SUMMER WINTER SUMMER (THE JOURNEY FROM NONDUALITY, TO DUALITY, TO NONDUALITY)

In the first part, it was warm. There was no learning, only being. The bright morning star let itself down on the world. It was on the skin, the rubber and canvas parts of the shoes, and somehow in the hair itself. There was a golden thread and it weaved itself throughout continents and even stayed glowing in the nights, in the dreams and visions. The memory of this afterwards was of beaches and birds, piers and fish, waves lapping softly, their whitecaps rising up trying to kiss the salt air. This was the beloved, and it was not known that the beloved could be blocked or made to appear opaque or worse, invisible, by any artifact or circumstance.

Then the second part came. A winter storm of sorts. The world froze over. There was no evidence of the whitecaps and even the pier was a dream and a distant one at that. If there was a gold thread,- it had been severed or burned from a secret flame, perhaps at the hands of a demonic arsonist of malevolent spirit let out on the earth. No summits or verdant fields remained. Youth with its gleam and glisten, its shine and sublime time and rhyme, were gone. If it were not enough- the winter winds reached beyond cold and became vexatious, - all risen up from a slumber, - ready to harm and harm they did. The winter took almost everything. It took the horse and the barn, the cities of summer, - the rich and wonderful autumnal hues. It took the beloved.

Long times stayed like that. But the ice finally broke and the summer returned. This time, it was appreciated, for the winter, like a burglar, like a spiritual and physical violation, could be remembered. Yet the trauma’s scar, still visible, was blocked out now by the new morning sun. The chaparral made interesting shapes and bits of it got dislodged and blown across spring’s afternoon. Sometimes there was a sun shower, an actual rainbow, and the feral animals stretched and sang, swam and ran, dreaming out their own visionary existences. Yes, Providence had smiled upon the world again, and it nestled into a great and arrived kismet.The beloved had returned. 

Out in the countryside a white bird flew across the way charmed and free like, as they say, nobody’s business…

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PRAYERS FOR THE DEPARTED AND THE FLOWERS OF THE SUMMER SUN

I said to the guy in a large auditorium; Don’t forget about the ones that have left us, the good friends and such…

 

But, since the guy was a pragmatist, a stoic type, his reply was simply, What can you do with them? He didn’t mean anything by it. He was saying in his own way that he himself was in the here-now. I understood and understand, - but still I am a willful one, - and have always thought on them, - those departed ones.

Perhaps I always shall.

And who is right? Which one? The grounded one or me? The achieving one or me? The one who deals in ‘what is,’ or me? The one that navigates and negotiates this secular world with a great type of acuity and prowess, or me,- …me who stares at clouds, at the rain, at the birds passing across an Indian summer sky? 

Who is to say? 

Maybe we are both right.

Maybe we are both wrong.

Maybe there are shades.

Maybe there is no answer.

There are the city flowers and there is the country sun. But, - the country sun is the same sun that shines on the city flowers. In both places, - I think on the departed. There was the one who I didn’t know too well, - but he was tall, affable, smiling. You could see his kindness in his aura, - truly I say. He was taken in a summer car accident. And the woman, blonde, - with perhaps four hundred souls at her funeral, - taken in another one. We once sat on a bench in the night and the talk was easy, on the level, incredibly familiar and forthright. 

What of the others? The most shining one for some reason is Tom, - the only one that shall be

named. He stood in the sub-tropical sun and we talked about remote control cars, the local fish, and other things like snakes, birds, firecrackers. He is the one that said what to me is a famous saying that will never be known or cared about perhaps and it was as follows: He looked at the outside world that he was supposed to work in one day,- and it was a perfect cloudless summer day. We wanted him to come with us and play hooky. He wanted to also, so he said,

It looks like rain...

meaning it is not possible to do that type of work in the rain. We all went off and had a grand time in the Southern Floridian world. I don’t think it rained then or for days after.

So many, many others if one thinks on it. The man who said hi in a crowd when he didn’t have to, - when others just move on. The old ladies that made things, that recited decades, that were surrounded by cookies and prayer beads, by great auras and good light.

Hey, what about that old Indian man, - the Scorpio, - so strong and funny in his own odd way. I told him I knew of an avatar, and he said he was too old for that, and didn’t really care. And who cares about that now anyways I guess. 

So many. A flower for each I say, - a yellow flower valorous and unapologetic, - rising to meet the light, - opening, tall, faithful.

Proud and graceful as the blue sky observes and I recite quiet lamentations to the sun.

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ALMOST LIKE A VISION ANYHOW…………

The same. But beautiful. I took them out in the relatively early morning hours to get in a good walk before the temperature rose. There was still some wind, some vestige of the evening. And the evening had been a good one, - cool or cool-ish at the least, not oppressive, - and it made one to stare out windows at the clear sky, the little dipper, the big dipper, - whatever else. I was listening to a guest on the radio show, - an interesting interview- guy by the name of Alex Collier I believe, - if I got the spelling correct. 

