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Trebbe Johnson's Newsletter
August
2008
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Dear Questers,
Friends, and Seekers of the Beloved,
I'm writing this newsletter from New York City, where I'm staying for a couple
of days in the apartment of a friend who is in Amsterdam on business. I lived in
New York for twenty-five years and I still love the energy here, the streaming
sense of purpose exuded by just about everyone. However, I am also aware of how
greedy I tend to get when I'm in the city: there are so many dance performances
and art exhibits I want to see, so many wonderful clothes I want to wear, so
many books to read. In this frame of mind I yearn for more intangible things as
well: I want peace of mind like a Zen monk! I want the dedication and diligence
of the artists whose work I admire! I want to fill myself up with wonder and
beauty and exaltation! This newsletter reflects on things: how they attract us
and how we respond.
To those who are receiving this newsletter for the first time... welcome! Here
you'll find news of upcoming Vision Arrow events, reflections, profiles of
extraordinary people, and stories of transformation that occur when we accept,
in small, bold, startling ways the invitations that the world is always sending
us.
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THE OBJECT OF REDEMPTION
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Recently my husband Andy and I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond in search of some
item I can no longer remember. We failed to find the object in question, but
instead of leaving the store, we kept wandering around, looking attentively at
all kinds of other things: sheets, picture frames, blenders, small and quite
possibly essential kitchen utensils. It was as if, having failed to find the
thing we came for, we had to find a replacement.
We circled the entire store, but the hidden, glittering object never revealed
itself. As we were leaving, my husband had an insight. "We've been looking for
the object of redemption," he said, "the one thing in the entire store that
would fix everything."
Andy and I are not materialistic people. Our most sophisticated kitchen
appliance is a toaster that only has one working side. Nevertheless, since that
day we have often joked about the alluring, elusive Object of Redemption. If
only we could find it! Then everything would be different. We would be
different.
Belief in the Object of Redemption must surely be one of the traps that seduces
people to malls and the solo nirvana of internet shopping. It seems like an
answer on our endless quest to rise above who and what we are and become someone
more elevated. The Romanian scholar of myth and religion,
Mircea Eliade, wrote
that the desire to transcend what is base in us is the oldest of all human
urges. We long to get beyond both our outer circumstances (poverty, illness,
abusive relationships) and the inner circumstances (envy, bitterness,
addictions) that keep us stuck there.
Aided and abetted by advertising, our seeking spirits imagine that a new outfit,
kitchen appliance, or cell phone will not only change our appearance or make
certain tasks easier, it will also magically endow us with those inner qualities
that are hidden within us, seeking only a certain prompting to blossom forth.
Who, then, is the person I long to be that I wish the Object of Redemption to
reveal? And how can I attain her in some other way? |
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LET THINGS REARRANGE YOU
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One afternoon a couple of weeks ago, while our vision questers were on their
three-day solo in eastern Utah, I spent a couple of hours sitting in a
meadow of tall grass, scrub oak, and wildflowers, watching a thunderstorm
move in from the canyons to the west.
In the center of the meadow stood a tree that had been struck by lightning
many years earlier. Now it was stripped bare of its bark, and the wood was
shiny and smooth. The more I looked at that tree the more it turned into a
fascinating and distinctive presence. Not that it seemed human or that I
felt it was somehow communicating with me. It remained a tree, but became
Tree, full of its own radiant self-ness. Gradually, the whole meadow began
to take on a numinous quality. Insects and birds flitted about their
business, seemingly oblivious to the coming storm or else hurrying to
accomplish much before it arrived. Plants blew in the wind. The tree,
signatured by sun and storms, prevailed. I felt I had been given permission
to witness some kind of urgent work whose processes and goals were a mystery
to me.
