STRANGE BEAUTY (SOMETHING ABOUT THE SKY AND THEY RUN SO FAST)

There is something about the sky there, or just south of there, where the even the telephone poles have a certain beauty in the early evening. The sun, out of sight then, but letting its sparks arc across the world, lighting the sky a blue that is at turns light pastel matted and real dark glossy. There is a Christmas tree farm ‘round the bend, and its peculiar to see the signage denoting such when it is late August or September. Nobody thinks on that, and not many have to…that the trees have to grown, have to come into their certain robustness and verdant ways. All this out there in the North, more away from say, a city, with its snide self, with its secularism, with its almost utterly false paradigm. We are searching here, - for the spirit of Thoreau, or Emerson, or Rumi, - and surely our line will pale drastically in comparison to anything like that, - but Osho said it is better to try for a dream…

Well the way is labyrinthine and meandering once we enter the forest. The cry of birds lets itself out from some dark distant tavern or den. There is a car, impossibly old, the shell, the skeletal car I call it. Beyond that, not far, - the coyotes come to watch curiously. They circle around, - we are too big for them, - but still, we are different sight that has ventured near their home if the collective and individual soul of earth coyotes could be said to have a home. Even when they do, I think of them as more itinerant. Some butterflies are still there, yellow and white, a few wild flowers that have not yet deceased. What else? - The valley, lone and long and deep and full of mysteries and shadows, odd animal sounds, - vines, chaparral, bark, logs, birch, spiders, snakes, rabbits, squirrels, et al.

And the dogs,-we land soon enough in an open series of fields if a field can be circular. There are tractors, old relics rusted, - in the middle, and some tree whose branches hover over them like fingers from something like The Brothers Grimm. A solitary bee still buzzing, alights on a flower yellow. The two dogs begin to run along the sandpit, under its ridges, above and on the topmost parts, down and up, everywhere. I hear the earth being pounded as if they are not two dogs but numerous horses feral in the world and in their spirits. I stand back for long moments and know after that through some circumstance and grace, there were moments of no-thought. What does it mean? The viewer, watcher, walker, - the I, the looker, the seeker, - was absent. Why? Because a certain breeze mixed with some other overcast air and the energy of the early hint of autumnal atmosphere was large, and like that earlier mentioned blue sky, had for its strange beauty,  combined with the running of the dogs,- rightly overtaken myself and had become the scene.

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A MOVEMENT AND A REST (POST NUMBER 170)

Finally we made it to the forest. There were crazy drivers, car accidents, traffic and construction. This is not to mention a host and slew of other things. But the canine friends were patient, and once we got to the area underneath tall trees everything felt quieter. Osho says in about Jesus in the gospel of St. Thomas what Jesus means when a disciple asks him what IT is like and he is told by Jesus, ‘It is a movement and a rest.’ This means that there is centeredness amidst the movement, and this is how it was as we walked through the secreted and far away perimeter of the forest. We, moving, but inside and about us, a calmness, a nothingness and though ‘nothing’ usually has a negative or pejorative connotation, it was more like a Zen nothing, a Source, a soundless song but a song nevertheless.

 

I started to see butterflies, as if they were following us. Yellow and white mostly. There, even a moth is interesting. There were wild berries and acorns, also small pebbles and interesting logs, moss, an old fence, a bog, and a little water here or there. I even let them go for a quick swim in what is, there anyhow, - the biggest of two water sources. I heard something jumping, and

then again, - and it was frogs along the shore or outside of the water going back into the pond. It gives a great experience and is just like the saying, Ancient Pond, Frog Jumps In,- or something like that. There is an old field that joins a house, plus down beside there on the path are many feral ferns and one gets a tropical feeling. In the far distance, the CN railways track lets the train run across the afternoon. On we went, - slowly, slowly, taking our time.

Suddenly we practically bumped into a guy. No dogs, no people, - but he seemed alright. He

was young, - in his early twenties perhaps, and friendly enough. I think he was just nature walking, - and was really far in. The dogs startled him that is for sure, coming around a corner, opposite direction from him. I didn’t get an untoward or suspicious vibe at all, - just a solitary soul going around. I noticed that the dragonflies don’t live there, but somewhere else, - and same with the bees. Each species seems to have a high time, and a low

or absent time, like spawning and migratory habits, - and also an area. So there are not many grasshoppers there either. What like it there? – I don’t know- birds, - I found what I guess is a Blue Jay feather. Feathers are good luck, and mean all kinds of things in Native and Indigenous teachings and traditions. I am not sure what it means, but it feels auspicious at least, favorable, - and I am grateful.

