#belden c. lane

[eelhound]

"In the aboriginal lands west of Alice Springs in the desert of central Australia, one easily recognizes a connection between geography and the spiritual life. Aboriginal peoples traverse the sacred landscape by following invisible song-lines, singing — as they walk — the songs first sung by their ancestors in an ancient dreamtime beyond memory. They name (and 're-create') every characteristic of their hard and thirsty land — rocks, caves, desert brush, and water-holes — through the habitus, or ritualized way of perceiving reality, they bring to it. They know that to 'dwell' in a place creatively over an extended period of time is to conduct oneself according to a custom or habit that draws meaning from the particularities of the environment.

Bruce Chatwin, a British travel writer fascinated with Australia, tells of giving a ride in his Land Cruiser to an aboriginal friend on a dusty road in the outback. The aboriginal man was on pilgrimage, engaged in a dream trek aimed at restoring meaning to his own life as well as to the landscape. Driving at twenty-five miles an hour, Chatwin noticed the man frantically jumping back and forth from one window to the other, chanting the place-names of his songline as quickly as possible. Suddenly he realized his mistake as a driver, and slowed the car down to the four-mile-an-hour pace of a walker so that the man's song could be sung at a proper and comfortable rate. Only in this way could the land be adequately honored and their entry into it together made spiritually possible."

- Belden C. Lane, from The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality, 2007.

#belden c. lane #quote #quotations #anthropology #australia #aboriginal peoples #geography #place names #dwelling #ritual #ceremony #slow down

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Georgia O'Keefe, American Artist, 1887-1986:: Chama River, Ghost Ranch 1937

Oil on Canvas, 32.25 × 16 in.:: New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

[A CELEBRATION OF FEMALE ARTISTS]

* * * *

“To love someone is to grant him or her the gift of one’s pure and undivided attention, without preconceived expectations of what the other person needs, what we imagine to be best in the situation, what particular results we want to engineer.” ― Belden C. Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality

#Georgia O'Keefe #female artists #Ghost Ranch #New Mexico #Belden C. Lane #The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality #quotes #love #attention

[szeptember]

WRESTLING WITH THE ANGEL

Louise Glück, Persephone the Wanderer / Tony Kushner, Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches / Jürgen Ovens, Jacob Fighting the Angel / Hermann Hesse, Demian / Léon Bonnat, Jacob Wrestling the Angel / Rosanna Warren, Departure: Poems / x / Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice / Eugène Delacroix, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel / Belden C. Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality / Alexandre-Louis Leloir, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel

#louise glück #hermann hesse #bonnat #dc #batman v superman #rosanna warren #tony kushner #superman #batman #bruce wayne #clark kent #belden c lane #delacroix #superbat #leloir #jürgen ovens #web weaving #compilations #jacob wrestles with the angel #stone‚ fallen among flowers

[iscariotapologist]

Belden C. Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

#i feel like im standing on the edge of a cliff #me #belden c lane #the solace of fierce landscapes

[warismenstrualenvy]

The via negativa, emerging in early Christianity, was fully aware that one cannot speak of God yet must speak. There’s an opaqueness and impenetrability about the divine being that resists every effort to grasp its mystery. God is inaccessible to all forms of human control, beyond every linguistic sign and image one might use as referent. Language about God is as impossible as it is necessary.

Lane Belden C., The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

#christianity #quote #this book is so beautiful <3

[beguines]

hii i love your blog!! what do you think is a good book to start to read about christian mysticism?

it depends on where your interest lies—history, theology, practice. i highly recommend martin laird's into the silent land, a sunlit absence, and an ocean of light, all of which discuss contemplative practice. dorothee soelle's the silent cry: mysticism and resistance. most works by thomas merton are very accessible. julian of norwich's revelations of divine love. all of st. john of the cross' work but particularly his poetry. belden c. lane's ravished by beauty: the surprising legacy of reformed spirituality for a protestant take on christian mysticism; it is, in fact, surprising (though i would advise caution about some of lane's other work). howard thurman's deep is the hunger. the wiley-blackwell companion to christian mysticism, the oxford handbook of mystical theology, bernard mcginn's essential writings of christian mysticism—the latter being a good primer on the classic christian mystics.

