Friday, April 24, 2015

Friday Ramble - Trailing Light

She opens her eyes, the trailing edges of dreams of the woodland and by winding rivers brushing against her still foggy mind—impressions of roots, warm earth and mossy stones, budding ferns and wildflowers in shady places, flickering sunlight and clear blue sky seen through old trees, the songs of rivers in their blithe becoming.

There was melancholy in her dreams, and an element of panic too—the night's apprehensions linger as she emerges with tea in hand after rambling for hours in the darkness.  Has she accomplished anything at all in this old life?  What if she is just floundering through her existence this time around and not accomplishing anything at all.  What if she is unable to express in any meaningful way how rare and precious and fleeting are all beings, this earthy realm we are treading together?  There is so much grace and beauty and wildness and grandeur out there that she sometimes despairs of ever capturing even a small scrap of it with words and images.

In shadowy alcoves in the woods there are scraps of snow, but warmed by the springtime sun, greenery is appearing out of the leaves and mosses in nooks here and there.  The tender ferns springing from the granite in her favorite gorge are content just to be there and basking in the sunlight of their native place.  Perhaps, like them she gets to come back and leaf out over and over again until she gets things right.  She remembers Joanna Macy's words, so perfect for this week in which Earth Day occurs, and she is comforted:

It is my experience that the world itself has a role to play in our liberation. Its very pressures, pains, and risks can wake us up -- release us from the bonds of ego and guide us home to our vast, true nature. For some of us, our love of the world is so passionate that we cannot ask it to wait until we are enlightened.
Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self

Somehow or other, she will be here among these hills forever and drinking in the wild light.  Her molecules will disperse and reassemble and cavort in many other life forms, but they may remember in some small measure or scrap of their being what it was like to be here this time around.  That is quite enough.

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