The nature of the light which I have described in these recent podcasts is that it comes direct from the Source, from the undifferentiated Essence. It awakens us to an awareness of the oneness and multiplicity of creation, and the primal need for praise and thanksgiving. With this light we can return to the wonder of the first day—to the song of creation that is alive in the love within our hearts. 

In this episode I talk about death, a subject central to the life of a mystic. The Sufi says that we should “die before we die,” die to the ego, and its illusory sense of a separate self, and awake to the truth of our eternal nature. Lifetime after lifetime I have made this journey, from the mountains of Tibet to Zen monasteries, and finally to the green hills and coastal wetlands of California. Here I wait, watching the seasons change, until the door opens and I can fully pass into the vastness. 

The teachings of the Tao have always been a hidden influence in my own journey, its qualities of silence and stillness, and a relationship to the “natural order of things.” Here I explore the way the teachings of the two great masters, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, give us a “firm foundation” to living in these toxic times, helping us to reconnect to the song of creation, the primal spirit that moves through all things. 

The path of the mystic has drawn me deep into the inner worlds. Returning to our fragile Earth and my own vulnerable self, I become a place where the worlds come together. In this meeting something comes alive; an unnamable, unknowable Essence takes on form, receives a heartbeat and a breath. And we can participate in this mystery, our individual consciousness be awake to divine beauty and wonder, witness Its oneness.  

My own story has been a journey of love. Sitting at the feet of my teacher I experienced a love that was all-embracing, and which took me on its path, back to the Beloved and also into life. Half a century later a new quality of love has returned, simple and most ordinary, a living light in the web of creation which stretches to the stars and beyond. And because love belongs to oneness, I know that this love I feel belongs to all that exists as well as the primal emptiness I experience in deep meditation. It is my own story and also my gift to life, to the Earth, to the heart of the world.

A final piece that describes part of my own journey into the light and back again, a personal description of the landscape of light and love into which I was taken, and how this landscape has defined much of my later years. I also hope that the angels and devas that have become the companions of my old age will at some time in the future be a part of a reawakening world, an animate Earth becoming fully alive.

We are surrounded by many unseen worlds of angels and nature devas, spirit guides and elemental beings, and yet we have cut ourself off from these worlds, their wisdom and guidance. We are helped in so many mysterious ways about which our present culture knows nothing. This short reflection reminds us of the multidimensional world in which we live, these hidden companions of our journey in life.

Praying for the Earth as a living being, I feel the love that runs through all things, every cell and every star. I sense that love is really all we have to give, and the meaning behind every experience that touches the soul. Love is life’s greatest gift and our greatest gift back to life. And especially at this time the Earth is calling out to be loved, to be held in the heart, in prayer and thanksgiving.

In this time between stories, where are the visions to guide us, the dreams to follow? How can we understand the conflicting forces that define our world and our shared future without this deeper wisdom? We have to learn once again how to listen to the rivers and wind, and to open the door to the visionary worlds that guided our ancestors. 

In this third podcast series I return to familiar themes: living at the end of an era, in a time of great dying, and yet holding a thread to a living future—a thread woven in ancient memories as well as visions of a new way to live with the Earth and Her more-than-human inhabitants. But this series is also more personal, what it means for me as a mystic to grow old in such a darkening landscape, hearing the Earth cry. 

These are stories of the heart, words which belong to the depths of my soul as well as to the empty places I have wandered, the visions I have seen, the beauty and sorrow I have come to know. And always a return to what is simple, which sings with the beauty and wonder of our shared existence—the blue heron in the lagoon, feathers sometimes ruffled against the wind, the red-tailed falcon that came to sit on a branch outside my window, my love for the Earth.