My father taught me the joys of anticipating travel and the skills of moving through the wilderness with low impact.
My mother initiated me into the mysteries of logistics and revealed to me the headwaters of resiliency in my own inner landscape.
It was Ignatius of Loyola and his company of friends who taught me how to return home.
St. Ignatius was founder of the Jesuits and author of the 30 Day Silent Retreat (The Spiritual Excercises) Like the Buddhist master Tsong Khappa he had a special insight into the spiritual power of imagination. Imagination is a primary tool of writers -- as well as travelers and mystics.
The Ignation method, known as the application of the senses, involves monitoring the feeling tone of key episodes as they are preserved in memory. It is the recollection and systematic re-experiencing of events.
The process is central to the practice of discernment of spirits. The purpose is to recognize the presence of God through the interior senses and distill the wisdom, God's trajectory within and through, the actions under examination. It is a sacred conversation.
One contemporary renaming of part of the Ignatian process is the "Examination of Consciousness" - a daily spiritual practice for the cultivation of the perception and integration of wisdom.
I am churning out drafts of the various articles that will result from the Tourism Australia/Tourism Tasmania sponsored research tour. This is the joy of returning home. This is when the real gifts are carefully unwrapped in order to be provacatively displayed and purposefully distributed.
As I do I am again grateful to my teachers -- those who formed me years ago and those who I found waiting for me in Australia.
Namaste.
And happy Feast of St. Francis of Asissi.
Posted by rollingrains at October 4, 2004 09:39 AM | TrackBack