Blue Ocean Nature-Themed Meditation Unknown

 
Welcome to Tuesday and our feature on nature as a window into the divine with a reflection based on the writing of Carl Safina, this time from The View from Lazy Point.
The Sarum Prayer
God be in my head—and in my understanding
God be in my eyes—and in my looking
God be in my mouth—and in my speaking
God be in my heart—and in my thinking
God be at my end—and at my departing
Wisdom of Jesus Portion
Matthew 7: 12
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”
Reflection Based on The View from Lazy Point
In his fourth book, The View from Lazy Point, Carl Safina’s spiritual take on nature emerges with heightened clarity. The book opens with a quote from Howard’s End, by E. M. Forrester: “Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon… Live in fragments no longer. Only connect.”
Toward the end of the book, Safina writes of his understanding of what it means to be religious in the best sense. “Religare,” he writes, using the Latin, “means to re-tie, or to gather to bind…thus the word “religation”—reconnection—is one root of the word, “religion.” Albert Einstein said our task is to “widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Now Safina gets right to his point: “So what I guess I’m trying to say is that, though I’m a secular person and a scientist, I believe that our relationship with the living world must be mainly religious. But I don’t mean theological. I mean religious in the sense of reverent, revolutionary, spiritual, and inspired. Reverent because the world is unique, thus holy. Revolutionary in making a break with the drift and downdraft of outdated, maladaptive modes of thought. Spiritual in seeking attainment of a higher realm of human being. Inspired in the aspiration to connect crucial truths with wider communities. Religious in precisely this way: connection, with a sense of purpose” (The View from Lazy Point, 324–225).
This is a sense of “religious” that I can embrace. And it seems to comport with the great religious figures of the ages, including my personal favorite, the teacher of the Sermon on the Mount. In this midrash on Torah, he called for a radical embrace of non-rivalrous love with these words—the words, not of a Hallmark Card, but of his narrow path that leads to life, in contrast with the wide path that leads to destruction: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”
This phrase, “the law and the prophets” referred to the Bible that Jesus knew. In other words, if our reading of sacred text violates the rule of empathy-love, then it is a bad reading of sacred text. Worse than that, it violates the crucial meaning of religion: “Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.” And his.
And Safina’s religious love of the wild and its inhabitants enhances my reading of this rule for reading the law and the prophets (his bible) aright: in everything do to others as you would have them do to you. Others, that’s an important word. In the Abrahamic faiths, God is the ultimate Other. That is, God is “set apart” from all else, uncreated, unique. Just as Safina defines holy as “unique.” To love the ultimate other, we must love the proximate others. And who is to say that this word, “others” is limited to human others? Could it not refer as well to “others than us humans”—that is to all living creatures? Albert Einstein’s expanding circle of compassion is one that embraces compassion toward ourselves, our loved ones, our groups, our nation and the others of our species with whom we don’t identify in these ways. But it doesn’t end there. It encompasses “all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” This is what the indigenous nations who came here long before the Europeans arrived have been trying to tell whoever will listen

 
Welcome to Tuesday and our feature on nature as a window into the divine with a reflection based on the writing of Carl Safina, this time from his latest, Becoming Wild.
The Sarum Prayer
God be in my head—and in my understanding
God be in my eyes—and in my looking
God be in my mouth—and in my speaking
God be in my heart—and in my thinking
God be at my end—and at my departing
Wisdom of Jesus Portion
John 5: 19
Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.”
Reflection Based on the Writings of Carl Safina
In Becoming Wild, Carl Safina explores the mysteries or beauty and culture. For example, how is that we seem to share a sense of what is beautiful not only within our own species, but also, often, with other species? Within a given animal culture, how does the sense of what is beautiful coalesce around certain things and not others?
It turns out that animals are prone to imitate each other. And not just by copying gestures and external behaviors, but in what René Girard called mimetic desire.
