Ancient truths

I awoke in the forest.  As the residue of the dream started to clear, I could feel the ancient life forms press upon my being, delicate like a lovers touch, strong but withholding.  Its magnitude spread for thousands of miles across the Sierra Nevada.  Each segment of forest separated by name in man’s attempt to distinguish distinct details, but in its essence, it is one living being.  The silence wrought from the ancient trees’ solidity tingles through my cellar system – gradually it all begins to settle, like a fallen comet sinking into the vast deep sea.  The fresh snowmelt reveals the spread of needles the Douglas fir left just before winters blanketed the land.  Each needle, twig and branch lay neatly in place after the weight of the snow slept upon the earth during the winter months, presenting a static picture of a biosphere always in motion.  The low roar of the Yuba is a distant hum from here in the thicket, a vibration more acutely felt than heard.  The birds rejoice in the canopy, singing to the sounds of Spring.  Natures’ innate melody perfectly in tune with the growth of the forest and the forest in sync with the earth itself.  Here, in my remote sanctuary, I synchronize my inner being to the earths ancient rhythm.  

The dead trees and leaves give life to the soil beneath, a dance of microorganisms sprawl beneath my feet.  An ever moving cycle of regeneration.  Gnarled roots twisting from hundreds of years of growth, unfathomable wisdom resting within its rings, quietly witnessing all that has passed and that will come to pass.  Some trees are charred from fire, but all around them a bramble of verdant green dance in the spiral of life.  I try to match my own frequency to the frequency of the forest, to move within its rhythm.  Its subtle silence rests between the bird, the sound of the pine trees aching trunks ever so slightly moving with the wind.  Up on the highest places, a distant sound stretches across the land, the mysterious ways of the the wind traveling across vast distances. It’s as if the entire forest sings a song, heavy with love and loss.  

As humans we have distanced ourself from this regeneration of life, where the touch of nature is hidden covered by concrete and capitalism – order.  Our minds have strayed far from the earth’s ancient rhythm, but we can feel the profound need to reconnect.  Sometime, we must escape our modern reality and move into nature’s palace of silence.  Not a human made silence insulated with walls and cushy comfort, but a vast open silence that can only be found through slow, mindful movement through the wilderness.  If we quiet our mind we can hear the silence.  The silence hides itself beneath the stones of the river, in a the moment just before dawn, and on the highest mountain crag.  The water moves and rapids resonate molecules through the air, while below the surface the water settles in a deep vibration.  There is a place suspended in time between the yearning howl of the wind moving miles across the forest and the creaking, swaying branches, there is a place of stillness.  Within this stillness is where I seek to be.  

Touching the rough bark of the Ponderosa Pine, my DNA seems to integrate and the cells along my skin send messages that travel up my spinal cord to my medulla oblongata, sparking synchronicity in my brain, transcendence in my mind.  Messages created since life existed, travel through my internal system.  A blissful wave washes over my brain as the messages from the forest are received.  My eyes taking in the array of colors, nature’s beautiful composition rolling through my mind.  The messages travel through my eyes, into the optic verve, soothing my over-exited brain.  Greens of all imaginable tones and shades take the place of screens of many sizes.  Roots covered in a bramble of life take the place of messages upon messages from people who I someday will forget.  It’s here we return to quality over quantity mindset and walk in silence amongst the earth’s peaceful giants.  

I can find myself synchronizing to the wilderness.  Our footsteps adding notes to natural symphony, we break open needles and twigs to reveal hidden aroma to the forest air.  Our presence walks within the story of eternity within this moving earth.  We have reconnected.  From this state of connection we move and walk in our true essence.  

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The Yuba rushes from the summit, plunging over boulders, fallen trees, moving downward, always constant beneath the forest depths.  I sat overlooking the vast river and closed my eyes and listened.  Even the steady roar of the rapids would not calm the noise of my thoughts.  My thoughts could be felt straining my neurons and all the connections, useless agitation circling forward and backward and nowhere again.  What could I do to hear the secrets of the river?  Surely they could not be heard beneath my inner chatter.  I remembered the breath.  Just as the trees sway and moan in the wind and the wind echoes in the sky, evolution gave us the breath.  I tuned in to the incoming oxygen rising from the Yuba, filling my lungs slowly until every corner was full of fresh air.  I held and let the oxygen roam through my bloodstream.  I exhaled unhurriedly, letting the air drain from my lungs as slow as the snow melting down the mountain.  When I thought I could exhale no further I found some hidden air and pressed it out as well and left my self breathless in suspended stillness.  I secured that detoxifying place of emptiness and slowly sipped the air back in, each space of my lungs filling upwards and outwards.  My neck long and my spine erect so that currents of energy could move up the spinal cord, circling and rising like bubbles of air beneath the rivers surface.  Then, my minds eye went to the river.  I became the river.  My sense of perception became each drop of water and the entire river all at once.  I was rolling over ancient stones, pressing forward like waves traveling across the ocean.  As the river, I was feeling all that the forest gave me, leafs tickling my surface, fallen branches supporting from beneath.  As I moved my awareness deeper, I found the stillness, as tranquil as an alpine lake just before a late summer thunder storm.  My awareness rested there, in the essence of the river, where its mystery seemed to fuse with my own.  The circling thoughts spun down the river and beyond the reaches of my mind, just as naturally as the oak leaf lost in the current.  Replacing my scattered thoughts were the currents of the river, running through my every vein and synaptic connection.  The Yuba was with me now, and a part of me, was with her.  

I imagine the ancient people, native to the land, sitting by that same place on the Yuba, long before it had this name.  Did they sit and place their mind within the currents?  These answers surely lie in the forests depths – secrets and truths of our species wrapped in the silence of the wilderness.  Truths waiting to be heard for those who listen.