In The Embrace Of Everything
Mother nature comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, "Let it be".
Today, I just took off in the car (with the dog) and headed towards a large nature reserve. Far from everything. No wifi, no worries, nothing but the wind, the creaking bamboo, the sounds of water falling and the silence of everything.
It was an hour drive along a twisting, turning road. Enough time to get in the mood and with Tom Petty as my passenger, the drive was a breeze.
Penas Blanca Massif is a huge, giant table of rock (think Cape Town but no ocean view), rising out of the netherland. It’s true nature. But people still live there too, we should remember that and it’s dangerous. That’s it with nature, it is what it is - danger is part of that.
The trail rose steeply, no warmup at all! I wanted to get a guide but it was Sunday and a bus was coming later (I went very early). That turned out to be great. I needed time alone and to just “explore”. I was told it is 6 hours up and down but we did it in 3. We quickly got to the beautiful waterfall after an hour.
I have run in some beautiful places in the world. I’ve been lucky. But the operative word is “run”. I always went so fast, never having time to think much, pause. It was just heart rate and watching where your next foot drops. One thing about my life now, getting older, one can just go along and there is time to think of Basho, think of what’s important, let nature heal. That is what I did.
“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.”
― Basho
The bombs drop in Ukraine. I have a lot on my mind, personally. A poet always does, we seem to bleed the world. But today, it just went away as Mother nature comforted me. Saying, “let it be”.
We are home. Viernes is asleep, bushed, tuckered, empty, kaput. And that’s what nature does, living naturally does. It tires you. And in tiring you, it rejuvenates you. The secret to a healthy organism is this process that is so natural. Suffering up and then resting, getting strong. The embrace of nature, I call it.
It was a great day. Let’s all take more time just to be alone on our own mountains, fields, valleys - letting everything “be”. Until next time Penas Blanca.
To Be Nowhere
To be no where
abandoning what you were
not embracing
what you are going to be.
To just be
but no where
in a kind of
other life –
all that isn’t,
is to see
the nature of which
pretends to make
us free.
It is to be
outside the looking glass
looking in
a place where
in the middle of no where
we are aware
that nothing stays
that a broken record still plays
the wind will wind again,
it is to be
both the fruit falling
and the tree,
this no where
where G-d is the eye
I see.