Meditative microcosms
invention of flowers
Slowing down
Rachel Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," didn't just kick-start the modern environmental movement, it also suggested that better protection for pollinators was required for healthy people and healthy agriculture. Without her intelligence and eloquence, we would already be living in a world of unspeakable impoverishment, one with silent Springs and fruitless Falls. As Carson wrote in The Sense of Wonder, "For most of us, knowledge of our world comes largely through sight, yet we look about with such unseeing eyes that we are partially blind."
Slowing down enough to take photographs is a meditative practice that helps us become more aware of what is right there, in front of our eyes or inside our minds. Anyone who has looked at a sunset a painting or a bee pollinating a flower and felt calm and inner joy, while their mind becomes clear and their perception sharpens, has had a taste of the realm of meditation.
Although flowers decorate most spiritual traditions. Flowers are helpful in meditation because they represent higher planes of consciousness. They echo higher worlds and their vivid colors suggest higher forms of energy. In this sense meditating on pollination as a system vital to the survival of humankind reveals a greater truth about the state of the human world which is utterly dependent on the invention of flowers.
When people think of functional gardens, they might think of a vegetable garden yielding its bounty of produce or a cut flower garden providing armloads of bouquets. However, a garden planted with corners for meditation provides another reward for its owner--peace and tranquility. Carve out a space at home for a meditation garden to sit in and you can enjoy the stress-reducing benefits of your very own pollination microcosm.
Meditation
Meditation is a mental and physical course of action that a person uses to separate themselves from their rambling thoughts and feelings in order to become fully aware of the moment. It is not about emptying the mind: it is not possible for humans to stop thinking. This mental state of mindefulness plays a part in virtually all spiritual systems, organised or personal, although some don't use the word 'meditation' to describe their particular contemplative practice. Meditation does not always have a religious element. It is a natural part of the human experience of looking intently and mentally mapping the immediate environment and is increasingly used as a therapy for promoting good health. Meditation yields a surprising number of health benefits, including stress reduction, improved attention, better memory, and even increased creativity and feelings of compassion.
Meditations of all kinds involve concentrating on something to draw attention beyond the random thought activity that is usually going on in our heads. This can involve a rock, a picture, a mantra, regular breathing, or guided visualization. Typical objects employed include a candle flame or a flower. Some people use pictures, such as a mandala - a highly colored symmetric painting - or a picture of a spiritual teacher in a high meditative state. Mantras are sounds which have a flowing, meditative quality and may be chanted out loud or inwardly. The breath is also a common focal point. Finally, guided visualization is also considered by some to be a form of meditation. With eyes closed, you may be asked by a 'teacher', to visualize a peaceful scene in nature or a healing white light or to see yourself accomplishing a goal, to name a few possibilities. You may also be asked to repeat affirmations to help you to feel good about yourself and to reinforce those good feelings. A guided visualization can help to bring one into a meditative state; also, visualization may be used once a meditative state has been reached. The Internet now provides a plethora of guided meditations based on a synthesis of sound and image.
Microcosms
A microscosm is a practical abstraction of the real world that is maintained under human control. Its purpose is to obtain a deeper insight into a wider scheme of things. Microcosms may be assembled for scientific investigations of ecosystems. They may also be used as foci for contemplation of our place in the universe. The latter are mostly reflections on very ordinary things: a local park, a lettuce leaf, a lovely morning. Other commonplace examples are a home aquarium, a potted plant and a snapshot of part of a garden which is paticularly pleasing. There are also literary microcosms. A literary microcosm is illustrated by Tolsoy's description of a battle scene from the perspective of a horse. Typically when a writer attempts to inhabit an animal's point of view it is in order to reflect back on human experience from an outside perspective, to defamiliarise the familiar. Tolstoy's purpose in the scene is not to examine the animal's consciousness, but rather to look upon humanity in a different way, just as other examples of this literary technique are likewise microcosms that throw light on human experience. Here is an extract from Tolstoy's short story 'Yardstick' in which a horse muses on the meanings of the concepts 'my' and 'mine'.
“People are guided in life not by deeds, but by words. It is not the chance to do or not do something that they enjoy, it is the chance to apply certain conventional words to objects. Among the words to which they attach most importance are my and mine, which they apply to all sorts of creatures and objects, even to land, people and horses. They have agreed among themselves that only one person shall have the right to apply the word my to a given object. And the one who wins the right to apply this word to the largest number of objects in this game they play is considered the happiest of men. Why this should be I cannot imagine, but so it is. For a long time I tried to discover some direct advantage in it, but I could not.
