Reflections on Spiritual Ecology - Week 1

I've started reading Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Heart (Llewllyn Vaughn-Lee editor) this week. If the essays continue to spark my thinking as this first one has, I'll be spending some time reflecting upon this work. By the way, I've checked this copy out of our local library and would encourage the same for you.



I find Lectio Davina a strange spiritual practice, in that it can catch me by surprise - and yet that is the whole point! Take the following for example:

NEYAWENHA SKANNOH. It means "Thank you for being well." 

That caught me right off the start - but I'll continue to quote before reflecting upon it.

The greeting in itself is something of an idea of how Indian people think and how their communities operate.
     What happens to you and what happens to the earth happens to us as well, so we have common interests. We have to somehow try to convince people who are in power to change the direction that they've been taking. We need to take a more responsible direction and to begin dealing with the realities of the future to insure that there is a future for the children, for the nation. That's what we're about. it is to our advantage as well as yours to be doing that.
     In the concern and in the fights that we face as a common people, as human beings, as a species, we have to get together and we have to do things like we are doing now - meeting, sharing, learning. It all comes down to the will, what is in your heart.*

"Thank you for being well." What a greeting! how often do we thank each other for that? How often do we thank one another for showing up as their True Self - for putting their Egos and Super-Egos on the back burner so that we can meet True Self to True Self and work for the common good? How often to do we greet each other "Thank you for being well" that I might learn from you, and you from me?

I remember and interesting conversation with a friend regarding how the English speakers send out their children verses how the French speakers send out their children: "Be Good" verses "Be Wise." Each culture through their own language shapes how they (and their children and children's children) see the world. We cherish Good Behavior (what ever that is). We cherish Wisdom (what ever that happens to be). We cherish Health (how ever that appears).

What do we cherish?

Neyawenha skannoh,
Blessed Be
Joel

__________________
* Lyon, Chief Oren. "Listening to Natural Law." Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth. Vaughan-Lee, Llewellyn, ed. The Golden Sufi Center, 2013. p.7.