Peering into the sea, I see the rise and fall of my heart beat and my blood flows now like the highs and lows of the tides chasing the pulls and running from the pushes of the moon’s feeling dance. And the sound of a distant bird wakes me from my oceanic dream to reveal I am only napping on the moss. Muffin and thermos still splayed out beside me. Time to get up and get a move on the light will be changing soon.
As I walk through the woods, the gnarled root of an old tree, trips me up and reminds me to “mind” my step and I begin to step and I can hear the crackling of wind led leaves of last years autumn and I can smell the spring onion crushed under my newly falling step and all around me is the hissing sound of life alive. Far overhead a gull sings of another journey and the voyage up north and the anticipation of new life ahead.
The sign off the path says private property, but I can hear the horses and step in just to the edge so that I can see them in their playful reverie. I have always thought that horses remind me of sex and so the whole thing just feels so sexy, but the horses are just eating grass and looking around. I feel awkward and turn too quickly back to the path, but can’t resist one last glance at the horse who whinneys. Life’s trials may try to fool me into believing that I am in some arid and dead land, but that is not where I am, nor will I ever be. I am in the lush and green living valleys of the Catskills, the Shawanagunks, and the Appalachians, where there is no desert but those invented by the hateful and the greedy. The deserts are in the hearts of the lost, but I see my oasis and I am within. I drink from the drinking gourd and I live in the land of plenty.
I wander down these mountain paths and yes I am confused. Did I leave the trail? Which trail is this the green? The red? But I will look to the sun and think of my direction, but the thickly overhanging leaves obscure the light. I am not certain where I am, but I see a house. Further down the trail is a house and, yes, it is the outpost. I will go there. There is always a map there. The fog is rising from the east as the sun lowers and so I know now where the lake is and the car is not far from here. My breathing is deep and slow and my mountain journey is coming to a close. Time to go home.
HoneybeeWood 