This image - at the end of this quote from Cairn-Space - is a painting I redid recently of my heart's blue light. It is one image I see on occasion while I meditate. It is almost the exact same light image I used to see while I was drifting off to sleep as a five and six year old - after staring at the hall-light.
Below is a portion from my book Cairn-Space, from Chapter Eight.
*********************
"We imagine ourselves seated in a comfortable position. Our palms are
lying open in our lap, one on top of the other. In front of us, we imagine
Jesus. He is also seated in a similar position and His hands are in His lap,
as well.
We imagine that the LORD is seated on a small island, surrounded
by an ocean or great lake. Behind Him is a tall tree of blessing and mirth.
The tree is filled with dazzling jewels We imagine the LORD is iridescent
blue. He radiates great warmth and connection from every pore of His
body. His eyes fixed on our eyes. Everything that radiates from Him,
radiates into us. We receive from Him all that He exudes. We imagine
Him also in our heart.
From our seated place we bow before Him. Touching our forehead
to the ground in humility and obeisance, we prostrate before Him. We
sit up and gaze on the beauty of the LORD.
We imagine Jesus reaching into the tree and choosing a jewel of
splendid color—perhaps gold. He tells us, “This is my love” and He hands
it to us. He asks us to place it in our heart. We do. We feel its warmth.
He then reaches into the tree and selects a green jewel. He tells us,
“This is my peace.” Again, He hands it to us and we place it in our heart,
feeling its warmth. He does this again and again. He hands us grace,
mercy, understanding, wisdom, joy, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-
control, and adoration. We place them all in our heart and we feel the
presence of these dazzling and brilliant gifts. The gifts of the Master radi-
ate into our every pore and make us like Him. We thank Him.
We then imagine that He is seated in our heart. The one before us
is also within us. As He sits there—in our heart—we imagine that He is
surrounded by all of the gifts He has just given us. We imagine ourselves
reaching into our chest and removing our heart. Holding it up to the
LORD in front of us, we tell Him, “This heart is yours.” We replace our
heart into our chest and bow, again, before Him.
This exercise is not very different from some of the ones that have
come down to us through the history of the Church. In particular,
I am thinking of some of the Sacred Heart of Jesus meditations and
visualizations.
There is a corollary meditation that is similar. In this visualization,
we reach into our heart and take out gifts to offer Jesus. The gifts are the
same, they are the jewels of the spiritual life: grace, mercy, understand-
ing, wisdom, joy, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, and adora-
tion. This time, we offer them to Christ to bless and give back to us. We
go through the imaginings of Him blessing each jewel and giving it back
to us at the end. We place them back into our heart. We thank Him.
What is essential in this visualization practice is the sense of give
and take to and from the mentor deity and the practitioner. Whether we
begin the practice by offering to Jesus, or we begin the practice by Jesus
offering to us it does not matter. What is important is the connection to
Jesus. What is also important is the back and forth nature of the giving
and receiving. We give and we receive; Jesus gives and Jesus receives.
We are giving ourselves and receiving Jesus. Jesus is giving Himself and
receiving us.
This practice, although inspired by the Tibetan Jewel Tree, is a glom
of practices I have utilized in visualization technique from the East and
from the West. The aim is that we see ourselves creating not only a space,
but an attitude from things that we ourselves have within us—things
we have received from God. It elevates our lives and gives us ennobling
qualities to strive for and to build with—all under the watchful eye and
blessing of Jesus.
I love the image of Jesus as blue. Although it has implications from
Eastern practice outside of the Church, there are many references within
the Eastern Christian teachings of finding a blue pearl or blue light with-
in—particularly among the “Pearlers” (Syrian Christian mystics of the
6th and 7th centuries). The “blue man” also appears in the mystic trea-
tises and illuminations of Abbess Hildegard of Bingen from the Western
Medieval Christian Church. The tradition of Hesychasm in Orthodoxy
acknowledges these same images of “sapphire blue” light in prayer. It
is a calming and enriching color that spans many traditions and many
centuries of interior work.
Last summer, my sons and I were taking a daily run. It was a way
of spending time together amid the busy schedule of life at a camp and
retreat center. At the end of the run we would practice a simple workout
routine from a karate school in the United States. Once the routine was
finished, we would sit in meditation for a while. One of the practices that
we would often use in this meditation time was that of the Jewel Tree.
I would verbally walk them through one of the exercises described
above. It gave us a point of departure toward sharing an interior life to-
gether. It was very powerful for us. It opened us to a deeper connection
with Jesus and each other.
This is not the only practice the heart can hold. The heart is deep;
its depths have no end. As with all practices of prayer-space, they are to
lead us to a place of silence and stillness before God.
It should not take much imagination to see the Jewel Tree visu-
alization as an extension of what happens as we sit in stillness anyway.
We have mentioned that in our approaching stillness (after our spiritual
practice) we often see things arise—things that come up from inside us
and make their way out—to the surface of consciousness.
In the Jewel Tree meditation we are simply choosing the things that
arise from within. We could just as easily do the meditation and offer
Jesus the impatience, lust, greed, and other spontaneous arisings that
seek to distract us from stillness.
We could imagine Him blessing the arisings and converting them
to jewels (lust turned to golden appreciation; greed turned to an emerald
openness, etc.) that we place back in our heart. One form is planned and
the other form is spontaneous. This is just like the nature of either direc-
tive or non-directive approaches in therapy. Both take us into the heart.
