Spiritual Memoir Practice: Journeys Part 2

To restate the Spiritual Memoir Practice from my Oct 13 post,

Recall a small journey. As I write the story, be aware of how the external journey mirrored my soul's journey.

This short journey had a preliminary stage that began in the Azores in 1972, where I began oil painting. In July 1992, I participated in the Visual Journals Workshop, led by Hazel Belvo at Grand Portage, MN. I had taken only a few formal art classes prior to that. The Visual Journals Workshop was a life-changing experience.

The small journey begins in Minneapolis. There was an art fair in the park across the street from the Minneapolis Institute of Art, along 3rd Av south of Downtown. The Grand Marais Art Colony had an exhibit, where I picked up literature about their programs.

My wife, Denise, encouraged me to sign up for the workshop, because she had just started her job as Head of Reference at the Minnesota Historical Society. She did not get a vacation that year, so I took a week off on my own.

We were still living in the Battle Creek Neighborhood of St. Paul, so it was more than a six hour drive to the Naniboujou Lodge, where I stayed, about half way between Grand Marais and Grand Portage. The Naniboujou Lodge has been a favorite place to bring visitors for lunch ever since.

The first morning of the workshop, I struggled to find the place. I went to the Grand Portage Casino Hotel, and was directed to the Trail Center several miles away up Old Highway 61. I drove to within a quarter mile of the Trail Center and made a wrong turn. I didn't find it, so I drove back to the hotel, where I learned that the first session was already in progress in a suite in the hotel. I had been misinformed at the hotel registration desk. I was breathless and stressed out, but Hazel welcomed me.

As it turned out, I was the only man among eight women, some of whom were celebrities in the art world. Hazel gave not a hint that the workshop was intended for women only.

Turning short and missing by a quarter mile seems to be a recurring pattern for me. I can't think of another example, but overcoming struggle, the high stress and anxiety is a problem. It's a barrier to that part of the mind that prays and meditates, does art, and is aware of the reality of God.

I teach the principle of spiritual consciousness to the 5th graders at William Kelley Elementary School in Silver Bay, in my annual five weekly sessions for the Masterpiece Arts Program. I don't spend a lot of time on spiritual principles, and whether it's allowable in a public school or not, I make it real and practical. The principle is to balance the mind, usually described as left brain analytical and right brain creative. I think it is more dynamic, a whole brain multifunction. I promote the principle as a means to success in all kinds of academic excellence. I think it is critical to spiritual awakening and development for elementary school children and older youth.

The Visual Journals Workshop provided rewards for four days. The method and practices started each morning at the Trail Center, a log frame building in the wilderness, heated by a wood stove, which we needed even in July. We took daily field trips to sketch scenes by direct observation. The following morning we would finish the sketch, color it, or do a related sketch in some other medium. Then, tell a story about it, often quite personal.

One day the field trip was to the Witch Tree, one of the most sacred spots on Earth. Hazel's ex-husband George Morrison was there with his own art group, offering tobacco to the tree. Our class sat at scattered spots on a gateway of granite blocks in front of the tree, or at the waters edge below.

I learned much later what high level celebrities were present that day. What an effort it had taken to acquire that spot, protect, and preserve it. It was an honor for any of us to be there.

The experience was akin to being among the giants of the Baha'i world. On several occasions, I felt a spiritual reality in which I was honored by being in the presence of such giants, yet equal to them. Why was I there? I did not feel worthy. It was the same ethereal, almost out-of-body experience in which the eternal spirit functions beyond the physical, but a moment of total consciousness.

Another field trip was to Partridge Falls on the Pigeon River. It too is a sacred place, and a historical place at the end of the eight mile grand portage, the trail the voyageurs walked from the fort and trading post on the Lake Superior shore.

Melvin Sherer was our guide. He was in training to become an Elder of the Grand Portage Ojibway Band. He is a leader now. I have not seen him since that four day workshop. He was with us every day.

That day we sketched at scattered spots above and below the falls. I noticed a severe thunderstorm approaching from upstream. It was moving rapidly, and I could tell from the cloud formation that there would be violent winds. I warned Hazel and Melvin. Thank goodness they believed I knew what I was talking about.

Some of the women were too old to rush up the river bank, and hurry along the trail back to the van. The trail was rugged with exposed roots. The tall pines swayed wildly overhead, cracking loudly as they knocked into each other. We got back to the van just as large hail began to fall. Melvin drove us as fast as possible, while avoiding deep potholes that would soon fill with flooding rain up to the wheel wells.

How many realms of spirit and nature can you experience in one place, with one heavenly group of people? I have no doubt that I was in a Native American world of Spirit and Nature of a legendary kind. I have no doubt about the Divine Oneness of that reality.

Spiritual Memoir Practice: Journeys Part I

I posted to this blog on September 10, 2009 what I intended to be a weekly series on "Writing the Sacred Journey", by Elizabeth J. Andrew. I have handwritten many of her practice exercises to my personal journal, several times a week, often in the middle of the night. I can thank a Baha'i friend of Sufi background for the inspiration to write in the middle of the night. He might prefer prayer and meditation, but journal writing is like that for me.

