Crossing Nebraska

I feel compelled to interrupt the flow of my Alpine Stream of Consciousness series in order to pay homage to a woman whose Dharma teaching has had a profound impact on me for over four years now. I just learned that Ginny Morgan passed away on Tuesday, August 30 th after living with cancer for longer than I have known her. Readers of this blog will know that, despite my being a Soto Zen practitioner, I’ve tried to recognize wisdom wherever it is to be found – be it amongst the various branches of Buddhism, the Abrahamic religions, Native American Spirituality, Yoga, Tai Chi, etc. In that regard, Ginny and I are kindred spirits. Ginny was a teacher in the Insight Meditation tradition. She lived a couple of hours away in Columbia , Missouri , and so I only ever saw her when I was attending one of the meditation retreats that she was leading. During those retreats her Dharma talks often took on a free form sort of character – not without structure, mind you, but nevertheless ...

I was in Colorado all last week – land of tall mountains, sweeping vistas, wild forests, and gushing alpine streams. You know…, God’s country. Colorado is a place I never seem to tire of, and yet before this most recent visit I hadn’t been in years. Hmmm… By the way, that’s an interesting expression, isn’t it – calling someplace ‘God’s country’? After all, if you believe in a creator, then certainly everything must have been touched by his or her hand. And if you’re not inclined to believe in a creator, then surely your tongue must be stuck in your cheek when you use the expression – as, of course, mine is! Nonetheless, we call this place ‘God’s country’ and that place ‘Hell’s Half Acre’. This place here is the ‘Garden of the Gods’ and that over there is the ‘Devil’s Tower’. Places that move us by virtue of their exquisite and nurturing beauty we call ‘God’s country’, while places that scare us, or bore us, or are seen to be connected somehow to the earth’s mysterious interior forces ...