Safina writes: “Animals are often attracted to what they see other animals attracted to. This means that what an animal sees as attractive is also subject to cultural influence and social learning. If that seems subtle, don’t be fooled. It’s the big show-stopping dance number, with implications that reverberate across Life, through time, and to the far horizons.
It’s obviously true for us humans that we’re attracted to what we see others attracted to. Turns out, the social power of mere preference is astonishingly widespread. Female guppies like brightly colored males, but they can learn to like drab males if they observe many females mating with them…This tendency to ‘mate with someone who looks like the one you’ve seen others mate with’ has been documented in fish called mollies; It’s even been documented in fruit flies.” (Becoming Wild, 188–189)
We share big stretches of our DNA code with things like lettuce and fruit flies. Imitative desire is a truth about ourselves that we prefer not to face, but the advertising industry knows better. It runs deep in our DNA.
Sometimes imitative desire drives what we would call evil. Someone in a crowd starts chanting “lock her up!” and soon everyone is joining in. It’s how crowds can turn into mobs, imitative desire. But it can also work for good. I grew up in Detroit, with lots of time outdoors, but with very little exposure to the wild. Camping was a stretch. I thought farmland was what “nature” looked like. OK, I’ve been to Yosemite and been awestruck. But my experience of the wild is impoverished. And yet, through the writings Carl Safina and others who love the wild, I mean really love the wild, and the creatures who make their home there, I have come to love it too, by imitative desire. For which I am thankful. In this case, I know the world better, thanks to imitative desire.
Meditation: Sounds of the Rainforest
For our meditation, as you listen to the sounds of the rainforest in the background, let your mind drift to any experience of creatures with whom we humans share this glorious planet. Do any particular creatures whose presence delights you come to mind? What do they like that you could like better by imitative desire? Maybe it’s your dog, who gets all excited when you come home—maybe your dog’s desire could help you like yourself better. Or maybe it’s the birds who seem to treat every new morning like a celebration event. Maybe they could help you take delight in a new day, even before your morning coffee. Over the next minute let your mind wander into the realm of imitative desire, to awaken your own attractions to the manifold wonders of this world.
Prayer to the Spirit
Fire of the Spirit, life of the lives of creatures,
spiral of sanctity, bond of all natures,
glow of charity, lights of clarity

 
Welcome to Tuesday and our feature on nature as a window into the divine with a reflection based on the writing of Carl Safina, this time from his latest, Becoming Wild.
The Sarum Prayer
God be in my head—and in my understanding
God be in my eyes—and in my looking
God be in my mouth—and in my speaking
God be in my heart—and in my thinking
God be at my end—and at my departing
Wisdom of Jesus Portion
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed (Mark 1: 35).
But Jesus himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray (Luke 5: 16).
Reflection Based on the Writings of Carl Safina
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Carl Safina got up, left the house and went to a solitary place—in this case, a remote island in Peruvian Amazon, populated by birds. There, Safina describes an experience that some would call prayer. His own words now: “As the night’s shades rise and the eyelids of morning begin to open, the world retells its creation story. I was expecting something like the explosive dawn chorus of springtime in the Northeast. But here the sun comes up slower. And so does the chorus. It starts with chanting. Dawn’s main meditation soundtrack begins with razor-billed curassows…As the curassows coo their oms into the ravine, their meditative tolls get overlaid by three soft, insistently plaintive whistles, the timorous affirmations of an undulated tinamou. These two calls somehow reach each other inside my mind, meshing into one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. The slow rhythm is like the whole forest breathing… While the sky is still blue-gray, degrees of illumination cue others to appear on the soundstage. Oropendolas begin calling, their notes sounding like big drops of thick liquid. Motmots begin adding their rhythmic tom-tom beats. Their notes so meditative and soothing that they set my mind adrift, like a boat in long swells. Rise. Subside. I am afloat on an emerald sea amid shoals of birds. The volume comes up, comes up, until we are wrapped in a shimmering surround of songs and calls, some melodic, some emphatic. It literally dawns on me that countless generations of singers who’ve continually come and gone have performed this soundtrack of renewed existence daily here for countless thousands of years. And if all had been as it was supposed to be, there’d be no end in sight (Becoming Wild, pp. 153–154).
