Summer Solstice

As the time arrives that I am to leave my forest abode, I look back and consider what this experience has meant to me. I would have liked to have taken more time to examine the parts and pieces of my life to see how they fit—to discern the mandala in the many experiences. However, with my writing, gardening and forays into the woods, I have never taken the time to consider where I have been, where I am going, or if I am on track.

I do not know if it is possible to see the whole. To live spontaneously ensures my path is always unique. As I sit wondering, a pleasant realization suddenly dawns on me. When I am out here in the country just being at peace with myself and this world—living and loving as each encounter arises—I never ever wonder if I am on track.

Initially, I had wanted to define where I had been and where I am going, now I see that I will never have that security. With my lifestyle, I just have to trust—trust myself and trust the system that created me.

I know that I have not yet been effective in integrating the deeper Me that lives peacefully and quietly in the woods with the me that I take out into the world. I have begun to realize that it’s a matter of shifting gears. My pattern seems to be to let others shift them for me, so I get lots of surprises. I clearly see that I can put the transmission on manual and choose to shift them for myself. Basically, I’m a sensitive soul that doesn’t particularly fit in the hubbub of the market place. To others I may look as if I’m not participating, but I’m often just overwhelmed. Gotta learn to shift gears, Nancy.

It’s not a matter of being in control; it’s a matter of being appropriate in the situation. One does not communicate with a four-year-old in the same way one does with a seventy-year-old sage. Maybe, it's just not appropriate to interact with everyone from a silent accepting space. It will take practice and lots of awareness. Here I feel that life is simple and pure, I don’t have to “try” to communicate with this world, it just happens.

The full moon of the summer solstice honors my last bonfire. The bright golden disc seems to rise early, even before the glow of the sun has stripped away the dim shadows in the woods. I have had a lot of activity to fill up this longest day of the year.

Tonight’s bonfire is a necessity. I just moved a truckload of books from my parents’ house where they had been in storage for years. Therefore, I have lots of boxes and packing paper to dispose of. Because of the warmer weather I have not had a bonfire in months. I feel a little apprehensive since the cougar tracks that I found in the drive also showed up on the pond dam. The tracks caused quite a sensation in the neighborhood since I called several neighbors to help identify them. The word spread fast and everyone dropped by to see the impressions and voice their opinions. Peanut, my neighbor at the other end of the road, even phoned a Forest Ranger to verify whether it is possible that they were tracks of a mountain lion. The ranger said the cougars have a craggy corridor they use to travel all the way to and from Mexico. In addition, when I found a severed rabbit head in the grass by the drive this morning, I was again reminded of a different reality at night. (The head disappeared the following night!)

However, the project at hand takes over my consciousness, so that I am hardly aware of the frog and cricket sounds. But I am aware that this is a good night to build a fire, for there is hardly a whisper of a breeze. With all the cardboard, paper and some old magazines—even five-year-old seed catalogs, I start a good blaze within minutes. As I watch slivers of glowing ash waver and flit into the sky, I am thankful there is no wind.

As I add enough wood to sustain the flames, the heat becomes so ferocious that I flash with an intense sweat. My first inclination is to back off, but then I remind myself that I can have all the benefits of a sauna right here. Soon I have to peel off my shirt and long pants, which I wear to protect my legs from brambles even in hot weather; however, I leave on my sturdy shoes and thick socks. When Peanut came by today, he told me two rattlesnake stories. They make me inclined to keep my toes and ankles protected.

While I am tending the fire, an owl breaks out with an undulating call. “Hoot, hoot, who gives a hoot,” he seems to be saying. I am delighted, for this is the first sign of the presence of an owl. I feel that more wildlife is settling in now that they know the property is protected from poachers. Occasionally, the fox even shows up during the day. That’s how I found out he was the one who was eating the rotten bananas—peel and all—that I put out for the butterflies. Tonight two packs of coyotes are howling and yapping back and forth, one to the east and one to the west of me.

When the last box has finally burned and turned to smoldering ashes, I feel that it is safe to relax my attention from the fire. With a sigh, I lie down on the picnic table and look up into the dark sky, strewn with thousands of star flowers. Due to my busy day, my usual connected feeling eludes me. I am only aware of my sweaty body parts. I think to myself, It’s okay. I’ve had enough peak experiences to last a lifetime. I am so grateful. The thought puts a smile on my face and relaxes my bones. At that very moment the crickets burst out in their grand cacophony and away I sail.

After a while, I gradually become more and more aware of the crickets’ chirping. Along with the croaking of the frogs, the whole world is alive with a bright boisterous symphony. Slowly, I become aware of how the sound connects with me. That is, I am not hearing with my ears, but with my body. I have always felt that I preferred the quiet of night to daytime activity, but tonight is incredibly animated. I feel so expanded and connected—and in love with this world. I wish that just for one minute everyone could feel the contented peace I am feeling as I lie here.

I have experienced an expanded connection through sound before in certain situations. Once sleeping by a stream in the Sierras, once listening to temple bells, but I never considered it possible to repeat the experience. I force myself to get up to check the fire. When I lie back down, I have lost the thread to that lost in space feeling. Immediately, a gruff gurrump of a bullfrog starts up and puts me back into the loose expanded alive feeling again. I laugh with my little friend who nudged me over the edge with his frog song. In this wonderful natural world, even a little frog is my ally.

In the eastern sky, the moon rises so high that its brightness practically dims all but the brightest star. A glimmering planet hangs above the western horizon. I lie stretched out somewhere between them. Soaking in their still silence, I wonder about the power that holds this universe together.

I wonder if there is meaning to an individual life. I wonder how one can honestly find his or her own unique expression. I know every life is special. I know we must find a way to our own uniqueness and nurture it. I know for every person there is a situation that will light him or her up. How many people find that environment? I don’t have all the answers, but I do have some questions. Living with questions has been a necessary part of my life.

I wonder what will make a difference when the end of my encounter with the world is over. At the final curtain, I wonder what all the struggles dramatizations explanations will amount to? Will I be able to say to myself that I have experienced all of the things that have meaning for me? Will I be able to know that I created my life from the palette of all those possibilities? Will I be able to know I was everything I could be? I truly want to be able to say I used my talents and became wealthy in experience.

I don’t see a lot of people having the freedom to live as they would want. I don’t see many even knowing how they want to live their lives. In the last analysis, it seems to me that our only freedom is to choose our own ideals—and to live them. How many of us bother to research and collect information, then to wonder and discern truths for ourselves? If not, we are not exercising the only freedom that is our true birthright.

I wonder what the world would be like if everyone were truly living according to his or her own spirit, intelligence and talents. Not just acting because we do not know how to sit still, working at the first job we found in the classified… but lovingly and consciously doing what we do best and doing it well. I wonder if we humans are actually evolving—becoming more aware and creative. Or are we just hanging out? I wonder why we have forgotten to wonder.

Of the vast varieties of possibilities of living in this complex world, I consider my life here in the woods as good as it gets. On one hand, it's hard to leave, yet I will always remember these eight months in which I was able to live a life that was truly Me. This treasure of experiences will sustain me through the many days when I may only be acting out a shadow of the true Me.

The moonlight shines across the meadow as I wend my way back home. The pines glimmer in the soft light. Many times I have tread softly in their shade, while admiring their loveliness. Alone and unnoticed, they stand patient and strong. Can they possibly know that someone has absorbed their beauty with an open heart? Will it make a difference to them that someone has cared for them? Can they know that for a short moment out of the long roll of history they were declared to be relevant in a world that honors irrelevance?