In the introduction to Christine Vaulters Painter's excellent book Earth, Our Original Monastery: Cultivating Wonder and Gratitude Through Intimacy with Nature she says we live in what we might call an age of forgetting. We have forgotten who we are in relation to everything else; the creatures, the plants, the mountains the forest, the oceans, one another, and even ourselves.  She also says one of the fruits of contemplative practice is the remembrance of our wholeness, we are able to see past the divisions we create with our egos and minds, and to re-discover the truth that we are all one creation.  She says that her book is an attempt at recovery and an invitation to remembering.

Through contemplative practice, and I’m going to suggest particularly in the outdoors - we remember. We remember our wholeness. We are invited to let go of our egos and experience oneness.

With this talk and meditation, I want to invite you to be open and connect with nature.