Trees, walking & we

I've identified one of my greatest wishes: I hope our future, 100 years hence, knows trees.

(A brief note: I use the word "my" as a shortcut, a convenience. Everyone understands it. But I do not adhere to its claims. Ultimately, I own nothing.)

From my apartment balcony, I can see hills at times misted, fully clothed in trees. Since I've set car wheel, more regularly foot, in Fayetteville, I've longed to walk among them. One day soon, I will move miles, from here to them in more than spirit.

Four years ago, I looped for countless miles along tree-lined winding paths in Australia, following the sounds of bell birds like wind chimes and sparkles made aural. I still remember the thick, rough-cut gravel; the distant sight of a city in the throes of progress; a discarded couch; a froth of cattails pluming from a pond; singing solo in a long tunnel, giving heart and welcome to reverberation.

What will I find on the outskirts of this town, where most tend to look with curiosity and control rather than fervor and wonder?

I hope I won't first find trash.

Though, that's the perfect moment to pause and consider. Humans live on land, rarely in land. Trash stains land's surface, but fails to blemish its essence.

A Buddhist class I had years back compared the mind to the sea. Prey to winds and torrential currents, we grow preoccupied with the surface, its thrashing, crashing waves. That's where we find most people's form of action, the blinking and flashing and explosive energy. But some sections of the sea reach depths of ten miles. Beneath the waves, all holds calm and steady. The highest tidal wave reaches 100 feet. The lowest deep, 50,000. If essential we are as sea, troubles of life are to us as drops in a rain shower.

I always liked that. I felt in it a form of truth no rationale could craft.

Challenges do arise, always. Even when they hurt, once I work through haze and see them clearly, I like them as well. Rest well.

~Ryan