For instance, many of the people who called me their property did not ride me; I was ridden by quite different people. And it was not they who fed me, but quite different people. and it was not they who did me kind services, but quite different people - coachmen, grooms, and the like. And so, as a result of wide observation, I came to the conclusion that in respect to all things, not only to us horses, the conception of my, and mine, is founded on nothing but the low and bestial human instinct which they themselves call the instinct (or the right) of private property. A man says 'my house', although he does not live in it, he only builds it and keeps it up. A tradesman says 'my cloth shop', although he does not wear clothes of the finest cloth in his own shop. There are people who call a certain piece of land theirs, and yet they have never seen or put foot on that land. There are even people who call other people theirs, and yet they have never even seen those people, and the only connection they have with them is that they do them harm. There are men who call certain women their women, their wives, although these women live with other men. And people's aim in life is not to do as much good as they can, but to call as many things theirs as they can. Herein, I am convinced, lies the main difference between us and human beings. Human activities, at least the activities of all those humans with whom I have had any contact, are guided by words, while ours are guided by deeds, and this alone, to say nothing of all the other advantages we have over human beings, is sufficient to allow us to say that we stand one rung higher in the ladder of living creatures than human beings”.
These visual and literary microscosms are sometimes called 'creaturely meditations': taken from Puritan meditative practice, creaturely meditations use things to lead our thoughts to the creator of the universe: the beauty of a garden makes us think of the aesthetics of creation, the grandeur of a mountain reminds us of the majesty of creation, the terror of a storm recalls creation's power. The term creaturely is used as an adjective in reference to something that has the characteristics of a creature. A creature is a living being, particularly an animal or one reliant to or compliant to another.
pollination: the outcome
Flower gazing
Successful meditation means simply being - not judging, not thinking, just being aware, at peace and living each moment as it unfolds. Flower gazing is one of the most beautiful and powerful forms of Taoist meditation practice. Technically speaking, it's a form of "shamata (calm abiding) with object." The "object" that is used to help stabilize our mental focus is, in this case, a flower. Clearly flowers have a powerful influence on us humans, and for good reason. Their fragile beauty captivates our imagination and their very presence uplifts. But there is no hierarchy of beauty in the botanical world, although our man-made cultural attempts to create snobbery divisions amongst the plants may condition our perception for a brief while; as it does amongst our own social strata. Who is to say the dandelion in its miniature golden yellow mantle is anything inferior? Or the daisy, offering its petite white petals for perusal as a perfect contrast to the lush, verdant backdrop of field grass, which so often is taken for granted. Each blade of grass offers a story of its own if only we take the time to make friends with it. The leaves of the stinging nettle offer a fascinating symmetric story of lines and shapes when we lose our bias towards it. The term "weed" may sound derogatory, but it's only a form that most of us have not developed an appreciation for simply because they are so common to have no place in our highly planned day to day lives
Creating a spiritual garden space for reflection and meditation is itself a form of meditation. Surround yourself with flowers with fragrance and visual beauty. Place or plant flowers with symbolism to remind you of spiritual virtues. Integrate flowers with greenery for accent and for a cooling serene aesthetic. Make use of your garden beyond enjoying its beauty as you quiet and center your body, mind and spirit: consider the following:
1 "I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it. Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences".
2 "When I was still in high school (and so open to being moved) I passed by some broken asphalt. Out of the cracked street, rose a single wild flower. I can recall that though the petals trembled, it still seemed very brave. The pavement radiated away from the plant's growth, as if cracked from below by the tiny, but relentless green stalk. I stayed with the flower for a while. Something about the image, this triumphant and insistent flower rooted through street, comforted me. It comforted me, as I imagine children feel comforted when they test their parent's strength only to be reassured that strength is not only stronger but seemingly infallible, that the child (with all its temperamental caprices) cannot overcome it. That the order remains right. (At least until the child grows, and then the order changes, if order remains at all.)
3 This past week, as a storm moved over our house, we sat by our window and watched the wind, rain, and shadows have their way. We watched great blasts lash at trees and flags and flag poles. And this field of flowers, I craned my head to watch it, those closed flower heads so compliant with the storm. They bent and pulled at their stems, those thin, green things.
The storm ended and the flowers opened, craning up, it seemed, toward an almost bashful sun. Everything appeared drenched, soggy, tired, but those flowers, they pushed themselves up taller and taller. They sparkled with it. But how can it be that these flowers come apart so easily in my toddler's hands? Their petals crush, their stems snap and crumple.
He plucks a dandelion seed head from its roots and blows. In its death its life is continued, spread about our yard, our street with one dancing whoosh. We walk through a garden, and I chase after my son, instructing him, reminding him, flowers are fragile. Be gentle. Be gentle. So strong and fragile at once, these flowers. So strong and fragile at once.
4 But even if my son were to pluck a flower from its roots, that flower would not be gone. It would still be there, and there, and there. As there will always be that flower, one just has to understand what that flower is, was, and will continue to be. But I'm no longer talking about flowers. This is a meditation on life and on an old friend that will never, truly be gone".
If you would like to experience examples of "creaturely meditation", go on a morning walk, look closely at a lettuce leaf, ponder galaxies without number, stand beneath trees, and watch a bee return time and time again to a nectar point.
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