Summer
“A
strange person is moving in my head.
My heart
has become a bird.
Which
searches in the sky.
Every part
of me goes in different directions.
Is it
really so
that the
one I love is everywhere?”
Rumi
Summer is a very good
time to experience life in all its delicious fullness. This is
especially true if you live in a forested place rather than a dense,
high-rise city or a desert. We've had near-record rainfall here in
the deep South, and all I can see when I look out from my porch is
green, green, green. Green in all its hues and shades; here and there
a splash of magenta where crepe myrtle peeps through. Already the
summer insects are at full throttle; their rhythmic whirring provides
background music to the bird song. In the umbrella tree, four baby
brown thrashers poke their beaks into the air. Mom is perched on the edge of the nest, teaching them their trilling song. Life is having a field
day here in Alabama; throbbing, singing, winging, whirring, moist and
breathing, ever abundant life.
If we want, we, too, can
experience this same rejuvenation. We do that by putting ourselves
out into the midst of all this greenness, and by listening to nature
in the same way we might listen to another human being, or a piece of recorded music. It is almost
impossible to be in touch with deep life, life in its primal,
archetypal sense, if you are shut up in a building with neon lights
and air conditioning. Life does not exist in mechanical environments,
nor in computer simulated reality. But life is out here, all around
you; all you have to do is open the door and walk out. Take all your senses with you. In my world
view, as it was in Rumi's, the One we love is everywhere, just
waiting to be found.
In the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment