Wilderness within – The Heartbeat of the Earth

There are these subtle moments that come to us in Nature, moments of primordial oneness when life reveals its wholeness. These are blessings that are not to be missed, intercessions of the sacred.

We experience the oneness of Nature when the head is free from the tyranny of cascading thoughts and there is an inner receptivity that allows a glimpse of the world as it really is. This transcendent state reveals a unity that pervades everything and it is good and true and beautiful.

It is in these glimpses of unity that I have seen Nature’s unveiled form and known first-hand that She is intrinsically mystical. Looking upon Her face reveals a secret weaving of the holy alliance between matter and spirit. She is an awe inspiring reflection of the beauty and mystery that reveals how matter is the veiled face of God.

We live in this mystery, inside this sacred and magical revelation of God. The folds of Her skin are where we live our lives, unaware that we are so intimate and close, unconscious of the holiness of our habitat, but we have forgotten this spiritual secret. We are travellers who have fallen asleep in the caravanserai of Her body, believing falsely that we are separated from our beloved Earth Mother. We have forgotten a deep spiritual truth that all the universe, the Earth and humanity, are one living being. We have neglected to nurture the intrinsic knowledge that we are the living pulse of the universe and a fragment of God’s seamless wholeness. We are a microcosm of the Earth and She is a microcosm of a greater form of worlds within worlds, layers of consciousness embedded within deeper and wider webs of life.

The living heartbeat
Everything we can feel, see, hear and touch is alive and it resonates with a song that is the music of the universe. This mystical symphony is heard by our inner ears. It is a sacred tune that measures the dance of life unfolding in space and time. This is the deep rhythmic pulse of all life. All life exists by virtue of this fundamental rhythm which is the heartbeat of life, of the Earth, of ourselves.

The Earth is an infinitely small part of an infinitely large unfolding universe. Her heart beats in unison with the heartbeat of the universe in an utterly ancient rhythm that weaves and dances with light throughout all of creation, from the nothingness before time to the present moment.

We see and feel this pulse of the Earth in our daily lives, it is all-pervasive. It is evident in the simplest things: The ebb and flow of the tides, the mysterious cycles of falling rain, the reliable cycle of the sun heating and cooling the ground, complex ecosystems of plants in states of growth and decay and in our own cycles of life and rebirth. In our own bodies, in our cycles of life and death, we mimic this heartbeat that measures the passing of time in a universe where time is simultaneously nonexistent. These cycles cannot be comprehended by our rational measuring of life in pinpoints and way-stations. They are a rhythm, a beat, a song and a dance that is forever changing and fluid. This is the fundamental heartbeat of all life.

Fertile emptiness, the pause between heartbeats
Within the rhythmic heartbeat there is a natural pause between beats. The pause in this heartbeat is an unknown, unseen and un-manifest substance that is the living substrate of the beat. The pause exists in the empty spaces of this heartbeat and it includes the heartbeat too. This pause between beats is not really a pause at all but an aspect of the wholeness of the breath that is moving between two poles in creation. It is the strange nothingness, the fertile darkness upon which the relationship between opposites manifests.

Our hearts, entrained to Her heartbeat, also contain this emptiness of creation and so we too are this fertile darkness upon which the songs of life are orchestrated. This means that our hearts contain the same formless fertile emptiness that is present throughout creation. Our hearts are assembled from this same deep mystery of all life. There is no separation, only a magnitude of infinite diversity which is part of one seamless whole.

Being attentive in nature, in meditation, we hear our hearts singing this song that is sacred and holy. We hear music emanating from the unbound totality, a universal symphony resounding throughout the created world. This is the strange silent symphony that emanates from the emptiness of a seashell, the silent whistling of a desert, the inner flowing stillness of a meditation.

This heartbeat is also our breath as it is drawn and exhaled, drawing our souls into and out of the created world. This dance of opposites upon fertile spaces of nothingness is the very essence of all life.

An axis of love

There is an ancient wisdom which says that the heart of the Earth, like ours, is held between the fingers of God and gently turned by His will. God’s will is the axis of love and all life oscillates around this axis.  God is also this strange nothingness that is the pause between the poles of creation. God is both the pause and the poles, both the being and the non-beingness of the heartbeat of life.

In vision I see that, as the heart is turned in the fingers of God, so it dances this partnering of opposites in long sweeping rhythmic cycles of life unfolding unto itself. This dynamic flow brings to mind a beautiful image of Earth, alive and deeply conscious, Her heart turned in the fingers of God, ever present in the eternal moment, dutifully unfolding life unto itself.

Miraculous humanity
We (humanity) are the miracles that live by virtue of this universal heartbeat. We are a mystery of self-consciousness and free will, able to look back upon creation and reflect upon our very presence within it. We are Adam and Eve, the archetypal humans who were born into creation and live in the primordial oneness of the Earth imbued with the gift of self-reflection, but in truth we are Her mind reflecting upon creation.

The Goddess Earth gave birth to self-consciousness in the form of humanity so that She may come to know the dynamics of Her own duality. Through this process of consciousness She is witnessing the aspects of Herself that appear to be separated from Her beloved creator. And in witnessing this separation She comes to know the emptiness that is the primal substrate of all creation.

It is through this act of witnessing the emptiness of the void that Her heart cries in pain and so calls the light of Her beloved to fill the emptiness with His love. Through Her emptiness She may receive more of the pure light of the creator and reflect it back to Her beloved. The purpose of humanity is to be the vehicle of Her knowing.