Of Gateways and Beauty

January 27, 2012 by Gus diZerega

Continued from Page 1

Consider that as we walk through a forest, or just stroll upon the land, we are continually intersecting and meshing our personal fields with those of the more-than-human world within which we live. Just as these fields impact us, so ours impact the land around us. It is sad that in this society the chief human impact is destructive even as we try and get into wild nature to help attain some inner peace and greater perspective on our lives. But it needn't be so, and while this insight is particularly in tune with a Pagan sensibility, it is hardly confined to one.

If we are immersed in changing gestalts of energy fields, some small and temporary, some generated by plate tectonics and other titanic sources, and most in between, the idea of gateways gains credence. This is particularly the case if those fields spill over into other dimensions, as I believe they do.

When a place, big or small, fleeting or long-lived, attracts your attention as particularly important for you, honor it. In doing so you add your own energy to that spot in a respectful way. This strengthens your own connections to the powers of the earth.

Perhaps walking in this thoughtful and aware way is the insight about "beauty" expressed so wonderfully in the Navajo Blessing Way chant:

In beauty (hózh'q) I walk

With beauty before me I walk

With beauty behind me I walk

With beauty above me I walk

With beauty around me I walk

It has become beauty again

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1/27/2012 5:00:00 AM

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About Gus diZerega

Gus diZerega is a Gardnerian Elder with over 25 years practice, including six years close study with a Brazilian shaman. He has been active in interfaith work off and on for most of those 25 years as well. He has conducted workshops and given presentations on healing, shamanism, ecology and politics at Pagan gatherings in the United States and Canada. Follow Gus on Facebook. Gus blogs at Pointedly Pagan

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