Later he writes, addressing us: “How long and rich a morning can be if you bring yourself fully to it. Come to a decent place. Bring nothing to tempt your attention away. Immerse in the timelessness of reality. Attention paid is repaid with interest (pp. 179).
And so I wonder: What if spirituality isn’t straining to believe something? What if spirituality is relaxing into the timelessness of reality and paying attention? As Moses told the Hebrews newly liberated from their bondage, “Hear, O Israel.” Or these words by another teacher: “Those who have ears, let them hear.”
Meditation: Sounds of the Rainforest
For our meditation: picture yourself in a forest filled with life. Imagine that it is early in the morning, while it is still dark. You’ve found a comfortable spot to rest and wait. Imagine that you’ve drifted off to sleep in the quiet that sometimes marks even the forest before the inhabitants of the forest, the monks and nuns and priests of creation, have arisen to greet the dawn. They begin their celebration of the new day and at first you incorporate their sounds into a pleasant dream. But then you awake to discover a strange beauty beyond your wildest dreams. Over the next minute, go ahead.
Prayer to the Spirit
Fire of the Spirit, life of the lives of creatures,
spiral of sanctity, bond of all natures,
glow of charity, lights of clarity, taste
of sweetness to sinners, be with us and hear us.
—Hildegard of Bingen, 12th century nun, writer, composer,

 
Welcome to Tuesday and our feature on nature as a window into the divine with a reflection based on the writing of Carl Safina, this time from his latest, Becoming Wild, with a special focus on the first word of that title.
The Sarum Prayer
God be in my head—and in my understanding
God be in my eyes—and in my looking
God be in my mouth—and in my speaking
God be in my heart—and in my thinking
God be at my end—and at my departing
Torah Portion
Exodus 3 (Robert Alter translation)
And the Lord’s messenger appeared to Moses in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush, and he saw, and look, the bush was burning with fire and the bush was not consumed…And the Lord said, “I indeed have seen the abuse of My people that is in Egypt and its outcry because of its taskmasters. I have heard, for I know its pain…and now go, that I may send you to Pharaoh and bring My people the Israelites out of Egypt…And Moses said to God, “Look, when I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is his name?’, what shall I say to them?’ And God said to Moses, ‘Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh’ I-Will-Be-Who-I-Will-Be.”
Reflection Based on the Writings of Carl Safina
How does a land-based species morph into one that resides in the ocean? As is the case with whales, whose flippers have the same boney structure of our hands and feet? As Safina writes in Becoming Wild, “Evolution isn’t the sudden appearance of a new species, nor of instant large mutations. Radical mutations are usually fatal. Evolutionary changes are a generally slow, advantageous riff on the average… For example, the evolution of whales from land mammals didn’t happen because a litter of land grazers were born with flippers instead of legs. That bridge-too-far mutation wouldn’t work. Rather, the first step was for a wet-land dwelling population to develop webbing between their toes, like a Labrador retriever’s, leading to a more aquatic life benefitting from having webbed feet like an otter’s, leading to flipper feet like a sea lion’s, then to flippers like a seal’s that remain like flexible hands in mittens with nails that can scratch an itch, then eventually to the stiff fin flippers of a whale. Elapsed time: several million years.”
In other words, evolution, that is to say the process that shapes all the life around us, is a case study in becoming—change over time.
