Finding a Sanctuary in Nature

The Mishkan was decorated with precious materials, a golden menorah with botanical motifs, and the mysterious Keruvim (“cherubim”) mythical winged creatures depicted in golden statues above the Holy Ark and woven into tapestries. A glowing copper wash basin was made of refashioned mirrors. . .

Mishkan is from the word, “Shakhan,” meaning “dwelling,” and it was seen as a place for God’s presence to “dwell” amidst the Israelite community through their wanderings in the desert. related to word, “Shekhinah” (also spelled “Shechinah”). When the Mishkan was completed and set up, God’s presence filled it in the form of a cloud . . .

[After studying this part of the Torah with a student] I was walking at Rockefeller State Park Preserve. As always, I was captivated by the site of deer grazing in the meadows and woods. I snapped photos of winged creatures like green-headed Mallard Ducks, diving black and white Buffleheads, and long-necked Canadian Geese that populate the lake. Even in winter I get to admire the striking red Northern Cardinals, dramatic Blue Jays, tiny gray Titmice, and other birds that continue to sing from the trees.

As I came to the lake in late afternoon, I turned and saw the entire lake bright and luminous with the golden light of the setting sun. A myriad of fluffy clouds were tinged with gold and reflected in the lake. The lake was half frozen, creating a dramatic design on its its mirror-like surface. I was transfixed by the beauty and transported out of my small self. Suddenly the boundaries of seer, seeing, and seen were effaced and I felt a sense of unity with the Whole.

It was then that I experienced my personal meaning of Sanctuary, Mishkan. My Mishkan can be found in any outdoor place in which I love, connect deeply, and feel the presence of Shekhinah, the divine revealed in nature. Lakeside at Swan Lake at Rockefeller State Park, I had all the elements of the Mishkan in a natural form: the shining reflective water, menorah-branched trees, heavenly light, glorious clouds, and even winged creatures–all lifting up my heart and soul and creating a sense of union with the whole, with creation and Creator.

Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan

Wellsprings of Wisdom

http://wellspringsofwisdom.com/finding-sanctuary-nature/

Grant me the ability to be alone; may it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass - among all growing things and there may I be alone, and enter into prayer, to talk with the One to whom I belong. May I express there everything in my heart, and may all the foliage of the field - all grasses, trees, and plants - awake at my coming, to send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer so that my prayer and speech are made whole through the life and spirit of all growing things, which are made as one by their transcendent Source. May I then pour out the words of my heart before your Presence like water, O L-rd, and lift up my hands to You in worship, on my behalf, and that of my children!

- A Prayer of Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav (1772-1810)

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks — who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre, to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea.

"Walking," Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings, Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature's sources never fail."

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

“In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

"Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world."

Quotations from John Muir (1838-1914)

How I go to the woods

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.”

― Mary Oliver (1935-2019), Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

Explore more on these themes: http://wellspringsofwisdom.com/project/holy-land/