Daily Meditation, day 5

March 6, 2009 5:39

 The air smells new today and the snow is meant to melt.  In watching the season so closely, I realize each day marches on to something else, never stuck in winter, but always changing.  Like my summertime garden revealing luscious growth and fruit before my eyes, I see winter, too, has something to mull over.  Just before the sun dips below the tree line, the cloud tops shine bright orange and I focus on the aging pumpkin removed from storage days ago and placed in the snow.  Its deeply colored, but aging skin stands in contrast to the surrounding white.  It makes me sad to see her die from old age.  I remember those exhilarating days not long ago when I nursed her on the vine.  There were grand plans of jack-o-lanterns and pies. It is easy to let dreams slip when winter’s sun shines so short.  I remember fondly her sisters’ pies, sauces and soups and I relish increased daylight now as spring suggests itself.

 

 

Daily Meditation, Day 4

March 5, 2009 3:38

Day 4

 Today I have been busy, so I sat just outside my studio on a pine log that I cut last summer.  I faced the sun, closed my eyes and let the warmth wash over me.  I kept my eyes closed.

 I first noticed the drip, drip percussion of snow melting off my roof. Soon, I noticed the sound of songbirds.  I concentrated on their calls but while familiar, I could not identify species.  I could not count how many.  A tweet came from my far left to be answered by a similar sound across the clearing.  A series of twitters came from the tallest willow on the edge of ‘my’ land.  The caw, caw of a crow interrupted from a distance as I became aware of the far off rumble of a tractor to my right.  I struggled to hear with my left ear, focus on the songs and not hear from my right. But, I am made for stereo.

 When I opened my eyes to the sun, I was momentarily blind – the field of snow featureless through my tearing eyes.  I could not see any of the songbirds, too small and far way.  At last someone flew by – quick – but still revealing the white beneath her black-fringed wings.

 

Daily Meditation, day 3

March 4, 2009 6:03

Pale blue sky shifts to steel gray in dimming light. 
Cloud begins to fade, no longer distinguishable.
Six ducks circle directly overhead.
A second group appears, making rounds on an invisible track, seeming to squeak with the bursts of flapping that keep them aloft.
Around and around, circling just above the tree line.
Another group appears unannounced from behind.
Joining together, first 16, then 20, now 30 or more.
I can no longer keep track as they flit around and between.

Now gone, leaving me alone with the smell of woodsmoke, and that lone, blinking-red star atop the radio antenna.

 

Daily meditation, Day 2

March 3, 2009 5:13

Day 2: Starting my daily Stop, Look & Listen meditation.

I was out running errands as the sun’s decent became apparent.  I stopped along the edge of a parking lot in the industrial trade-port hoping for some peace. I was ill prepared for sitting out in the cold, without a jacket or hat. I felt the 23 degrees and wind immediately.  The breeze was quick, constant enough for those last rays of sun to offer no warmth.  I focused on the mountain of snow at the edge of the pavement.  In this light, I let my eyes de-focus, and witnessed the snow transform into an ancient glacier and a distant mountain range.  Ridged and steep, cold and foreboding.  Beyond, forty foot evergreens shielded this spot with a facade of forest from the main road.  Yesterday’s snow drifted down from the branches as they swayed in the wind — in my mind, I felt it as a stinging puff of snow across my neck and cheeks.  It’s quitting time and people are coming to their cars to return home after the day’s work.  I felt strange standing in the cold, out of place, without an obvious reason to be here as they drove by in steel cages insulating themselves from the world I watch.  In my world — with ancient mountains casting deep shadows, and crevasses where no man has yet explored — an oak tree holds crisp leaves as tires vibrating along the road  reveal their escape.

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My first day of a daily meditation practice

March 2, 2009 3:52

First Day: Starting my daily Stop, Look & Listen meditation.

Walking out to my chosen meditation spot, I trudged through twelve inches of freshly fallen snow.  My ears filled with the rhythmic crunch of snow beneath my feet and wind catching my ears and I had a subconscious sensation of quiet.  Once I stopped and sat, no longer making my own noise, I really noticed quiet, that relished quiet of snow absorbing the world around it.  Sound doesn’t travel as far, and, maybe since we have slowed down, not driving cars and trucks, there is a unique peace to this moment of a snowstorm. 

My quiet is defined by perspective, though, isn’t it?  Once sitting in the snow to observe the scene around, I started to hear things again.  First, it was the sharp and gentle patting of the windblown snow hitting the outer leather of my lambs’ wool cap. Then it was the unidentified bird calling in the distance in what seemed like a response to the ubiquitous electronic beep of a backing up plow truck.  Further away a dog barked and I heard people yelling to each other across the marsh.

I noticed the sharpness of the air drawn into my nostrils and how the snow silently fell to the ground at a forty-degree angle.  The earth around me was absorbed in this white, appearing featureless until the occasional fallen tree limb breached its surface.  One set of animal tracks, possibly a rabbit, seemed so gentle in contrast to my own deep and messy rut. My horizon line was defined by the gray vertical lines of trees and vines seeming further away than they really were by the blurring of falling snow. My eyes were drawn to the fluorescent pink tape wrapped loosely around an oak tree, something I had marked long ago as a dead and good for firewood.

It was only with a step onto the cleared pavement did I notice how soft it was to walk on the snow.