The ancients must have had an intuition that life is a process of becoming. The mythic poem of Genesis speaks of different life forms as a top down and bottom up emerging: (“God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures…let the waters swarm with the swarm of living creatures”) As an aside, I have a friend who stood before the ocean with waves crashing, transfixed. Without the slightest self-consciousness, she began to wave her arms about like a conductor conducting a symphony, at one with the symphony. Let the earth bring forth living creatures, indeed. The title of Safina’s book begins with the word, “Becoming.” This word is tied to the most sacred word in all of the Hebrew Bible: the unspeakable Name given from within the burning bush to Moses. The four-letter Name is best translated according to Robert Alter, the pre-eminent translator of the Hebrew Bible, as “I will be who I will be.” Not, as was earlier thought, “I am who am.” The latter is a Name of Ultimate Being, but “I will be who I will be” is a Name of Ultimate Becoming.
Evolution is a becoming process. And the Mystery speaking from the burning bush to Moses is all about becoming. Like successive populations a land-based species living near the water undergoing “advantageous riffs on the average” until feet accumulate enough small changes over time to become the flipper of a whale. Elapsed time: several million years. If we participate in life which is a process of becoming, what good company—a divine presence

 
Welcome to Tuesday and our feature on nature as a window into the divine with a reflection based on the writing of Carl Safina, this time from Beyond Words: How Animals Think and Feel.
Note: for those new to our weekly Blue Ocean nature-themed meditation series, new episodes are published every 2–3 weeks, and only the new ones will appear on the Tuesday, nature-themed feed. Episodes of the Blue Ocean Daily Prayer series publish every day (Mon-Sat), and include repeats. 
The Sarum Prayer
God be in my head—and in my understanding
God be in my eyes—and in my looking
God be in my mouth—and in my speaking
God be in my heart—and in my thinking
God be at my end—and at my departing
Psalm Portion
Ps 19: 1–6
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
     and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
     and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
     their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
     and their words to the end of the world.
In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
     which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
     and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
     and its circuit to the end of them;
     and nothing is hid from its heat.
Reflection Based on the Writings of Carl Safina
Carl Safina’s writings including two central themes: First, that we can recognize traces of ourselves in other living creatures…or better sad, we can recognize traces of other living creatures in ourselves. In Beyond Words: How Animals Think and Feel, Safina says it time to move beyond the older orthodoxy of biology that said we can’t infer consciousness or emotion in non-human animals. That, it was thought, is the scientific crime of anthropomorphism—seeing human-like form in non-humans. But Safina says Darwin taught us differently. In Safina’s words, “Each newer thing is a slight tweak on something older. Everything humans do or possess came from somewhere. Before humans could be assembled, evolution needed to have most of the parts in stock, and those parts were developed for earlier models. We inherited them.” Elsewhere he writes that birds, dogs, whales, and many other creatures have all the hormones and neurotransmitters that we have to convey the experience of joy or love. We’re not the only species capable of these things, or of appreciating beauty for that matter.
So there are traces of other creatures in ourselves. That’s the first theme. And second is like unto it: The bounds of our compassion are limited by the horizons of our vision of unity. Safina offers an expansive vision of unity: “the greatest story,” he writes, “is that all life is one.” This calls for expanding what he calls the circle of compassion—to include the entire human family, but also to encompass the other creatures who are with us on this experimental planet throbbing with life.
Safina is echoing the mystics of every major spiritual tradition. In the Christian tradition, it’s the mystics who get into trouble with the church authorities for wanting, always, to expand the horizon of unity in order to extend the circle of compassion.
The songwriters of Israel had no problem with anthropomorphism. So we have this picture of the rising sun in Psalm 19, imagined as though it were a bridegroom waking up in the bridal chamber in the morning, leaping out of bed, with an extra spring in his step (we can only imagine why) and racing from one end of the sky to the other, before returning to sleep with his beloved. Classic anthropomorphism…and yet, science tells us we are profoundly connected to the sun; we are literally composed stardust—of carbon and other elements that came from exploding stars.
The storytellers of Genesis tell us that many other creatures than ourselves share “the breath of life” and evoke the delight of God a