I just returned home from a walk on a trail that runs along the edge of a deep glacial lake in the mountainous evergreen forest region of the Pacific NW. I frequent this trail most mornings of the week, arriving just as enough light is filtering through the typical gray cloud covered sky that all north-westerners are intimately familiar with . . . If you love those pallid skies you’re in paradise, and if not, consider moving. Gray skies are a feature of our lives here for many months in the year, gray skies and cold, clear water. I happen to love both.
Along the trail there are several waterfalls and creeks that empty out into the lake at various points and inlets. Every one is a fascination for me, every one stirs my soul. I have come to depend on contact with the falling water as much as I depend on restful sleep to see me through the day. It is as if the water tumbling down over rock and burbling it’s way through well-worn channels of stone is kin to the very blood in my veins making it’s way from my heart, nourishing my vitality. Going to the water’s edge amidst the moist air and babbling rhythms I am fed, comforted, aligned . . . Fit for the day ahead.
This morning I paused for an unusually long time on a little bridge that spans a creek whose banks are broad and impassible in December. As the year rolls into August the creek becomes a small trickle and makes the bridge unnecessary, but not so now. I normally slow down a bit and watch my steps on this bridge with it’s slimy surface. Many days rolling into months of rain in our temperate coastal weather turn this aging structure into the perfect breeding ground for the tenacious and slippery green algae clinging to wood and stone underfoot. I slowed, as is my habit . . . and today, I stopped. I rested my elbows on the edge of the railing and fell into something like a voluntary hypnosis, delightfully transfixed on what lay before me.
The water was tumbling down a rock face where large flows of ice from our recent arctic blast hung erratically like the enormous snow-white dreadlocks of an ancient sea god risen abruptly from his slumbering reverie. The morning’s rain was racing over and around the ice flows with tremendous speed enhanced by the imposition of the ice channels forcing the water into a tighter route down the hillside. It plummeted thunderously into a pool at the base of the rocky ravine and from there, slowed it’s course to make it’s way into the lake.
I stayed on the bridge, looking up to the falls, watching as the water approached me. Then I turned and moved to the other side to see it wind away. Looking back toward the hillside the water was rushing and ahead toward the lake it slowed, completing this leg of the journey. The bridge was in the middle of this little drama. The bridge, the ice, the rocky bluff, the creek, and lake took on a metaphorical presence. There in the cool early hours of the day all these thing became the pieces of my journey.
Looking back to the source of the flow, I was looking into my past. I saw the early years, and various phases of my life’s evolution roll out in the water. At one point it flowed exuberantly and confidently as in moments of my life’s history when I could see the plan ahead. It was then I had an abundance of energy to chart my course and see it though with high spirits, boisterous tumbling and energetic fury racing to an end. Then just as quickly, the water went under the ice and out of sight. I know this place as well, when disappointed hopes, love gone stale, or death’s final departure have brought an oppressive gravity, depression and confusion to my doorstop . . . Those days of dry despair having only enough energy to slip away to a cold place, hidden from view.
Along the banks in the shadows of the exuberance and diminished energies were swirling eddy’s, trickles in between stones and small pools dammed up by leaves, twigs and logs . . . the less remarkable, and no less fascinating. These smaller marvels like the mortar in between the bricks of everyday existence where wonder is available with attention given and the eyes to see. I might even suppose that in the more ordinary stuff of life lies the foundation for true enjoyment and engagement with the more extraordinary things that are so easily seen with voices that speak so loudly. Perhaps without attention paid to the smaller things, we fall prey to a pervasive dissatisfaction, shallowly expecting grander and greater pleasures to appease the aching despair in the hollows where the commonplace lies unnoticed . . . The simple joys of a cup of morning tea, the brush of a fresh breeze on your face, the smile of a friend, the squeal of a delighted child, the soft radiance of the moon’s light . . . all the ordinary in between mortar staying the bricks that support the more obvious structure.
Where am I in this winter drama? I am standing in the middle, on a bridge, at a particular junction of my existence in time and space. I am here, in the middle of a moment, a tiny slice of life where I am transitioning from all that lies behind to all that lies ahead. I am in the only piece I have access to on this journey--the present. I can remember, heal, and learn from the past, conjured up through the veils of memory and colored by personal story. I can speculate and dream a future without any real assurance of constancy in the parts and pieces of my hypothetical musings. It is profoundly true that this very moment is the only reality I have, and for me, it’s a bit slippery underfoot.
I am in a space of life transition where moving ahead means taking care with my steps. I am treading wisely, and giving myself the gift of taking time to pause and reflect instead of succumbing to the voices of urgency to have answers, the plan, the strategy, and own it! I hear those voices and they are quieting in the rhythmic pounding and bubbling water underneath . . . I need to linger on this bridge, inhabit the space in between. At some point I will breath life into dreams of what I can create with whatever time and energy is left to me until that unknown moment when the waters of my life flow into the deep glacial reservoir beyond. Now . . . I linger.
Being with transition . . . What this artist is thinking about today . . .
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