Communing and Relating: Part Iii—Examples: General and Clinical

As western man's relation to the magic world changed, so did his relation to nature and to his own nature. While few have been aware of this disconnection from the awe and dread of daily reality in its mystical immediacy, many have written about Western man's dissociation from his órganicity, from his innate biological rhythms, from his nature and from nature in general. While this dissociation was going on, man made great efforts to struggle against its happening and affirmed in many ways that maintaining contact with nature, his nature, and a presence transcending his individuality, are positive goals and in accordance with his true nature.

There is much evidence of an awareness of communing, of the nature of communing, and of its assistance in struggling against dissociation and in furthering the maintenance and increase of man's contact with his nature, nature, and the all. Throughout time, in prose, poetry, painting or music, the scene of the shepherd and his flock have been endlessly depicted. Sometimes he is lying on his back asleep or gazing into the heavens. At other times he is singing or playing on his pipes. The scene represents and evokes the ultimate of communing with nature, animal nature, human nature, and the nature of a presence greater than us all.

But to be present as part of such scenes is something more, and this has happened to me in various parts of the world, alone and with others. The response, when suddenly coming upon such scenes, is a catching of the breath, awe, silence, and being rooted to the spot. The usual sense of time and space disappears. of this one becomes aware when one, so to speak, ‘comes to’—i.e., returns to the conventional. The immediately preceding feelings remain and one resists feelings of moving away from them, or intrusions that might draw one away. From time to time in later years, such occasions will come to mind when I am “distracted.” Yes, distracted from the conventional and open to the unconventional, the spontan