We missed the huge overgrown path, - that is the one I really like, - we walked a bit too far for it. Maybe the next time we shall look out for it. Our path was more civilized. On that old path, - which is close by, - there are more wildflowers and berries, vines and interesting trees, shrubs, so forth. Yet, - with the feathers and acorns, the quiet and the light exercise and adventure, - we still had a good time, a proper walk, a movement and a rest both at once…………………

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BEACH AND BOAT AND OTHER

It’s vast and the breeze comes to pull the top of the lake over just a little bit so as to cause a ruffle in the blanket that is the water. The Tao Te Ching says somewhere that the sign of true peace or something like that is when there are different towns and waters but the since the people are happy and content with their village the boats don’t go far, not even to the other villages, and mostly stay tied up. In that small saying I have paraphrased is much. Osho Rajneesh says it another way,-…plant a rose garden and the world will be for you. It means create a small space, - a living sanctuary of sorts, and literally and/or figuratively- though he actually meant a real garden in that discourse, - plant that, - and you will be surprised to find that the world is indeed for you, - that through caring for the small you have cared for the large, and the large will reach you through the small. In any event, - the water is there, - the rocks, the shores, - a few different sandy beaches, - and up the way- the wild forest, - brambly rocks, dark crevices, odd birds making noises. Some birds nest on the ground, others inhabit old dwellings. There are turtles, geese, snakes, frogs, flowers. The clouds sit over the horizon line and draw little pictures and lines with themselves. This splash one way, that one the other. It’s all magic,- every piece of it,- from the glint of the sun to the bumper of the boat, the wake of the vessel, the flock of birds migrating, the air and the chaparral by the rocks, the sand,- infinite seem the grains. The boat is coming in and it seems like it goes under the sun. Where was it? It’s an older style, - which is perfect in a world too sleek, fast. It’s boxier, and maybe you can if you were closer see the beads and the welds. We need more boxy, older, more seventies or something. We went a little too fast. Slow, slow, slow, - like the turtle. The turtle won the race, remember? In fact, I wonder where all the big power boats of years gone by,- the cruisers, the cigarette boats, the rest,- many many, have gone. This old guy- this vessel, waited it out- and just comes along like a trusted friend after the hoopla and mayhem, the glitz and glamour. And don’t forget the eye of the looker, - it squints for the sun, looks out, hand cupped over for shade-, and surveys the world, is the world.

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LAGOON AND LAKE

The land there was once marshy-swamp-bog land. A man wanted to convert it into a European type of village, and also something resembling the Floridian intercostals waterways. It was in the late 1970’s when they started digging pathways through what dirt and water was there. They used what they dug up with what I suppose were large machines, to build the land sturdy enough that roads and houses could go there. It still officially being a sort of swamp, a lagoon in fact, - there could not be basements as such, - but you could build up and up. In the coming years and decades the scene developed. A great series of asphalt and dirt roads, a marina, - a few marinas in fact, - a hotel, restaurants, townhouses, larger homes. In the lagoon the boat slips keep their vessels that bob and wait for a driver and the joyful passengers. Then,- they drive through the waterways and depending on how far in your abode, your dwelling is set,- it takes five, ten, or fifteen minutes to reach the larger waterway that proceeds out to the lake. Once there, - the sun usually glistens, the water is warm and the beaches that surround the area are sandy. 

Like other places in Southern Ontario, it is met with the seasons. But that is the beauty of it in fact. All the same area, like a person, but with different moods and nuances. The storms that come over and bring snow to pile atop canals full of ice. It is a large storm then, - say in the latest moment of afternoon, - and it’s time to go inside for sure, or shovel a walkway quietly enough, and within the safety of the front door and its soft yellow electrical light nearby. Or autumnal winds bringing the colorful leaves down and onto the surrounding streets and grounds. People have pumpkins, wreaths, and there is an old man walking across a field that sits up by a coffee shop. He wears denim pants and a checkered plaid shirt that keeps him for the most part from the wind and a certain bite of something like early frost that waits then in the morning air. And of course springtime,- its rain soaked day,- and we try to remember what will bloom, so far from July’s bountiful crop and flower, tree and shrub, we are. 

But, - for the moment, there is the easy summer way. People ride some old style bikes down a long stretch of pathway near the lake. Looking outwards the clouds mix with the blue, with the sun, with the water itself in the far and far distance. Those clouds watch the lake,- friendly phantoms, sometimes still, other times moving. Cricket song is strong, like a reliable and constant background band. Inside the cottages and houses grand and small are collections of books, records, old river stones, and other soulful artifacts of years gone past. In the lagoon the sunfish swim as do the catfish and bass, the pike and other. Some seaweed rises to the top and as a water spider goes past and a turtle quietly breaks through the liquid top, rays of sun come down and get filtered by branches from trees that live in the surrounding yards. Inside the water the rustle of a fish or other creature makes movement in plants and sends bubbles, ripples, shaded shapes and mysteries around and in the water there.

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