A meditation

When uncertainty and doubt threaten to destroy you,
don't hide yourself from the world

Mother Earth awaits

Immerse yourself in the ever flowing waters

Cleanse your spirit

Your own wholeness rests within you

Be still and know yourself.

...

On a boathouse bench

I have been looking for a word to describe the feeling of sitting on a bench in the shade of the boathouse in Burcham Park, the wide open sky, brilliant blue, clear reflections on muddy ripples on the surface of the river ever so slowly flowing by.

It was only yesterday, already the memory fading. I could then hear the distant sound of cars and trucks crossing the turnpike bridge up river. A freight train rumbled by unseen on the far side of the levee across the way. A young man and young woman walked passed me, holding hands.

As I sat on that bench, I played for a while with a loop of string I had picked up earlier from the sidewalk as I walked to the river. Cat’s Cradle.  Sometimes a pattern of diamonds. Sometimes a tangle of knots. And then on the unseen air, I looked up to see cottonwood fluff drifting by on the early summer breeze.

I had been spending just an idling time on a sunny afternoon. And then my mind gradually became more keenly aware of everything around me – the sights and sounds, the light touch of a soft breeze – and also of a growing quietness in my mind. And there I was.

And yet, after more time passing, a moment turning into minutes uncounted, I stood up and simply walked away.  I had entered and left - a place so pleasing – a time so agreeable - all of it as ordinary as the mid-afternoon sun - and yet becoming an inexplicable wonder in my mind. 

I had been content - at ease - as I sat there yesterday afternoon, but the words here seem insufficient. And I could easily return to that place in Burcham Park on another fine-weathered day and yet not find the feeling I now only am trying to remember with this quick word sketch. Or one day – it might be any day at all - I will wander somewhere else along the river, just looking just for a place to sit. And then, perhaps, that feeling I am unable to define, will come to me, drifting on by like cottonwood fluff on an early summer breeze.

Sitting on a drift log on Willow Beach

Willow trunks, cut by beavers, had toppled, pointing towards the river. The trunks had again sprouted fresh willow leaves, quivering in a light afternoon breeze. I heard the soft lapping of water against the sand, water lapping softly against the sand.

And then I thought I heard a voice. And after an immeasurable pause – once again, a voice. It might have been you, whispering in my mind. It might have been the freshening wind, fluttering restless willow leaves, pale green against the silent gray-white sky. I searched the far bank.

Then a father and young son walked by from upriver, crossing behind the place where I sat. The son chattered to his father, his walking stick too tall for him by half. I watched them playing for a while downriver by the water’s edge.

A crow cawed. Young cottonwoods grew skyward through the sand. Drifts of driftwood. Willow leaves turning. River water lapping.

I remembered all of this from another time. I had surely been here before. I heard a voice. It might have been you, whispering in my mind.

And high overhead, I saw the silhouette of a turkey vulture, soaring on the wind.