After an "all-nighter" commenced Friday evening - Saturday dawned, clear and bright - a need arose to walk amongst the greenery, to share my breathing up close with the trees, the unchanged hedgerows, echoing back to my childhood, to feel the luxuriant grass underfoot, and the clean, fresh morning air.
This was early - not a time I am normally up & about - but I was joined by the intermittent company of several cheery souls, out walking with their best friends.
I walked through a wooded glade - resting with my back against a tall, stout tree - its gnarled, grey bark covered in a delightfully lemon-green lichen - reaching my arms out behind me in a backwards embrace - my gaze and my spirit were escorted skywards - up through the tangle of branches and leaves - motionless in the completely still air - as gravity pulled at my roots, keeping me firmly grounded amongst a bewildering exuberance of growth - brambles, nettles, ivy & grasses all jostling upwards towards the light.
Refreshed - I returned to the open grassland - passing a spot at the edge of the wood, rank with the stench of decay - I noticed down in the grass, the outline of a heart drawn with gravel, inside of which had been placed some bunches of gathered wild flowers.
A shallow grave - no doubt - of someone's best friend - laid to eternal rest in his favourite haunt.
I sat on a bench, conveniently shaded by a low canopy of greenery - to be sniffed out by a greyhound - eyes, wild and alert - I sensed its unbridled life-force - the complete absense of contradiction or restriction in its nature - which obediently sprung off at a pace when called for by its owner.
A strange, secret, superior feeling crept over me - when the next dog to pass nearby - didn't notice me at all.
The distant trees seem to have a mysterious accompanying glow - vaguely contouring their outline - which vanished when I concentrated on it with my eyes.
The sort of morning when "Good morning" - even though a casual and habitual greeting - means much more than usual.
Then I strode out to the very centre of a vast area of kept grassland - a common - rich with mauve clover-flowers and vivid dandelions - low flying and dutifull bees - busy in their industry.
Dead centre by my reckoning, with the rising sun to my left - I stretched out on the grass, possibly aligned with the earth's magnetism - north-south - and stared at the glorious free expanse of beautiful blue above me.
First noticing the strange paisley swirls, those evasive patterns floating about the eye itself - seen up close and personal - revealing what also must be the start of a cataract growth in my right eye - a blurring raft of some sort, slipping and sliding about - but never disappearing.
Back to the sky - am I looking up - or am I looking down - let's see if I can feel gravity.
A tiny whisp of cloud processes past. I notice the receptor cells in the eye firing and sparking randomly - their binary dance in response to the light. I shut my eyes - immediately engulfed by a blood-red warmth - and then patterns appear - a mandala of orange, yellow and red - curiously animated - dividing cell-like and kaleidoscopically.
The ambient noise is slowly penetrated by an approaching aircraft - I hear it to my right - am I hearing an aircraft, or am I hearing just sound?
I hear it pass across the sky - my ears tell me this - and it fades again into the ambience - far on my left.
How did my ears get that information to me?
Concentrating on the sound - just the sound - in that window of attention, focused with quantum precision astride the galloping stallion of now - there is only the sound and the hearing - there is no listener.
Watching the light again - concentrating - there is no watcher - only seeing - only light.
I feel out for gravity - I concentrate - I am already feeling it - I cannot isolate something I have always known.
I am conscious - I cannot isolate something I have always known.
I disappear entirely for as long as I can - simply the being - being - hearing - seeing - feeling - the eternally changing truth - the infinitely still, clear silence of peace.
Life - I am the grass, the sky, the dogs, the grave - the others.
Only recognizable inside this peace.
More refreshed than before - I return to my car. On the way I play games with my shadow - I could be that shadow - had I not looked in a mirror.
It is always in direct line with the sun - even if I walk sideways to the sun - my shadow doesn't.
If I walk directly away from the sun - my shadow is directly in front of me.
If I face the sun - it disappears completely - entirely.
I drive into town - after brief exchanges with other dogs and other owners - it was agreed all round - this was a good morning.
The local produce market was being erected along the pedestrian highstreet- various stalls - setting out their offerings.
Alongside where I was sitting outside of a coffee house - four giant pans waited on equally large gas burners - to dispense burgers and bacon rolls to the anticipated crowd of shoppers.
Saturday morning was waking, stretching - and slowly coming to life.
All these habitual early birds, rare company for me, all seemed to have a sense of purpose about them - even if it was no more than making the most of a weekend. People seemed to have their history etched into their visible being - their deportment - their faces - all told a silent story.
The variety of produce, the glory of diversity - accompanied by an equally glorious diversity of purpose.
Flocks of pigeons - in perfect synchronisation - launched and soared around the high buildings, the communication antennae, the air conditioning plant - installed up on the rooftops.
Above them, two roaming red kites - gliding, circling - their sharp vision intent on breakfast.
Beyond that - the same blue sky.
There was a sinister undercurrent of tension - a current of an ever increasingly complex broadcast of non-communication.
Sparking, shorting out - being transmitted but not received - from the poles of diverse imagination - diverse intent - diverse purpose.
A blanketing static interference - disrupting the clarity of that deep, still, blue sky.
Peace is all we can hope to have in common - the still, silence of being.
Surely - all this diversity of imagination - must be balanced by a unity - of peace - or we will not proceed much further, before the interference becomes intollerable.
On the way, returning back to my car again - I am sucked into an oasis of peace - the church where I was married.
I sit in the comforting stillness - the calm - generations of love & worship had a presence that was soaked into the walls.
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