The early twentieth century German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke distinguished
two kinds of seeing: seeing as empathy and seeing as inspection. To inspect
something, say a lightning-struck tree, is to dissect it with the mind. To
see it with empathy is to fall under its spell. Then, says Rilke, it is as
if the tree asks, "Are you free? Are you ready to dedicate your whole love
to me?" If we can answer Yes!, the imagination, the senses, and the heart
accept the tree's invitation and enter its realm. Rilke's contemporary, the
French poet Francis Ponge, wrote that we cannot truly see a thing until we
approach it not as a superior but as an equal with the capacity to startle
us with the marvel of its selfhood. "It is necessary for things to
disarrange you," says Ponge.
May we give ourselves the treat of letting something disarrange us every day
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THE SECRET DANTE
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This
morning, August 31, I was reflecting on the theme of objects and their pull on
us as I walked back to my friend's apartment after having had breakfast with
another friend. Crossing the street between 63rd and 64th Streets in front of
Lincoln Center, I noticed a tiny park in the triangle formed by the
crisscrossing of Columbus and Broadway. Tall plane trees hid it almost
completely from view, and it was further concealed by small trees in pots, and
benches with their backs to the park. Behind this border ran a low fence.
I have probably crossed at this intersection hundreds of times, and it never
occurred to me to peer into this little park. Now, seeing a statue barely
visible among the trees I slipped behind the potted plants. And to my amazement
saw that the statue was of Dante, the great Italian poet and author of The
Divine Comedy. For years I have said that my Desert Island Book ("If you were
stranded on a desert island and were allowed only one book---") would be The
Divine Comedy. Every few years I reread it, for to me it is the ultimate book:
mythology, poetry, cosmology, history, and one man's search for the divine
through the agency of passionate love. And here, in the midst of my query about
objects, was Dante in bronze in a place called
Dante Park.
A sign said the statue, created by Ettore Ximenes, had been finished in 1921. It
depicts the poet holding a book and staring down at the ground, frowning, as if
in deep contemplation about some stanza he is writing. (In my opinion, he ought
to have been gazing upward at the sky, pondering God and evoking his own love
and muse, Beatrice, who symbolized for him the divine Beloved.)
The statue was no Object of Redemption that I wanted to possess. Nor was it a
radiant being living out its mysterious life in a desert meadow. It was,
however, like encountering an old and dear friend in an unexpected place. And it
was delightful evidence that when we hold a question in our consciousness and
are open to receiving answers from anywhere--we do. |
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BOOK AND WORKSHOP NEWS
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See
my article, "Getting to Aha," in the current issue (July-August) of
SPIRITUALITY
AND HEALTH Magazine. In it I explore the marginal, magical world I call the Maginal Zone, the place between what we know of the world (or think we know) and
how we respond to it. The article includes tips for exploring the Maginal World
wherever you go.
Upcoming Vision Arrow programs:
Due to a recent cancellation we have one place available on the Endless
Mountains Vision Quest August 18-22. This popular quest, now in its twelfth
year, is held in a beautiful 400-acre nature preseve one mile from my house in
northeastern Pennsylvania. Some people who go on this program are drawn to
experience a meaningful sojourn in a natural place more accessible than some of
our quests. Others, who have already done a longer quest, come to the Endless
Mountains for a kind of renewal quest.
Lover and Beloved, offered by my husband Andy Gardner and me, will be presented
at Starwalkers, just north of Minneapolis, on September 19-21. This weekend
program for couples, which we also offer in Connecticut in February, focuses on
delving more deeply into the love that two people share, to the relationship
each has with the inner Beloved that draws them along their own particular path
in life, and to the inner Beloved that each must cherish in his or her partner.
The workshop is open to couples young and old, straight and gay, married or
simply committed. For more information or to register, contact Rose Ann
Steenhoek or see the
Starwalkers website.
On September 14, I will again be among the presenters at the sixth annual
Wilderness Therapy Symposium at Naropa University in Boulder, CO. This three-day
program features a variety of people doing incredible work geared toward healing
and wholeness of people through nature. My program is called "The Hero's Epic
Journey."
Call 570 727 4272 or email me if you have questions or would like to talk about
any of these programs.
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Contact Information
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phone: 570/727-4272
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