I can also thank an eight year old girl who visited Split Rock Lighthouse this past weekend with her father, who proudly told me that she has been practicing cursive writing. I hope I encouraged her by praising her potential as an artist.

Art has been in the forefront of my community activities since October 5. Sandi Pillsbury Gredzens, who chairs the Grand Marais Art Colony board, led workshops in the School Forest in Silver Bay for students at William Kelley Elementary School. I assisted with the sixth grade. The weather turned cold and rainy the second day, so the final session was held in the Science Room. The subject was sketching landscapes, and within that, understanding how to view and use the horizon line.

I had taught the same students last winter in five weekly sessions as part of the Masterpiece Arts Program. They remembered the horizon line from an exercise in which they copied the Mona Lisa. (Remember what Dan Brown said about the Mona Lisa in "The DaVinci Code"?) I also reminded them about a local artist, the late George Morrison, who always sketched, or carved in his woodblock masterworks a horizon line a quarter of the way down from the top of the page or the block. It helps to remember such a useful rule, and then make up your own rules later.

What about the journey?
Here I am sixteen years after a short journey I made in 1992, the subject of last night's spiritual memoir exercise. The instructions: Recall a small journey. As I write the story, be aware of how the external journey mirrored my soul's journey.

That journey was in the realm of spiritual awakening, akin to my experiences of spiritual rebirth in 1957 and 1973. Born again and again. How many times are we allowed such a vision of our eternal spirit at work in physical consciousness? The object of my short journey was a four-day Visual Journals Workshop, led by Hazel Belvo at Grand Portage, MN.

Hazel is a key personality in the history of the Grand Marais Art Colony. She is Sandi Gredzens' current mentor. I count Sandi as my mentor, but it's not a formal relationship. If anything, the relationship will lead me into a serious commitment to the Grand Marais Art Colony. Setting my priorities to make that happen has been a problem for sixteen years.

Here is a link to the Grand Marais Art Colony website. Read about Hazel Belvo and George Morrison. Notice the list of board members, including Sandi and my Little Marais neighbor, Joyce Yamamoto.

http://www.grandmaraisartcolony.org/about.cfm

As with any creative effect, whether an experience of the living Word of God or a creative act of my own, there is mystical unity, an impulse that influences a vast community for years afterward.

Part II of this subject will be the exercise I wrote last night.

Writing the Sacred Journey

"Writing the Sacred Journey: the Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir", by Elizabeth J. Andrew, was an anniversary gift from our daughter, Kari.

"Gate of the Heart: Understanding the Writings of the Bab", by Nader Saiedi, I bought at the 50th Green Lake Baha'i Conference the week before our anniversary.

Both are appropriate for the moment. I haven't posted much on Blogger about my religious beliefs. Dave's Travel Blog is in fact memoir writing. I've done more on the Baha'i Faith, and more memoir writing, in my WordPress blog. See the sidebar to this blog for links.

"Writing the Sacred Journey" brings me back to some of the basics of journal writing I learned more than twenty years ago. Write as if no one would ever read it. Don't think about the bias of the audience or critics. Don't worry about grammar; go back and edit later if you feel like it. One thing I haven't practiced is the self-discipline of daily writing. Blogs help in that regard, but now I have five blogs, and it can be months between updates. I'd rather write about the weather.

Those of you who do follow this blog will notice that I changed to a simpler template today. That's to get your attention, as well as to comfort your eyes. I noticed right away that this template does not offer an underscore to highlight the title of a book.

"Gate of the Heart" is tough reading. I'll buy anything Nader Saiedi writes on the Baha'i Faith. I hope to do several posts as I make my way through the book. "Logos and Civilization" is another of his works, on the mystical writings of Baha'u'llah.

The Writings of the Bab, and the Writings of Baha'u'llah, are the Word of God. Not only is that my statement of belief, but certainty comes from reading the Writings. In fact, that's all you've got to go on to prove the existence of God, or that the written Word is divine revelation. It is fundamentally important that you prepare to read the Writings by placing your trust in God, as you do with any prayer.

In brief, the "Bab" is a title that means "the Gate". He describes His Eternal Being with many such titles. Perhaps the most important concept to grasp from Saiedi's book is the title "Primal Point". Literally, the primal point is the first mark of a quill pen as it meets the paper. In the Primal Point all Creation begins with a mere indication of the Will of God. All of Creation, all created beings, and everything that we can know about God is in that Primal Point. Proceeding from the Primal Point is the Creative Word of God, the Logos. Read the first chapter of the Gospel According to John.

One of the most audacious things the Bab did was to stop midway between Mecca and Medina, and issue a Revelation that in that spot He is the Gate between the House of Divinity and the Shrine of the Prophet (or servitude). His mission on that pilgrimage was to announce to the secular and religious leaders of Islam that He is the Promised One.

Such statements have everything to do with the ongoing persecution of Baha'is in Iran. The Bab was shot by a firing squad for these challenges to fundamentalist leaders of Islam.