 

Anyhow- the early morning sun. The clouds. The night wrapped up and gone to sleep on its own. The old car was down there, - and moss, clovers, a marshy bog-like place. No coyotes, - none that I saw, - though they could be watching. Sometimes I stopped, like a shaman of some sort, - a self-anointed and self-appointed one anyways, - a wanna-be-shaman, lol- and stood incredibly still- waiting for something….for what, I had and have no idea. 

Maybe a message.

Perhaps a vision.

With luck some sort of Providence.

Or could it be a sign, a totem, a something.

Who is to know? In any event, - it did seem like the butterflies were following me- have been- white and orange and blue and other…………………but it could be they spawned or breaded there, - or it could be magical- what model do you use, does one use? - Or do they both ultimately meet? Well, - we walked along the ridge, - soon at the opening the dogs ran like flashes of light------------------------------------------------------------------and I looked around-,-we rested in the tall and shaded grasses under a series of Evergreen Trees.

There was still nobody and no animal. I remember the hawks flying across and out from the

distant tree line, - and wished to see them-but they have vanished.

Soon we made our way back. Good enough. What is the saying? - Bad news travels fast. Well- sometimes as the cliché goes, - No news is good news. - And we didn’t have a heck of a lot to report which was fine with us. Minding our own business, happy to feel the new day and be w/out any major dilemma. A bird, having alighted on some branch in the distance, looked back and me, at us, - and then took off way longer down that particular pathway. It disappeared quickly, just as it had arrived.

I smiled and thought to myself something like, Almost like a vision anyhow…

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ON FERAL SUMMITS WE GO

By the wild hills inside of forests the dogs watch. They can and do traverse an entire hill in a matter of seconds. It’s a sense beyond the senses that they use to pass bushes, fallen trees, old bits of bark and twigs, and then they seem on the coming up like butterflies themselves, - almost too fast for the photo. Overhead a plane goes sometimes a jet, sometimes a passenger liner, and sometimes a pontoon plane. But they have nothing on the canines, - nothing at all then- for they are off again, - a zipper, a flash, a dash, a quick rhyme ancient and new. Sometimes it’s a coyote they are after, and sometimes a deer, - while at others something as prosaic as a squirrel running. But all the time,- they themselves run majestically, dogs of a spiritual empire, dogs under a forested sun, dogs in the day and dogs in the dusk. Run, run, and run by the feral chaparral and the landscape that is at once terrene and verdant. We will see the winter like we have seen the spring. We will know the autumnal atmosphere like we experienced the summer moods. We will know all the unknowable and non-nameable ways of the forest- the places where sprites and devas stay, - the labyrinthine pathways where fairies and other birds fly. Look and look and look, - something is flying up the way just now-

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THE THEME OF NATURE WALKING

            It was quiet there. The last days of summer or the first few days of autumn upon us. Not officially, but the month has changed calendar hands. Is that a saying? It should be. The vacationers and the such-like-…gone up North, - which leaves the forest relatively empty for a Saturday morning. We headed across the back way to boot, - which made for a completely solitary journey. Didn’t see a soul coming or going. We followed the second path in- and walked along the top of the valley wall. It’s about three stories down and the slope is very pronounced to say the least. I could here a few things, - like the odd bird, or the rustle of a squirrel or chipmunk. There are spiders’ webs everywhere, - intricate, well made, lit up by the sun that filters itself through the tree cover. I don’t know…I was thinking after studying about the sprites, the devas, the elementals, the fairies, what I call, but I did not really see them referred to as such…as the guardians. I didn’t see any, - not even in the third eye, - but before that, - in vision, - I saw oddly enough a monkey. Usually monkey is bad, a trickster, but not a good trickster like a coyote, but a sarcastic one. Sarcasm, to me, - for the most part, - denotes something lowly. That’s just me. But this monkey,-different from one in imagination- was something- even kind of talking- like a miniature guardian or way shower- and after I read about it. But that’s all neither here nor there,- and one must stick even when inside the Oneness, with the apparent duality,- in order to navigate, to negotiate,- the world…and especially the world in a forest,- and for quite certain the world on a high Ridgway inside said forest. Besides, - there ain’t no monkeys there, that is for sure. I wondered though, about my old coyote friend, - maybe gone back to being nocturnal, or migrated to somewheres’ else. Oh well, - I would have like to have seen him again, - fuzzy, medium sized, curious, spry, camouflaged. But no, there is nothing there then, was nothing there then, - that I could see or hear or discern. It was almost too quiet, but I appreciated it nonetheless. The dogs when they saw the big opening at the end went to the sand pit and adjacent fields and ran jumped, played, and explored. I took a few pictures, looked around, walked onwards, - and after about twenty minutes there we began our way back. That is how it goes. Sometimes this happens, and sometimes that is seen. Sometimes textured cloud cover gets ready for rain, while at others it’s clear, incredibly bright, sort of beyond reality itself- like a hyper reality or Meta reality. But, all in all, - it’s a forest and field, pathways, flowers, birds and trees. Variations on a theme. The theme of nature walking.

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