 | The Egg and The Eye by Sally Chappellposted by Susan Meeker-Lowry, Exclusive AccessTuesday, September 29th 2009 @ 7:20 PM (not yet rated) |
The vision of Vermont’s idyllic summers had been established in my mind long ago. More recently I had heard this thought expressed, “Except for Vermont, Maine is the best state in the union.” The little village of Greensboro, bustling with tourists in warm weather, is an example of the charm that lures people to its Caspian Lake, quaint gift shops, and recreational amenities. For those who search beyond the charming, there is also the Green Mountain Monastery, a sanctuary and model for living the principles of Thomas Berry, cultural historian and geologian.
Many people became familiar with Thomas Berry through his first major book, The Dream of the Earth (1988). The Universe Story (with Brian Swimme) came next in 1992 followed by The Great Work (1999), describing the task required to transition to the Ecozoic Era, the objective of which “is to assist in establishing a mutually enhancing human presence upon the Earth.” A new book of Thomas Berry’s writings, Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community, edited by Mary Evelyn Tucker, was just released from Berkeley: University of California Press.
On a postcard perfect Vermont afternoon in August, my husband, Jon, and I left the asphalt behind and thumped our way over a stony dirt road, past one of Vermont’s historic barns (the Monitor), into a driveway barred with a wooden saw horse. The message was clear: the road would become a footpath. We were now invited to transition into the quiet of the monastery and the natural world that supports it.
A large, inviting structure in earthy green and brown tones appeared after several yards. The monastery’s sign is framed by a flower garden. A birdbath sits underneath and a gently waving wind chime to one side. Two barking Tibetan Temple dogs announced our arrival. Thus alerted, Sisters Gail Worcelo, CP and Bernadette Bostwick, CP greeted us at the door.
While talking over tea and zucchini bread the Sisters explained that the mission of the Green Mountain Monastery is to participate in bringing the Catholic religious tradition into its cosmological and planetary phase. Sr. Gail reflected on the various phases of religious life and founding initiatives from the time of St. Benedict to the present. Religious communities, she explained, were always founded to meet the needs of the historical/cultural moment which, in the past, was to serve the needs of the human community. In the present moment, recognition is dawning that the human community is not separate from the natural world which supports it and of which it is a part. Through contemplative prayer, scholarship, cultivation of the arts, and direct experience with the natural world, they wish to activate those deep religious sensitivities needed to help guide and energize a way into the future as a single sacred community of life. They recognize that lost or diminished manifestations of the outer world (species, animals, water, forests…) means lost manifestation of the Divine revealed through the universe and the planet. As the natural world fulfills the needs of humanity’s inner world and is the source of its deepest inspiration, the Green Mountain Monastery’s work is to transform those conditions that are destructive to life on Earth, beginning with those same conditions present within all people that diminish and separate us out of the sacred community of life.
The monastery is committed to reducing its ecological footprint as much as possible and energy concerns are taken very seriously. The south-facing monastery utilizes passive solar energy as well as active with its solar panel-covered roof. Inside, two Russian wood-burning stoves provide non-polluting heat with their many-channeled masonry ducts. The sisters had thoroughly researched this type of stove before having them built locally.
Exiting through their modern kitchen, Sr. Bernadette ushers us along the grassy path toward the chapel. We pass under a line of peace flags flanked by healthy balsam trees until a yurt appears. Expandable wooden slats form the internal frame and a highly insulated material developed for space travel forms a dome over its hardwood floor. A skylight in the apex provides natural light. The furnishings are simple: a wood stove and a shelf of meditation pillows. “Eventually, the yurt will give way to a ‘green’ chapel,” Sr. Bernadette explains.
Nestled among the abundant balsams near the yurt is a partially completed straw bale hermitage, one of four planned as a retreat for artists, poets, activists, and all who need time for prayer and solitude. Beneath the roof the straw bales are wrapped in plastic in anticipation of the spring when the sisters will finish the plastering of the bale house. The balsam trees provide raw material for wreaths (available for sale on their website), which the sisters and friends of the monastery craft for the holidays.
As we leave the monastery Sr. Gail bestows a traditional Irish blessing on us for a safe trip home as we wish them the same on their upcoming journey leading retreats and programs at religious communities around the world. The topic will be: Religious Life As It Enters Its Cosmological/Planetary Phase.
Before returning to the car, Jon and I climb a short ascent to a meadow which beckons its visitors to contemplation. A large, roughly oval-shaped boulder lies embedded in the Vermont soil as if waiting for some gleeful giant to claim it on an egg hunt. A short distance away in the middle of the meadow, a big, brown bowl in the Earth will one day become a pond. Even now a steel sculpture of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology, presides over it with upraised arms. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, “A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” Through this human-made eye may those who visit the Green Mountain Monastery see Thomas Berry’s vision of the Ecozoic Era as we measure our nature in relation to the “great work” required of us.
From Volume 4, No. 3 & 4
