Spiritual Cowgirl

Andrew Harvey - Cambridge Scholar, Rumi Translator, Divine Feminine Lover, Sacred Activist and a Deliciously Red modern day mystic. Sigh. He was probably my most favorite interviewee I experienced on the film shoot this summer.

OK, I’ll admit, I totally fell in love with Andrew – from his beautiful red icons of the divine feminine to his utter glee at seeing wild baby bunnies to his spontaneous recitation of Rumi poems to his joy in eating ice cream to his brilliant and grounded ideas of activism - this man is the real deal, and we should all pay attention to his fiery love song to the planet.

Andrew believes this planet is currently undergoing a dark night of the soul, but instead of this being a negative thing, we need to understand that “destruction is only creation in drag”. This birth canal-like phenomenon will eventually lead to rebirth, a quantum shift in reality, a total renewal of life as we know it - if we apply divine consciousness, love, and action.

If.

Who’s leading this seemingly dark, yet if we choose wisely, utterly transformative movement? Oh, that would be the Great She She of Us All. The Mama. The Big G with Breasts. According to Harvey, the return of the divine feminine is producing the best show in town, and guess who the stars are? Uh huh. And we need to start acting like it.

How? By getting mystic with it. By marrying the mystical passion for the divine to the active passion for justice. The enlightened mystic floating off to the cosmos is of no use to us anymore. We need to ground our mystical asses to the dirt, as well as lift our ego consciousness to the stars. We need to be “both and” - and then some. And as we all know, mysticism is not the same as religion. In fact, Harvey asks us to get out of the boxes of religion and create a direct relationship with the divine so we can “dive into the sea of burning honey”. After all, this is our birthright.

Hot Salty Honey Love? Sign me up!

Sound a little abstract?

Here’s the “oxygen” to get you sweetly burning. According to Harvey you need:

1. cool practices: practices that keep you calm and serene, like walking, deep breathing, meditation
2. warm practices: practices that open your heart and keeps it alive such as the mystical systems of metta or tonglen
3. sacred body practices. A) tantra, sacred sexuality B) tantra of tenderness to connect you to the planet and animals and interconnectedness C) yoga, reiki, sacred dance, and so on, so your body can be ready to handle tremendous amounts of divine energies. The physical body needs to be kept at a high level of empowerment or we’ll be too exhausted to help.

And all these practices need to be done with concentrated realism, divine practical intelligence, not airy fairy woo wooness.

And here are Harvey’s 5 paths of service:

1. service to the divine – gratitude, prayer, passion, meditation, so the divine can pour into you.
2. service to yourself as instrument of the divine – work on self, shadow work, physical work, deep meditation etc.
3. service to all sentient beings – treating everyone you meet as a manifestation of the divine, including animals.
4. service to your own local community – get involved with local politics, local environmental movements, local volunteer opportunities that excite you.
5. service to the world - become a global citizen and make clear choices: vote, invest in green healthy companies, live life with awareness and compassion.

Sound a little challenging? A little sticky? A little sweaty? A little red? I think we’re up to it. We have to be.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 1:20 pm and is filed under funky spiritual stuff, interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.