second nature. We may have fallen from grace and forfeited the direct perception of God, but the fate of the human microcosm was not the fate of the universal macrocosm. If humans have lost their natural luminosity and primordial powers and fallen from grace, the great universe that surrounds humankind—including virgin nature, the macrocosmic symbols of the sun, moon and planets, and the meta-cosmic spheres of space and time—remains as a symbolic image of the other side of reality. Its magnificent beauty, the harmony and order of its circular movement, its intelligent design and perfection, and its capacity to convey profound meaning and high spiritual emotion, all point without question, not to parallel universes that scientists today like to speculate about, but to one single universe whose outer form reflects inner spirit.

All the elements of virgin nature still retain in principle the primordial qualities of beauty, serenity and holiness that people the world over seek and that they can find within its sacred symbols if they listen carefully and with sympathy to the messages that are implicit within the silent places of nature. The silence of forests, the majesty of distant mountains, and the brilliance of the setting sun all unanimously testify to the balance and healing properties within nature that point to a spiritual presence that can calm disquieted minds and balance the disharmony of unhappy souls. The yearning to return to nature that we witness during these times reflects the deep-seeded yearning for the beauty, tranquility, and peace that are fundamental desires of human nature; but that are far distant memories for modern individuals who must cope in their daily lives with the debilitating ugliness of the world and the stressful complexity of life in our huge, impersonal and virtually inhuman metropolises.

The journey through a natural environment has the potential to lead us into hidden sanctuaries that we could never dream up on our own. Nature lies all around us to witness and behold; we only need to listen to and absorb its symbolic significance as a gateway to another, higher world of the Spirit. The true price of wisdom lies in being able to give up the superficial and inconsequential affairs that clutter our days and receive the only treasure worth having in compensation. When you are weary of the misery in your life, look to the sunrise as it climbs above the horizon like a flaming torch to illuminate the world with its warmth and light. When you feel unhappy and cannot account for why, let the wind and the rain sweep your heart clean. When you feel confused or depressed and the mind is taking you to places you may not want to go, think of the profound symbols of nature and their resounding messages of hope that can be drawn from their eloquent silence. Then, we will blossom like the almond tree and our lives will speak of God.