BioTheology Chapters:
1 Mountain (free)
2 The Chamber
3 Turtle Rock
4 Lajitas Lizard
5 God I: Warrior God?
6 God II: ProcessÉ
7 Scripture
8 North/Christ (Teacher)
9 Nature and Mother Earth
10 Turquoise Woman
11 South--Healer and Love>
12 Warrior
13 Shadow Dance/Bandido
14 Relationships
15 Visionary and Personal Archetypes
16 Spiritual Practice and Prayer
17 Dancin' Airport Blues
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BioTheology: Dancing with God in the Desert
BioTheology:
Dancing with God in the Desert-- For psycho-spiritual seekers in a scientific world...
What is the relevancy of God, Christ, and Scripture in today's scientific world?
What is our place and purpose in such a world?
What about psycho-spiritual growth, development, and evolution as a species and as individuals?
How can nature and science help us answer these questions?
These
questions and more are address against a background story of the
author's Native American vision quest on the desert of Big Bend, TX.
Come, meet Bandido, Turquoise Woman, and Lajitas Lizard, and the nasties. Desert dance with them, the author, and God to find your own answers and path.
The
psychobiology of God,
Self, and Spirit for living more authentically and making sense of
religion in an age of science: a journey inward toward greater
authenticity and a journey outward to others and the divine.
The Desert
"It is not
that the desert is hostile. It is wild!" --So spoke Strong
Eagle and began our vision quest.
In
the desert, life is distilled down to its basics, its primordial
essence. The desert is a place of primal wildness. It is harsh,
intense, severe, dry, hot, unrelenting, unforgiving. It is the home of
wind, sand, and rock. Extremes are the norm. Wild things, the nasties,
live there, and they are not very friendly. They have teeth, thorns,
fangs, stingers, irritating chemicals, or other deterrents. Life is
hard. But the desert is also a place of great beauty—solitude and
simplicity, panoramic sunset/sunrise vistas, radiant desert flowers,
expansive skies filled with stars and moon so big, so alive, you can
almost touch them. "Desert" in the writings here is both real
and
metaphorical. Metaphorical because we all encounter in our lives
another desert, the
desert of our
soul.
The desert of our soul is a place of internal
wilderness. If we are to grow personally and spiritually, we must
eventually go and spend time in our own soul desert. It is a place of chaos
and confusion, a time of spiritual darkness. Our journey there is often
brought on by a crisis, or maybe life just wearing us down. We can go
kicking and screaming with life throwing us there, or we can go
voluntarily. One way or the other, we will go.
Classic Native American spirituality focuses on teachings and wisdom of
nature
and the four cardinal directions, East, South, West, and North.1 The Medicine Wheel is
its mandala.
More contemporary teachings speak of the seven
directions that include three additional ones: up/above,
below/down, and center. In this mandala we move from a circle on a
surface to a
three-dimensional sphere. I have used this latter symbol in the
presentation of BioTheology.
My center direction is God. In Cherokee teachings, Center is the "now".
That time in the present moment that we all exist, even though our
heads (thoughts) may be in the past or future. God is the great, "I
am." S/he is always in the present Now.
The direction of up/above
are the cosmos and interstellar space. Down/below is Mother Earth
that includes nature.
Vision Quest
A
Vision Quest is a voluntary time of going into the desert's wildness.
Leaving behind our normal everyday life and comforts, we go out into
nature and into the desert. Here we can meet ourselves, raw,
primitive, and unbridled by cultural restraints and props. We meet our
demons and Bandidos, those soul-stealers of our life power. Grounded in
ancient, indigenous cultures, a Vision Quest is God's opportunity for
us for spiritual and personal growth--and for healing.
A
traditional Native American Vision Quest lasts four days. One
day
for each of the four cardinal directions. It is done without food,
sleep, or water (sometimes). These are physiologically stressful in and
of themselves. Add to this being out in nature, alone, and the physical
and psychological demands of nature, especially the desert, and you
have a cocktail for being pushed far out of your comfort zone--the
place where real growth and healing can begin. There is also the small
fact that at such physiological extremes you can easily enter an
altered state of consciousness.
Although not called vision quests, the great
spiritual teachers all did vision quests at the beginning of
their ministries. Jesus, Buddha, Moses,
and
Mohammed all spent time alone out in the desert or wilderness? Jesus
spent forty days
in the desert wilderness before beginning his ministry. There he
wrestled with Satan, the Big Bandido. For these great teachers, their
vision quests marked important transitions in their lives.
They
were being called into their ministries or medicine work, into a new
way of being. But first they had to confront their own Bandidos.
Teachings from the desert
Based in part on an
adaptation of Angeles Arriens', Four-Fold Way2, we will explore the seven
directions and their teachings from the desert.
We will draw from the
sciences and spiritual
traditions. From the science, we will draw from biology and
psychology, a field broadly called, psychobiology. To a secondary
degree we will also draw from quantum physics, most notably string
theory. From
spiritual traditions, we will draw from Celtic and non-dogmatic
Judeo-Christianity, and
from Native American and indigenous spirituality. From the Eastern
traditions we will draw from the wisdom of Zen Buddhism and Taoism.
What are some of
the teachings we will explore?...
Day 1: From the Center and North
Center
In
the Center is God, the Eternal Now, the Infinite, I am. God can be
visualized as a sphere who's center is everywhere and
surface is nowhere. The Great Mystery. The incomprehensible.
None-the-less we will talk about God. Our life is a journey are to God.
