Tuesday May 26, 2009
Location: Prajna Mountain Refuge, New Mexico

To come back to this place has been a glorious experience. The last time I was here the landscape was blanketed in snow, the rivers were frozen, and I spent many nights in the lodge by the fire in solitude. This time has been marked by an expansive quality that seems to permeate every inch of all things. The landscape is bursting forth in spring bloom, and the rivers and creeks are gurgling in a language that I swear if you spent the time, would begin to expose truths beyond the realms of our deepest understanding.

The solitude has mostly broken into pieces as the forty or more Upaya residents and Prajna guests crisscross the landscape. They move from their tents nestled in the surrounding forest towards the lodge ready to fall into zazen practice. They circle in prayer before meals expressing gratitude for every morsel of food and for the elements and life forms of which the food is comprised. They spend their days in service of the landscape and Prajna itself. Much like my father has always done, they work as a form of meditation and contemplative practice. Some, using buckets, usher worms from the far side of the acreage to the garden. Others work in the garden itself, building beds, layering organic matter, and securing the surrounding fence to keep the elk from accessing the envisioned future bounty. There are still others who work toil atop the pump house securing a new roof, while I to a large degree in solitude, a voyeur looking across the landscape, work on building a permanent solar shower for Roshi and the Prajnaites who will reside up here throughout the summer.




There are very few sources of tension up here both personally and among the larger group. I have to say it’s one of the largest collections of mindful, respectful, communicative, and overall conscious individuals that I have ever been in the presence of.

A few nights into this retreat Roshi asked us all to think about our work in terms of metaphor. Working on this shower, to be mounted upon a steep roof, I’ve been mostly concerned with building a secure structure through which water can find its way towards a process of cleansing. Like water this metaphor has permeated my entire time here. I’ve been building my physical body through work, and although I may still have a few loose screws, I’m working towards a secure state of being that will do well to carry a healthy flow with deep cleansing energy.

It’s been raining for most of the week, and it’s been hard on the people here. I can see them walking about with wet shoes propping up drenched pant-legs, yet they are still mostly smiling, embracing whatever the present moment lays before them.

Marty, who lives up here full time, invited a friend of hers by the name of Van Clothier, to visits and take us for a walk and discuss watershed restoration. We began at the top of the property up the mountain, the source, examining the impact of roads on the watershed. We talked about how to design roads and work with the surrounding landscape to ensure that the foundation of your route doesn’t end up downstream, leaving you with ruts and an abundance of repair work.

We then moved on downstream following the water as Van and Marty together showed us examples of headcuts; small, or large waterfalls that slowly work their way upstream as they carry away earth and rock, eating away the landscape. Things happen in different timescales depending on the volume of flowing water, sometimes they move in geological time, sometimes in decades, years, minutes, or seconds. But in any case, the power of water to move mountains is undeniable.

"Everything about rivers has some kind of parrallel in human life. They are the richest source of metaphor in all of nature, and for obvious reasons. They brim with life, as we do; they are as vocal as we are; their moods are endlessly variable, as ours are; and their ceaseless flow duplicates our sense of time. Nothing we can observe in landscape is more riveting than a river in full flood, rampaging and muscular, sweeping all before it. Yet a flood is episodic, and slow change is working all the time." - The Walk, William DeBuys

Nearing the end of our walk through the watershed, Van explained to us the Central Tendency of Rivers: the tendency to meander. See, the thing is that rivers seem to abhor straight lines, and as they flow they tend to oscillate for reasons unknown into curved waterways. Humans with our notions of progress and linear productivity have in many cases tried to straighten waterways throughout North America, and in some cases, with rebar and concrete, have succeeded, but overall our “progress” has been a massive and destructive failure.

Not only does fast moving water usually increase erosion and its destructive nature, but to increase the speed of water is in no way in our best interests or in the interests of our ecological well being. Every time we slow water down, we increase the vibrancy of ecosystems, we decrease erosion, and we increase the base flow of water throughout seasonally dryer periods, which serves both the landscape and humanity.

I once heard a quote by Bill Mollison who is credited as the founder of permaculture. He said, “When I look out at a forest, I see a standing lake.” Van said something I also really enjoyed, and I’m paraphrasing, “The goal of every creek, stream, and river is to get to the ocean, and to take the mountain we’re standing on with it.”

Other themes this week have been complexity theory, whole systems thinking, and the ability of natural systems (including humans) to self-organize. When people first arrived at Prajna, rather than being greeted by a strict hierarchical work structure, they were given basic direction of the work to be done and then set free to find their place in the chaos. I think at first there was confusion, but then the need emerged for assessment of the work to be done, followed very naturally and harmoniously by the people finding their individual rhythms, roles, filling in the gaps as they became apparent, and in then progressing into a fluid and effective work mechanism, together as a whole. No conflict, no authoritative rules, only open tasks, open dialogs, open minds and open hearts.

And this brings me back to the Central Tendency of Rivers. It seems that life and the natural ecology that we are all part of is fluid in nature. If we can find ways to surrender to the flow of all things we most likely will also find ourselves harmoniously organized and functioning as a whole within a universal complexity far beyond linear understanding. To a large degree I feel we need to drop the male mind of compartmentalization in favor of a more holistic female interconnectedness. Or maybe the answer is to drop the mind altogether and begin to understand that beyond our linear control lies a intuitive structure where things emerge and fall into place naturally without effort or thinking.

I think it’s within our nature to function like the ant or bee colony, every person functioning as a part of the whole. However I also believe that the current power structures of this contemporary society thrive on our unconscious ability to self-organize. They introduce the stimuli and we all respond accordingly and continue to support and foster this clearly linear system, whether by shopping, fighting, or feeling without an awareness of ourselves or the whole. All of this linearity, like a linear river carved by man, leads to erosion.

The key is for us all to awaken to a level of consciousness where we can understand these patterns and processes and begin to move with the fluidity of water towards a true and personal ecology. If we can return to this place of meandering we may again see ourselves reflected in all that is around us, and begin to understand that kindness, compassion and stewardship are the only ways for us to move forward as a whole.


peace,
d

Pics Top to Bottom
Prajna Landscape
Garden Workers 1
Garden Workers 2
Solar Shower Process
Marty & I
Van Clothier & Group
Meandering Creek
My Office ;-)

So I'm back up at The Prajna Refuge to help out with their annual work week and reconnect with Roshi and the Upaya gang. There will be 40-50 people up here starting today and we've been working like mad to get ready for them so I' haven't had much time to blog. But once they get here I promise I'll find some quiet time off in a corner to write down some of the thoughts I've been having and post some pictures of this ever increasingly beautiful place.

It may be a little tricky since the work week is also a retreat and internet connections are being discouraged. Maybe some stealth posting late at night ;-)

peace,d