Steve Karlin is a former National Park Service ranger, renowned environmental educator and award-winning environmental reporter who has appeared on local and national news. He is the founder of Wildlife Associates, where animals that cannot survive in the wild are cared for, and in turn given the space to become teachers.
SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: What does being with the magic at this moment mean to you? Can you share a personal experience of a time you were being with the magic? What helps you meditate with your eyes open?
Such magical moments with wild ones have sustained me all my life. These days it is often the very tiny creatures that come to me, insects and spiders are for the most part welcome :) In order to really see them, I must put my face very very close to them and thus control my breath or they will fly/flee. This close appreciation seems kind of like meditating with eyes open. And in a way so does my practice (since May) of sitting outside on the back porch with a lit candle watching the sun rise. Earlier this week, as I stepped outside the door, I had a very magical visitation...a winter wren! So I wrote a haiku to honor the moment.
Fumbling in the dark
Matches in hand I am struck
By the wren's dawn song.
Thank you Steve Karlin for sharing your wild wisdom and thank you Service Space for helping spread Steve's teachings. Namaste.
The wild ones are coming close, very close now. Last evening it was a fox - five feet away. It came up and paused still, I thought it was a coyote. I was startled, he knew I was safe and came closer, walked around a bit, then sat down and we stared into each other's eyes - he had one black ear, black paws and the most exquisite coat and tail....
Nature is the place that I feel most home at and especially now when I meditate. A lot has been going on in my life that is transformative and life-changing. I had been so wrapped up in the place I was working at that I had no time for myself. Then an opportunity presented itself where I could leave and pursue my own business and my life purpose. I have meditated for years, but very little outside. This time I found it a perfect and magical way to connect every morning with nature and do the meditation with my eyes open. It has been amazing and become a regular part of my daily practices. I would suggest it to anyone who is looking for a way to achieve inner peace.
I resonate with this! Animals and I did not share a very comfortable relationship till recently - and yet over the last year or so, my comfort and love for animals has really expanded.....I can sense a very primal and pure love and a connection with Life in its rawness....
At the same time, a recent low brought me to the space of what I can 'deep chill'. Deep chill is a space where there is absolutely nothing to do - no pull, no tug, no agenda, no alarm at the end of the hour....just purely and solely sitting with the grief (or whichever experience) that is arising.....
I guess it is easier with grief (other emotions have an action-like quality to them)....
But yes, from a space of deep chill, there is an intimate connection with all of life (extending to plants and even inanimate objects).....Animals were for me a first-step in that way :)