We
will look at this God. What is his/her nature. Is God active in our
lives. If so, how. The God of the New Testament is vastly different
than the God of the Old Testament and Torah. Are they the same God?
Biology helps us understand this difference. God is his/her own
archetype.
From the North
The
North is the place of the Teacher archetype. The Teacher does his or
her best and then lets go of outcome. We have many teachers in our
lives. In Native American/Lakota teachings the totem of this
direction is the White Buffalo. I have chosen the horse for reasons I
will explain. Christ is my Teacher in the North.
Who was/is Christ? This Jesus of Nazareth? Was he god or man? What
about his miracles, were they for real? Is his resurrection fact or
fiction? His crucifixion? Was or is he the Son of God? What does that
mean anyway? What was his message?
The North's keyword is Wisdom. In ancient
Hebrew writings Wisdom is Sophia and is the feminine side of God. The
guiding principle of the Teacher is to let go of expectations of
outcome. The Teacher teaches but it is not his/her concern if the
teachings are ignored. Its element is Water.
Day 2: South and Down
Down/Below
Like
the Great Crosses of the Celts, with foundations firmly grounded in
Mother Earth, we are creatures of Nature. We too are grounded in Mother
Earth, even though much of our current culture and civilization denies
it. From earth we came and to
earth we shall return. Like all the other creatures she supports and
nourishes, we are bound by her laws and rules. I have chosen the cougar
or mountain lion as the totem for this direction.
The archetype I have chosen for this direction is Turquoise Woman of
Navajo legends. She represents Mother Nature and the
cycles, rhythms and processes of Nature and our lives. She is also one
of my personal archetypes. She came to me in a vision many years ago
(discussed in WindWalker:
Journey into Science,
Self, and Spirit).
Natural Selection, Mother Nature's henchman and the driving force of
the evolutionary process, is alive and doing well. This process has
created and shaped life on planet Earth. It is the heart of Creation.
Stars, mountains, the cosmos, God all evolve. Creation and evolution
are ongoing.
From the South
The
South is the place of the Healer. The Healer's job is to pay
attention to what has heart and meaning. The South's keyword is Love or
Compassion.The animal totem for this
direction is Turtle, lizard, snake, or other reptile. I talk about both
Turtle Medicine and Lizard Medicine. You will meet Lajitas Lizard in my
story here. A constant visitor on my Vision Quest, he is a great
teacher. Again, I first ran into him on my journeys in WindWalker: Journey into Science,
Self, and Spirit.
Day 3: Up and West
Up/Above
The
great Celtic crosses reach toward the heavens. They remind us that in
the great cosmos of creation, we are but an insignificant microspect on
our small planet. As a planet, as a solar system, as a galaxy,
and as a species, we are young barely birthed, embryonic.
Time
and space are so vast, so awe inspiring. To look and realize this can
be both humbling and elating.
For the ancients that includes the Jewish and Christian traditions,
this was the direction of God. God lived in the Heavens above. Just as
the Greek gods and goddesses lived on Mt. Olympus. God was
seen as "other", set apart from human's looking down and reigning his
judgments, floods, and other catastrophes. My view of God is that S/he
is present here with us, within us and all of creation. He is not
other, but us.
From the West
This
is the direction of your Warrior archetype. Your Warrior is about
courage and
personal empowerment. The Lakota tradition places the Black Bear as the
totem for this direction. Black Bear sees within. Being a Warrior is
about the courage to show up and
be present. But it is not just about "out there" in the world. It is
about having the courage to be present in our inner world also. It
takes courage to face our inner demons
and our Bandido--our Shadow. To do so though is very empowering.
Black Bear looks into the
darkness inside. This is the direction of Introspection and self
knowledge. It takes courage to go into this inner darkness, to be
willing to look inside and accept those parts of us culture and society
wants us to reject and keep hidden. This direction is the path to
wholeness. Warriors have been called leaders,
protectors, shaman, adventurers.
Day 4: From the East
The
East is the direction of your Visionary archetype. The Visionary part
of you is about speaking your Truth without judgment or blame. Its
totem is the Eagle who "sees far" as it soars high above the desert
mountains. What is your Truth? Who are you really? In your full
humanity, you are divine. You are made from God-stuff. East is also the
place of spirit.
This is the beginning and ending of our story. We enter the story as I
come down from the mountain on my last day of the Quest. But it is only
as this last day draws to a close that I realize what the teaching of
my Quest was. It was about learning to dance with my Bandido--and with
God.
1. Live links (below), as drafts of chapters are written, are to
webpages that give a short description of what is covered in each
chapter. A purchase button is presented on each page to download the
chapter as .pdf files that can read on Adobe Reader. Chapter 1 is free
or complimentary.
2. This is a work in process. It will evolve as I write and revise it.
I will try to figure out how to make these revisions available at no
additional charge for those who have purchased chapters. Your comments,
corrections, and constructive critiques are encourage. In this way my
readers can be part of the creative writing process.
Prologue
1 Coming
Down the Mountain (free)
2 The Chamber
3 Turtle Rock
Day 1: Center and North (Wisdom)
4 Lajitas Lizard
5 Center/God I: Warrior God
6 Center/God II: Process
7 Scripture
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Day 2: Down/Below and South (Love)
9 Down/Below--Nature and Mother Earth
10 Turquoise Woman
11 South--Healer and Love
Day 3: Up/Above and West (Courage)
12 Warrior
13 Shadow Dance/Bandido
14 Turning Westward--Relationships
Day 4: East (Truth)
15 Visionary and Personal Archetypes
16 Spiritual Practice and Prayer
17 Dancin' Airport Blues
, p 6.
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