#ask

[lobotomy-maybe-bestie]

jonah 4:3-4 // quora // belden c. lane - the solace of fierce landscapes // harrow the ninth - tamsyn muir // micah nemerever - these violent delights (edit unknown) // simone weill - gravity and grace // victor hugo // mayaparker8 - "sun" // @/hymnsofheresy // karl rahner // charlotte bronte - jane eyre // gregg araki - nowhere (1997)

#web weaving #religion #tw religion #jonah tag #back at it again with the webweave full of eels #suicidal ideation #no boats here #whalesong

[tyllt]

Quotes (pt. 3)

Poetry

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep - Mary Elizabeth Frye

The Second Coming - W.B. Yeats

All the world's a stage - Jaques, As You Like It

Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius? - Hamlet, Hamlet

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird - Wallace Stevens

Set your heart at rest - Titania, A Midsummer Night's Dream

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt - Hamlet, Hamlet

Do not go gentle into that good night - Dylan Thomas

I know you all, and will awhile uphold - Hal, Henry IV

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance, pray - Ophelia, Hamlet

Bandersnatch Monologue - Colin Jones

Lord, we know what we are, but not what we may be. - Ophelia, Hamlet

The rest is silence. - Hamlet, Hamlet

Take pains; be perfect. Adieu. - Bottom, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Well, we were born to die. - Capulet, Romeo & Juliet

What do you read, my lord? Words, words, words. - Hamlet, Hamlet

We must not make a scarecrow of the law. - Angelo, Measure for Measure

I am now of all humors that have showed themselves humors - Hal, Henry IV

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. - Hal, Henry IV

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow - Macbeth, Macbeth

And this same progeny of evils comes - Titania, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Praise

We owe God a death. - Hal, Henry IV

God is closer to me than I am to myself. - St. Augustine

When a man turns his face to God, he finds sunshine everywhere. - Abd'ul Baha

You have to ask God to defeat you, everyday. - Anonymous

Our loss is great, but God is greater. - Brandon Burlsworth

Every time I think of God it brings tears to my eyes. The one that holds the stars also holds my hand. - Liz's Happy Place

Then the sun smiled, and Christ smiled, and my laundry grew soft in the warm wind. There. See there. The world is good is me. - Linda Gregg

God is feeding me and what I'm praying for is an appetite. - Flannery O'Connor

Sisters, let us go mad for the love of God. - St. Theresa

When you are angry, do not sin; ponder it on your beds, and be silent. Offer righteous sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord. - Psalm 4:4-5

Before God leaves, He clears the table, pats my head, and presses two messages into my palms. In my left, You are the bridge. In my right, you are the dust. - Paige Lewis

She would transform herself into sacred food. She would eat light, not matter; become food, not eat it. She would be consumed to become the host and consumed again as it. - Judith Van Herik

...God's incarnation in Christ is also going on in everyone, everywhere, at all times. - David Bentley Hart

Human nature is not a duality of body and soul; rather God's breath animates the dust and it becomes a single living being. - Anonymous

In early Christian hymns, hunger seems to mean human vulnerability; the implication is, therefore, that the hungry will be satisfied. In the spirituality of eleventh- and twelfth- century Europe, however, hunger began to mean a craving that can never be filled. - Caroline Walker Bynum

My fear is that much of what we call "spirituality" today is overly sanitized and sterile, far removed from the anguish of pain, the anchoredness of place. Without the tough-minded discipline of desert-mountain experience, spirituality loses its bite, its capacity to speak prophetically to its culture, its demand for justice. Avoiding pain and confrontation, it makes no demands, assumes no risk. - Belden C. Lane

Power

There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. - Madeline Miller

I know these crowds have come from Paris to demand my head. I learned from my mother not to fear death, and I will wait for it with firmness. - Marie Antoinette

Everything had the boring residue of destiny on it. - Anonymous

There will be no further explanation. There will just be reputation. - Taylor Swift

I am the gun, the bullet, and the wound. I will not leave without you knowing I was here. - Anonymous

There is comfort in knowing the bones will win. - Anonymous

I am but mad north-north-west. - Hamlet, Hamlet

I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you. - Anonymous

Higher, further, faster, baby! - Carol Danvers

This is the burden of the trailblazer and the solitude of the trendsetter. - Defunctland

So what a monumental achievement it is to be remembered for four. - Defunctland

If I die, I want to be born again and I want to be a footballer and I want to be Diego Armando Maradona again. I am a player who has given people joy and that is enough and I have enough. - Diego Maradona

I've got to stop getting obsessed with human beings and fall in love with a chair. Chairs have everything human beings have to offer, and less, which is obviously what I need. Less emotional feedback, less warmth, less approval, less patience, and less response. The less the merrier. Chairs it is. I must furnish my heart with feelings for furniture. - Carrie Fisher

Service

Do the good and throw it in the sea.

Life isn't about getting and having, it's about giving and being. - Kevin Kruse

What are you going to buy in your lifetime that is worth more than your humanity? - Anonymous

There are no lost causes.

Are you at peace? Can I pray for you?

