THE LONG GAME (OF BLUE SKIES, TALL TREES, PONDS, PATHWAYS, AN INTENTIONALLY PROVINCIAL TRINITY, PROVIDENCE AND SNAKES)

I didn’t think I would go that way in the forest, that old and busy direction that I used to take. The people in the parking area were many and varied and they seemed to be going the secreted, mysterious, solitary way that I usually went. That was my route and routine. But, it’s a free world, and though it was my route it was not my route through any kind of ownership. Not in actuality. I paused and thought, thought and paused. Hey, why not? I would go the other direction, which was the old one. Sometimes things come full circle. It had been over a year. Starting on the path I thought, Enough time has gone past that it is almost, to me, new again. And it’s a good thing. I shall see interesting evolutions and devolutions and more. It’s been a long time, but it’s a long game, it’s the long game that one has to sign up for, that I am in. That is it, that is it, that is it. It’s the long game.

 

Up and up a ridge I could see that a storm had really

knocked over trees and many parts of a long fence that marked off the property from what is public to what is properly private. But no rains or winds then, just the blue sky day and me going my way. Soon I saw a little pond, and more interesting wildflowers about and around. There are Trilliums, and as for the rest, I shall have to gain a field guide, a manual, from some local store and learn the names and nuances, the types and species and the rest. All I really know is that some are yellow and others a deep violet. There are patches of blue ones, and at times I see other colors also.

Looking up, almost anywhere, the trees were incredibly tall. The sky behind them, in, well, the sky, seems so perfect, w/out blemish. There are at those times no cell phone towers, banners, skyscrapers, and the like. There is just the blue itself. Things come and go, but the blue will remain. That sky is also in it for the long game. The sky, as the old saying goes, is sort of there to ‘make a slow penny not a fast buck.’ 

Going through here and there, the dogs jumping in mud, in small rivers, bogs, we got a bit dirty. But that is what it is all about. I don’t use any spray for my legs for poison ivy and oak, and usually just wing it. Today I was wearing shorts. Some bee the other day seemed to chase me. That’s out of the blue. Well, it was out of the meadow, by a fox hole, or whatever was using that hole in an old and humongous tree. It was there, and beyond the bee, that hollowed out tree, - an open and flaxen field- a bit parched looking, - but foiling and juxtaposing the, what? - Of course- our old and dear friend, - the marvelous and somehow valorous sky. 

We kept on, and saw some leveled off tree trunk where an animal, probably a chipmunk or squirrel, had brought his spoils and gnawed and chewed at them. They were left scattered but it felt they had their own internal logic. I looked upon it and liked it. I stood around there for a bit. Quietude, a certain amount of serenity, - not bliss per se, - but something approaching the almost sacrosanct. The windless silence, knowing trees, picaresque little plants that wait on little inclines by craggy rocks. But you can’t wait there forever, so I moved along and with me moved my furry friends. We are like some kind of trinity.

Something moving beside me. Snake. I stop. I pull the dogs back just in case because I don’t know exactly what I am dealing with yet. It’s just a garter snake. I bend down to look at him and take a picture. Oddly enough, he freezes and we end up staring at one another for like, long minutes. Odd. I was reading about Kundalini last night, late into the night. Was the snake, to the mystical or native or intuitive way of reading the world, nature, events, Providential, Highly Auspicious? - A sign and a wonder, - all? Was it an outward manifestation, though real and in the objective world, of an inner process? Why did it feel so peaceful and well to see it? Why did it not run, slither rather, away, - in either fear, instinct, or both? - Why did it allow me to stare at it, as in a vision? Did I hear the snake talk? I am not Simon- well, - not all the time, rarely if ever. The school called him an outright Christ figure, and the introduction (to Lord of the Flies), - called him an ‘embryo mystic’. What an awesome term! Was the snake good, bad, or just a snake? Can it be both a snake and a sign? Can it be a sign without the snake knowing so? What was the feeling? It was good. The statue of the Virgin Mary has her stepping on the snake, thus casting him, the devil—down, keeping the ‘devil underfoot’ as it were. But the kundalini, the serpent power, is different. It can be felt, and I have felt it, - as divine physical shower of grace and power but more than those two, of blessing, and more than all three- of Source energy itself- of Source.

Who knows?

I left him there to himself, still watching me. The feeling was a good one, if feelings can be gauges. I have never left a snake in the same place I found it, half-way over a log, watching me, - as I left. It was like leaving a friend at lunch. Have a nice day, I thought.- 

And it was back up the ridges behind the forest main. Open sandy areas, and a new path I noticed has been built. We took it down, and it led to a quiet way, - you could hear the silence again- the stillness of the blue sky. We winded with the path. We were not in a hurry. We even slowed, lazily, lollygagging though the natural world. We were in no hurry. 

We were in it for the long game. 

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