The heart is the eye of the storm.
•••
The “Pearlers”, as Brian E. Colless calls the Syrian Christian mystics in
his book “the Wisdom of the Pearlers”, spoke often of the image of the
pearl in the spiritual life. The Syriac manuscript of the “Acts of Thomas”
has a hymn embedded in it entitled “The Song of the Pearl” also known
as the “Hymn of the Soul.” The hymn relates a story of a son’s arduous
journey to find a pearl hidden in the depths of the sea.
The son is sent on his journey by his father and mother (a king and
queen). While on the journey, he forgets his mission. He is reminded to
take up his quest to find the pearl in a letter he receives from his father.
The imagery is ripe for spiritual interpretation. As with other
Gnostic hero journeys, there is a palpable feel to the story that reminds
us we are all here on this earth to recover something for our Father.
From this story, Colless weaves a tale of connectivity by translating the
writings of the Syrian Fathers and allowing us to read over and over
again the imagery they use for the kingdom of God—imagery wrapped
around the notion of diving and discovering the elusive pearl within.
The significance of the pearl might be lost on some who have not
entered into the meditative space of the heart. But, for those who have,
they will recognize the visions of light that one discovers after the aris-
ings of mental and emotional imagery have ceased.
Once we have found episodes of stillness and silence within, a very
clear image of interior light appears. The light is often golden and or
iridescent blue. The lights may appear individually or in close proximity
to one another. They may actually emanate from one another. The Syraic
Fathers called this the light of the sun and the sapphire light. It is shaped
like a pearl. It often pulsates or radiates.
The images of the inner pearl are validated over and over again in
the translations of the Pearlers texts. The light within is a joyous reward
for discovering stillness in prayer.
Most of the ascetic athletes “saw” the light as the light of the soul in
the body. They believed that prolonged exposure to this inner light of the
soul would fall away and the believer would eventual see the “Uncreated
Light” of the Energies of God that dwell in all creation. Purification
produces enlightenment: the vision of the light of the soul and God’s
Uncreated Energies.
Exposed to this light within over and over again, it is taught that the
believer will eventually enter complete stillness and silence where there
is no vision of anything. There is only absorption in the Divine.
Although images and impressions of demons are present at the out-
set of the inner journey, and images and impressions of light are present
at the second stage of the inner journey, abolition of images and impres-
sions marks the third stage of the journey. In this final phase of prayer,
there is only Light—formless and all encompassing Light. This Light is
often spoken of as pure blackness. We move from form to the formless.
Joseph the Visionary and John the Venerable remind us, as do the
other Syrian Fathers, that when we approach this stage of prayer, we
become consumed by it. As the merchant who found a pearl buried in a
field and sold all he had to buy the field, we will lay aside all earthly cares
to “purchase” and enter the formless presence of the Light.
It is clear in the texts that we can only pass through this process one
step at a time. The hard work of spiritual practice cannot be replaced.
We must first sit and deal with all that arises so we can move beyond the
arisings into the luminous field of God’s presence beneath the arisings.
Some have classified the journey as moving from the mind into the
heart into the soul and finally into spirit/Spirit. The mind has thought
forms that we must process: memories, thoughts, and ideas. The heart
has emotional forms that we must process: emotions, feelings, and im-
pressions. The soul has drives that we must process: desires, longings,
and hopes. Passing through all of these we are set free to experience the
light of the spirit/Spirit and its source—the Uncreated Energies of God.
The practices enable us to deal with all that arises in these areas and
ultimately achieve a stillness and silence that is truly rest.”
•••
Hildegard of Bingen, born in the twelfth century, had had visions of God
since the age of three. She began writing and then sketching her visions.
The corpus of her work is a bold statement of contemplative freedom and
joy. Her visions were not only filled with Divine images and images of
light, but also of the strains of music and the healing power of herbs. She
went on to produce great pieces of music and tomes of information on
gardens and medicine in addition to her works on the inner journey.
One of the recurring images that appears in her drawings is clearly
of the pearl of the Pearlers. She drew scintillating orbs of light, most
often blue and gold. She also drew images of a “sapphire man”, wrapped
in mandalas of light. Seeing her works and having a basic knowledge of
meditation and the writings of the interior mystics, one cannot believe
this is a coincidence.
There is something about the inner journey that people have expe-
rienced that transcends time and locale. There is a luminous baseline to
the experiences of mystics.
We could consider the imagery Christian if it were not for the fact
that tomes of literature from Shaivism (Shiva devotees) did not also re-
port similar findings. The blue pearl and the blue man are the object of
meditation over and over again in Hindu writings.
This sapphire light and sapphire man, as well as the golden light
seem to appear as a calming manifestation of the Divine presence.
Reports of them have been a harbinger of peace and fondness. They do
not reveal horror or fear. They seem to reveal that some form of purifica-
tion has begun and that the experience of enlightenment is unfolding in
the individual.
Eventually, when we are able to pass through all of the chatter of
the mind and heart, we will find a field within. When we find the field,
we will discover that it holds a pearl of great price. We will be willing to
sell everything we posses to buy that field and obtain the pearl. The more
we have these experiences, the more the sheaths of myelin are wrapped
around the neural pathways of heart-space."
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