Service to others it the rent you pay for your room here on earth. - Muhammad Ali

What do you want Me to do for you? - Mark 10:51

Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. - Hebrews 13:2

Grief

A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he's still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away but then he's still left with his hands. - Richard Siken

Life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. - Leonard Nimoy

This day, the next, a hundred years, it's nothing! It's a heartbeat. You'll never be ready. - Tom Hiddleston

I mean it this time: this is the last time I'm leaving without you. - firethesound

You wanted Death? This is it. Dirt and decay, nothing more. Death translates us all into earth. - Catherynne M. Valente

Dear Tree, I don't want to be sad: I just am. The explanation is just too far beyond anything. - Anonymous

Nothing is ever really over...just over there. - Carrie Fisher

Planets come and go. Stars perish. Matter disperses, coalesces, forms into other patterns, other worlds. Nothing can be eternal except GOD. - The Doctor

You will have days where you feel better, and you will have days where you want to die. Both are okay. There is no magical cure. You just need to close your eyes, and trust that the waves will pass, and soon you'll be able to breathe again. - Anonymous

Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you. - Jeffrey Cranor

I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye. - Yann Martel

To suffer together is to know love. - Anonymous

What is grief, if not love persevering? - Vision

There is no state of being healed...there is just healing. - Anonymous

To be alive at all is to have scars. - John Steinback

You have to allow the paint to break to make it beautiful. - Bob Ross

You see this cup? This is literally my favorite cup. Now it's gone forever. So it's not real and I don't care about it anymore. - Jake

The soul has to go on loving in the emptiness, or at least to go on wanting to love, though it may only be with an infinitesimal part of itself. - Anonymous

Because it's senior year, I have begun to see things as potential absences: the things I love will become the things I'll miss. - Anonymous

Love is so short, forgetting is so long. - Pablo Neruda

But then it passed, as all things do. - Anonymous

I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened. - J.R.R. Tolkien

And tomorrow will be kinder. - Secret Sisters

Everything stays, right where you left it. Everything stays, but it still changes. Ever so slightly, daily and nightly. In little ways, when everything stays. - Olivia Olson

#quotes

[actualmichelle]

Our conditioning as members of a consumeristic society prevents us from abandoning hope that, with sufficient planning, we might yet be able to see and do everything. To move slowly and deliberately through the world, attending to one thing at a time, strikes us as radically subversive, even un-American. We cringe from the idea of relinquishing, in any moment, all but one of the infinite possibilities offered us by our culture. Plagued by a highly diffused attention, we give ourselves to everything lightly. That is our poverty. In saying yes to everything, we attend to nothing. One only can love what one stops to observe.

The Solace of Fierce Landscapes by Belden C. Lane

[quietlytheygo]

The apophatic way, familiarly known as the via negativa, is a tradition in spirituality that rejects all analogies of God as ultimately inadequate. God is greater than any language we might ever use to speak of God.

The Solace of Fierce Landscapes by Belden C. Lane

#oh my god dude go off #this is how I have always thought of my spirituality but couldnt voice it #to remember

[st-hood]

My power is out so I'm reading, of course i pick up Belden c lane's "the solace of fierce landscapes"...you know...something light

#spirituality #belden lane #quotes

[eelhound]

"Only at the periphery of our lives, where we and our understanding of God alike are undone, can we understand bewilderment as occasioning another way of knowing."

- Belden C. Lane, from The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality, 2007.

#belden c. lane #quote #quotations #christian theology #christian mysticism #apophatic theology #zen #epistemology #humility #suffering #confusion #direct experience #understanding

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Rainfall over the Sacred Mountain, Taos, NM. Photo: Geraint Smith (Sep 3, 2023) :: [Robert Scott Horton]

* * * *

The landscape's silent immensity—and the God to whom it points—is able to absorb all the grief one can give it.

-Belden C. Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality [beguines]

#rainfall #Taos NM #New Mexico #Geraint Smith #Robert Scott Horton #Belden C. Lane #The Solace of Fierce Landscapes #quotes

[rotgospels]

There are no easy routes to self-realization; it begins, ironically, with self-abandonment.

Belden C. Lane, Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice

#Belden C. Lane #decreation

[iscariotapologist]

Belden C. Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

#😳 #me #belden c lane #the solace of fierce landscapes

[warismenstrualenvy]

Disillusionment marks every new beginning in the spiritual life. I went there with the intent of imitating monastic practices of asceticism and prayer, of achieving (within the span of eight short days, no less) a grandly self-authenticating desert experience. It’s the perennial temptation of the acquisitive self, trying to “cultivate pseudo-experiences” that will fill an inner void so as to make even emptiness itself an “object of experience.” We never tire of the effort to manipulate and possess idealized states of consciousness. Many people would rather have an “experience” of God than God himself.

Lane Belden C., The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

#christianity #quote