Monday, October 31, 2016

A SOFT KARMA OR OF ASCENTS AND DESCENTS (OWL, YELLOW LEAVES, CHIPMUNK, AND OTHER)



An owl sat again watching the highway. Where had he or she been all this time? You never know, as they say, what you ‘got’ until they take it away. Such gracefulness to wait there in the tree that reached so far, a tree like a spiritual aspirant, up and up until it disappeared in the clouds, in another realm, in God. And what of the owl? Surely the owl was the guru, the Buddha, the Krishna, the Christ, watching it all, helping, but also remaining still, centred in Being and as Being itself. Try and tell it to the transport truck driver, though, against odds, I can if given the chance. So the owl was there, and in the distance some guard dog waited in verdant fields of I don’t know what. As for us, - we were on the move, and kept at it.
 
In the larger forests and fields the colors were yellow for the most part. This was due to the leaves, some affixed to branches, others and most others, fallen. We go up a series of hills. Sometimes the wind comes through there, the wind like a spirit, and we stop and listen and feel as the leaves fall from branches like rain or a weird piece of installation art. I once briefly met an installation artist, and she was tall with short hair, older, calm, - but I was busy and had to keep on. She asked a question about Alan Watts, but I had to go I think, and so I went, moving with some internal spiritual or instinctual prompting. She did manage to explain the term, Installation Art, but its all, to use a cliché, Greek to me, as I don’t go around artists or the like. So the hue, mostly yellow, - brought a nice vitality somehow and seemed to vibrate at a good if not high level. We moved along…


That little chipmunk, oh, I felt bad for him. One could see right away that he had been unbothered and free for so long, playing there. Leave it to us, who go the extra mile or half mile quite literally into unknown territory and off the paths, - to upset him in his land of innocence and joy. I think when he saw us it was quite a startle that was given. Running up a tree, so nonplussed was he that a movement was made that could have been a fatal error in judgement, as he ran back down the tree to exchange it for another one, which meant he was on the ground for a few feet. I wished him the best, and he made it. Up the next tree. I could see he was small, inexperienced, working purely from fear. We left him there, alive and watching us who surely were monsters from a waking nightmare.


Down some more, there was a large tree that had fallen, and I realized that it was not that the root systems were so grand, but that it was in fact three or four trees that had fallen together. Moss, logs, little insects and other things were around there. It all made for a great painting or picture or poem if someone was so inclined. However, there is hardly anybody around there. Slowly, slowly, we went past, playfully, joyously if even sometimes with a wet shoe and sock, - and began to make our way out. The world, with its distinctly lower vibrations, ways, people and plans, waited. But we had to re-enter it. We had to. That was for then our karma. It was not a hard karma, but what I would call a soft or light one, but it was a karma nevertheless. Over the outside summit we went and then down to the regular path and then lot mixed with gravel and dirt. Into the vehicle and off to join the fray, just like everyone else, trying to continue our day, hoping to make our way.


Maybe the owl is helping us also. 


Surely it is.



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