Cairn-Space. N. Thomas Johnson-Medland
be routine and it must be thoughtful.
There are a myriad of practices you can pick up in this space. First, going to this place must become a regular habit—a routine visiting. Second, our spiritual practice in this prayer-space must become a regular habit—a routine visiting.
Go to this place often and just begin with a prayer (or a psalm, or a prayer service) and conclude with a sitting in silence. Remind yourself that you are here to water the soul, to commune with the Divine. Let what comes to fruition in your silence be a natural out-flowing of what your heart, mind, and soul hold inside after offering up your spiritual practice.
Let your sitting begin with a practice. When the practice is finished, simply sit. Become aware of your own presence in this cairn. Become aware of what the stones of practice are building. Listen. Watch and wait for what arises as you water the garden of the soul.
The more we visit this space, the more meaning it will have for us. When we pass by it, we will sense the history it has in our lives and it will begin to have a feel all it’s own. It will radiate a sense of identity to us. We must return to this cairn-space over and over again.
Our thinking does the same. When we have a thought over and over again, it builds up a sense of identity in us. We collect whole bunches of associations around the things we think.
Perhaps we have the thought of “apple pie.” As we think of “apple pie” over the years, we will begin to attach experiences of “apple pie” to the idea. Perhaps we think of grandma’s pie, or our mother’s. Perhaps we remember the permeating aroma. We may have intense autumnal memories when we think of “apple pie.” Maybe we are galvanized by the texture and flavor of the crust.
We add to the thought of “apple pie” the memories, feelings, impressions, and inner tastes that go along with all of the pies we have experienced. These things get all glommed together. Images and impressions begin to affect our perceptions. In time, depth is added to an idea. We develop multiple layers of meaning. A thing (or the idea of a thing) becomes a concept.
This concept carries much more weight than the simple beginning idea of “apple pie.” The concept becomes our icon of “apple-pie-ness.” Eventually, all of the surrounding associations that go along with “apple pie”—crust, grandma, autumn, smells—become a part of the history of “apple pie” in our lives. All melds into concept.
Neuro-scientists tell us that this familiarity and development with and of an idea or thing is very real. Repetition of phenomenal contact enhances meaning. The brain selects toward protecting thoughts and experiences that express familiarity because of regular and routine exposure or encounter. Things we experience over and over again get protected in our neural processes.
The axons in the brain transmit neural messages. The dendrites in the brain receive neural messages. The path these thought/messages travel between the two is called a neural pathway. Each time we have a particular thought or sequence of thoughts, the body wraps a myelin sheath around the neural pathway this thought travels (making the connection stronger and more readily accessible).
The subsequent thoughts that emerge from our initial thought also begin to develop neural pathways as well. A system of associative connection is built—a superhighway of meaning and understanding. Firing off certain thoughts may automatically trigger groups of thoughts, entraining them together based on their repetition and proximity.
When we have the thought of “apple pie” a pathway is created from the idea that spawned the notion of “apple pie”, to the image we have of “apple pie”, and then (perhaps) to our memories of specific apple pies from our past. The firing of the neurons for the thought of “apple pie” become entrained with these other associative images mentioned in our above thought scenario and they begin to learn to fire in sequence together. Perhaps we tend to think of Grandma (who made the best apple pies) when we think of apple pies, or of autumn (since we tend to make apple pies during harvest time).
Soon, all of the associative images we have for an idea get glommed in with the circuitry of meaning that we weave for that thing. We may not be aware of the connections we have made, but “apple pie” sure feels like grandma and autumn to us for a reason.
The myelin sheath that wraps the pathway of transmission is a lipid. It is made of fat. Repetition of thoughts and sequences of thoughts actually strengthen the pathway and the likelihood of relying on this pattern in the future. More myelin sheathing is wrapped around a pathway each time it is traveled. A neural cairn is born. Repetition of neural firing strengthens the likelihood of survival. Thoughts in close association tend to enter into the firing sequence of the neurons.
This is why we tend to associate one thing with another. It is why we sense autumn’s approach when we notice a shift in the intensity of the sun’s rays. Something inside is connecting these things together.
A symbiotic bond is formed between ideas we have that seem to go together. When one idea fires off down a neural pathway, it may trigger the firing off of other associated ideas. We may have wondered why in the autumn we always long for apple pie. It may be attached to the changing of the leaves in our memories. When autumn arrives and the leaves change, patterns and associations are fired off in our hearts and minds.
So it is with prayer spaces. Slowly over time we add all of the experiences we have had in this place—and others just like it—to the idea of this space. We build up a concept of prayer space. We plant, water, and nourish the notion of prayer. A cairn-space is created.
It does not take long to be able to build up such a deep and expansive notion of prayer space that it becomes portable. We no longer need to enter the exact first space of prayer, we may then simply enter the concept that has been built over time. We surround our prayer with the myelin-like sheath of repetition. We learn how prayer time may become a peaceful encounter.
Once this peaceful encounter is hardwired into us, we may be able to enter into prayer and its subsequent peace-space in a new location. Once we do that, then this new location gets added into the repertoire of prayer-peace. Cairns become linked together. But we cannot hardwire these notions together unless we have a regular and routine practice of these experiences that will ensure the myelin sheathing necessary for cellular familiarity.
It becomes possible to enter into prayer space, then, while in the grocery line. We can go into our sacred place while in church pews, stuck in traffic, or while rocking our tired new-born to sleep. This is only possible if we start with a specific place and go there for specific times—repeatedly. We must build this space in our world and in our interior lives. We must visit it often, to make the impression stronger. We build, one stone at a time. Once this happens we can add new associations, new places to the pathways of prayer that begin to fire when we settle ourselves into prayer.
Over time we will begin to notice what is going on in this space. Like being able to watch the mantises rise from the plants to find a meal and safety, we will observe thoughts and feelings arise in our space. We will sense patterns and themes arising from our heart. We will hear cries of love and desperation climbing out of our interior to the One Who Is. We will recognize patterns and smaller cairns. Over time.
Perhaps when we sit to pray, we get fidgety at first. If we do not find something to do to calm this fidgetiness, then we will be hardwiring fidgetiness into our prayer associations. We will find ourselves getting fidgety whenever we pray. So we find an antidote to the fidgetiness and we apply it.
This is why it is suggested to have something to do in our prayer spaces, something to bring us back around to our center. This ensures that “centeredness” is hardwired into our neural firings and not “fidgetiness.”
We start by finding a time and place. We add a habit of prayer. We return to that time and place again and again. We use our habit of prayer—our spiritual practice—to settle us and begin new neural associations. We sit, we practice, we enter the slowing.
So far we have looked at a simple prayer practice to help us do this. If once we have said our prayers and sit in silence we find that we are distracted in a thousand directions, we cut off that experience by returning to the prayers again.
We