I want to live in a mystical, magical world where nothing is as it seems. As I look around, I think that is just about where I actually am. So I might as well get comfortable with it.
For me, that is the life of a contemplative. I don’t mean to be someone who is withdrawn, living apart from the world, lost in their own imagination. For a long time, that seemed to be what contemplation was about. Being lost in the space between one’s two ears.
Now I think a contemplative is deeply engaged with the world and engages it with vigor, awareness, and intimacy. This is not the frenzy of running about in the world. It is walking thru the forest with special glasses on that allow me to see the trees as they really are. It means I have to first cleanse my mind of all preconceptions of what treeness is. It’s forgetting what I’ve learned a White Pine is and seeing, touching, smelling this tree. My imagination and memory are put aside. My mind and heart are open, alert and engaged with this tree.
This is how I find my mystical, magical tree. This is how it exists in my mystical, magical world.