Wilderness Vigil

I have spent a good deal of time the past couple of weeks discerning, writing, and reading about a possible Wilderness Vigil in August.  I have done four such ‘sit-outs’ but this year I turn 65 and it seems like there might be one more in me.  I am told by the wisdom keepers that four is the debt owed to the earth.  A fair bargain to say the least.  Four sacrifices of comfort in order to recalibrate one’s relationship with nature.  These are not vision quests so much as they are surrenders and withdrawals from the noise and the cacophony of the world in order to listen to the depths of oneself and find that still small voice that is at one with all. 

I think the other four vigils I have done were more self centered that I anticipate this one will be.  I think my love of Jungian psychology and my immersion in wisdom traditions of First Nations and indigenous peoples has been in some ways a selfish endeavour, or at best a Self-ish endeavour.  I have ‘cried for a vision’ and sought in the silence a right orientation to what life asks of me.  The answers to my cries have been profound and exacting.  I turned to Jungian psychology in the mid 90s and on the threshold of my 50th birthday, I sought out indigenous teachers.  These decades have been rich with learning, deepened by suffering, and for all the lessons I am grateful.  Perhaps this fifth Wilderness Vigil is about giving back.  Giving myself back to the abundance that has been given me. 

There is something deeper stirring in the reading and in the writing as I entreat the organizers and leaders to accept my application to a very small and intimate Wilderness Vigil.  That something is very Christian.  Surprisingly Christian.  It is whispering in the folds of the apocryphal story of St. Christopher the Canine. It is a story that is tracking me in the work and in the wilderness of my life.  I sense it is my myth, and maybe a story for our times.  Here is my rendering of the tale first told to me by my carving teacher, Jonathan Pageau.  I know I have told this story and been told by it many times.  I have already told it on this substack.  In fact, I told it as recently as Saturday during my seminar with Jungarchademy.  (www.jungarchademy.com).  With each telling, another part of me is told.  No telling is ever the same, because with each telling more of it and me is revealed.  Maybe the same is true for the listener?

 St. Christopher the Canine

In a certain time. In an uncertain place, there lived a giant. Monstrous. Colossal. He

towered over men and walked companionably with the old growth trees. Not only was

he apart from the affairs of men because of his size, but he was born with the body of a

man, and the head of a dog.  While he was afflicted in his form, this dog-man-giant was born knowing that he had a big destiny. He was born knowing that he was to serve the most powerful force in the universe. So, he grew and he grew and he grew and watched and he listened and he learned.

Soon he came to believe that the King must be the most powerful force in the universe.

After all, taxes were paid to the King. The King wore a crown of gold. Audience with

the King was rare. Penitents greeted the King on bended knee. Surely, the King was

the most powerful force in the universe.

Our dog-man-giant, known as Christopher the Canine, in service to his destiny,

indentured himself to the King. For many years he served the King. There were many

useful things a giant could do to please the King. He could raise or lower the

drawbridge all on his own. He could hold back armies. He could carry the spoils of

defeated campaigns against the Kings enemies unaided. The King was very pleased

with his charge. But soon enough, the charge was not so pleased with his King. He

saw that the King was afraid of the devil. Therefore, the King was not the most

powerful force in the universe. The devil must be more powerful than the King.

Christopher the Canine resigned his service to the King and applied to serve the Devil.

The Devil responded with glee. To Hades he went. The dog-man-giant filled his hellish

role. For many years did devilish things. Until one day. One day Christopher the

Canine watched the Devil recoil from the Cross. “Ah, the Cross must be the most

powerful force in the universe”. The dog-man-giant lay down his fiery fork, surrendered

his dark cloak, and turned toward the Cross.

Not knowing how or where to serve the Cross, Christopher the Canine made a

pilgrimage to the Desert Fathers. He saw that they wore the Cross embroidered on

their bright robes. He approached the Desert Fathers and asked how to serve the

Cross.

“Pray,” instructed the Desert Fathers.

“Giants don’t pray,” Christopher the Canine argued.

“Fast,” said the Desert Fathers.

“Voracious is my appetite,” Christopher the Canine explained. “Dogs don’t fast.”

“Then, go to the End of the World. There you will find a swollen flooding river. Ferry

the travelers aCross,” offered the Desert Fathers.

Christopher the Canine journeyed to the End of the World. Sure enough, there he

found a wide river swirling with flood waters. At the edge stood many travelers. He

was needed to ferry them to the other side. He was needed to Cross the river. One by one, the dog-man-giant carried men and women aCross the river. Day after day. Night after night. He carried Queens and Kings. Angels and Demons. Princes and paupers. In the Crossing of the river at the End of the World, he served the most powerful force in the universe. And in so doing, the end of the world that had been a wall, became a threshold. Christopher the Canine crossed the threshold of Destiny.

Finally, he had but one traveler left to ferry aCross the river. He had served the Cross

for many years. Many travelers made the passage. For Christopher the Canine and his

passengers, the barrier at the End of the World became a Threshold into Mystery. The

burden was great. He grew old and weary. This small Traveler would be his last. The

final traveler was a Child. Christopher the Canine thought this final journey aCross the

river would be the easiest of all.

As the dog-man-giant shouldered the Child, he almost collapsed. This Child was the

heaviest of all. Gravity tugged at him. Struggling to shoulder this colossal small child,

he stepped into the river. With the heavy Child lifted high up on his shoulder, the

currents pulled at his feet. With all his remaining strength, with the Child, he pushed

the End of the World aCross the Threshold into Glory. Exhausted and fulfilled, he

tenderly placed the child on the Other Side. He knelt down with fatigue. He knelt down

and kissed the small and seemingly yet unopened wounded feet of this Child. The

Child touched his bowed head, touched each of his bent shoulders, and with a

tenderness unknown to the giant-dog-man, touched his heart. A chorus sounded. He

breathed his last.  The giant-dog-man was canonized.  May this be a veneration to Saint Christopher the Canine.

Surely, I have served the Kings.  I have tried to turn and twist myself into service to the collective, believing, perhaps naively, that this was a noble destiny.  In this servitude, I have bowed before too many mad kings.  Been on too many Crusades.  Lost too much faith.  In my despair and encroaching nihilism, I turned away from the collective and tried to individuate to wholeness.  This included deep communion with nature: my nature, the nature of psyche, and Nature herself.  For the most part this has been holy servitude.  Seeking and serving the Self as Jung defined it has been a rewarding and meaningful endeavour.  Yet.  I remember on my first Wilderness Vigil, being told by the First Nations elders that my Jungian Self was not the same as the Creator.  I was not ready to accept that then, and my life has been dedicated to the devil of psychology.  I say devil, not in the sense of absolute evil, but devil in the sense of that which can eclipse all that this deep and hard and honest work could be pointing toward.  Even at the summit of Mt. Sinai, there is a Voice in the clouds, in the burning bush, in the tongues of fire.  The ineffable, the transcendent, the spiritual is what I need to turn toward. I am discovering that while I love nature, psychology, and the quest for individuation, this love is not worthy of worship. There is something so familiar and yet so mysterious at the edge of the river I sense that I must now cross.   

I am being called again to the edge of the world.  The end of what I know and toward the maw of mystery.  I think this hankering for one for Wilderness Vigil is in part a deep discussion with the Desert Fathers who will point the way. 

Should my application to this Wilderness Vigil to which I have applied be accepted, I will travel across the wine dark sea and sit in alien woods in an alien land.  I will fast and I will pray.  I will accept the threshing that is inevitable at all thresholds.  And, if God be kind and open my ears and my eyes, my heart will find its nascent rhythm, in harmony and in symphony with St. Christopher.