Healing The Wasteland
By: Ayesha Foot
I am feeling so much pain at the desecration of the earth that I feel the need find a way to heal the wasteland. What triggered this feeling of urgency for me was the destruction of an orchard not 20 yards from my home, which was the habitat for a rich variety of wildlife. I expressed my agony in this Lament.
Come back, my love, my green one
I miss your laughter
And your shy beauty.
Hot tears flow
As I listen in vain
For your Hu-hu-hu-hu.
Where have you gone
Now your home is destroyed,
The land laid waste?
'When you hear the water-bird
Rain is not far away',
My uncle taught me.
The parched land cracks
The trees are dying
The beasts search in vain for food -
And the water-bird has fled.
I usually find it helpful to process my deepest feelings by writing, but at this point words failed me. So I picked up a paintbrush in an attempt to work through what was stirring within me. Once again it was as though my hands were able to explore where my rational mind could not enter. The image that arose was the Grail, but the symbolism contained in the painting was intensely feminine and touched upon archetypes my conscience mind did not know : the blood, which turned blue in the chalice, the serpent, the living water regenerating the land. In my initial sketch I wrote "RAHMAN" at the top and "LACHMA" at the bottom. I came to realise that in my picture, I am the grail. This seems to mean that in order to heal the wasteland, we need to begin with inner work.
People are beginning to realise that we have lost our sense of connection to the Cosmos and our inter-relatedness with all living things, even with the earth itself. For many centuries our connection with the Mother (one aspect of the Divine Femine) has been forgotten. Until we recognise both masculine and feminine in the Unity, we struggle to find this harmony and completeness within ourselves. The reconnection with the Divine Feminine cannot be separated from the inner quest for wholeness. Only when we no longer look outside ourselves for the satisfaction of our deepest needs, when we no longer project upon others the means of fulfilment - in which we are always bound to be disappointed - can we relate at the fullest level to one another. Then we can begin to experience real compassion for all beings.
I must refer once again to Desert Wisdom as a source for this work, for I have been working for some months with the body prayers given there and am beginning to learn something of the inner voices which come from my sub-conscious soul, to identify their longings, and to hear the voice of Wisdom. My prayer has been:
Open my eyes that I may see
My ears that I may hear
My taste, my touch, my sense of smell
That I may live consciously in your presence
Moment by moment.
Finding the Divine in everything around us is suggested by Hazrat Inayat Khan's phrase "the sacred manuscript of Nature, the only scripture which can enlighten the reader." This ability is tawil, tracing back to the archetype, penetrating the inner meaning. This is very similar to Neil Douglas-Klotz's work with the written word, finding multiple layers of meaning. Corbin, in Temple and Contemplation, Kegan Paul, 1986, calls it 'harmonic perception', hearing the same sound at many levels.
In our inner work we become the grail, the cauldron of Wisdom. But in order to heal the earth, the water of life must flow freely, must bear fruit in our own time and place so that we become 'food - lachma, Wisdom's gift for what comes after'. There will be a flowering of creativity, both for the individual and for the group.
I have a vision of a Grail Quest for our time : a network of people dedicated to inner work with the concentration of healing the wasteland, sharing their experiences and coming joyously together sometimes to celebrate their connection with Nature. This might take the form of the observation of the seasons or the phases of the moon, or carrying out projects together eg creating a place of beauty where people could come for rest and refreshment, or creating a wildlife haven, CONNECTING DEEPLY with the earth. I would suggest that we begin by using the practices given in Desert Wisdom, for I know from experience how powerful it is when a group is united in this way while seeking as individuals to find their true and unique role in the ongoing drama of the development of the Cosmos.
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