The Divine Umbilical Cord

"I desire you
more than food or drink.
My body, my senses,
my mind
hunger for your taste
I can sense your presence in my heart
although you belong
to all the world.

I wait with silent passion
for one gesture,
one glance,
from you."

-- Rumi, The Love Poems of Rumi


I found the roots of these trees scattered along the edge of Lake Cowichan incredibly moving. And as I go over my notes from the retreat, I think I can see why.

As she was discussing the concept of Attention of the Heart, Cynthia Bourgeault suggested that it was not about keeping our attention ON ourselves as we pray, but IN ourselves; visceral; noticing all that passes through us as if we were watching from the 3rd chakra, the region below the heart.

There is, she said, a "divine umbilical cord" connecting us to where we really came from. And that yearning we feel, for connection, for intimacy, is the tether that holds us in that connection. It's not our yearning for God, but God's yearning for us, she told us; that same yearning that gave rise to us in the first place, that becomes us, that created us as a fully unique expression of Godness. And when we experience that yearning -- well, that yearning is actually the aching of the Infinite to be reunited with us, much as a mother yearns to be reunited with her child.

Having heard those words, it would be hard not to ache for the universe, and all creation; hard not to see in these roots, desperately reaching out to the water, a kind of exposed longing, the hunger and thirst for the infinitely nourishing grace that washes over us when we feel that connection.