Earth, isn’t this what you want? To arise in us, invisible?
Is it not your dream, to enter us so wholly
there’s nothing left outside us to see?
What, if not transformation,
is your deepest purpose?
Rainer Maria Rilke
What does Earth want of us? Rilke awakens us to a realization that Earth is ever present and is ever arising within us. Have you ever experienced this sense of flowing into? I have discovered that we can invite Nature into our being-in-the-world. The next time you are walking down a path begin to dwell on the ground beneath your feet, the air blowing past you, the light reaching you eyes and your skin. Literally, open the palms of your hands to the world around you. Then wait for a feeling of something invisible arising within. In these moments, I feel a connection to all that surrounds me. This feeling fills me, it extends me into the surrounding environment. I believe that in these moments I have entered an experience of the one world. As Rilke says, Earth’s deepest purpose is our transformation.
The words “invisible” and “deepest” reflect a sense of psyche, or soul. So many things can remain invisible to us. They escape our conscious perception or experience. According to Jung, our call in life is to bring more consciousness into the world. I take this to mean making the invisible, visible. Jungian psychology is rooted in the path of making the invisible more visible. We work with dreams, fantasies, active imaginations, and other windows into the unconscious. Rilke’s words remind us that Earth itself can be invisible. It is up to us to bring consciousness to the things of the world. We can allow the solar light of consciousness to shine directly on Nature, or we may want to bring a more reflective lunar consciousness to shine of Nature. Both of these forms of consciousness make things more visible in their own unique way.
What of the word “deepest” in Rilke’s poem? Nature is infinite in extent. Nature can include all that exists in this universe. For me, a deep experience invokes a sense of wholeness and the numinous. There is a sacred quality to being in connection to Nature. There is a sacred quality to being in relationship with another. Recently I came upon a quote from Jung in Thom Cavalli’s book, Embodying Osiris. Jung says,
“The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? … In the final analysis we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted.”
Are you related to something infinite? If so, how do you embody the essential quality of this infinite? Jung always pushes us to the boundaries. He is asking a very challenging question. Have we heard the call of the infinite? This call may come as something invisible and only we may be able to hear this call. Can we work to develop a relationship to this infinite? I venture that Nature can appear to us as the infinite. By developing a relationship, an embodied relationship, to the infinite we are transformed by our very recognition of Nature within and around us. Are you “related to something infinite or not?”
