An Endless Horizon - A Vision of a Lifetime to Now
Last evening the starscape over The Bog was breathtakingly beautiful. It was a typically bitter February night, the wood snapping all across the woodlot but it was the kind of invigorating environment that encourages one to drink it all in.....enjoy it just in case the rest of the moody second month of the year, provides a succession of storms for which it is known. This morning the air is as clear and refreshing, the sky so blue it beckons us outdoors as if there is some great revelation in this clear, wonderful atmosphere, making us feel the universal connection.....that heavenly feeling, a nirvana about the untold possibilities for the adventurer.....and no earthly reason to box-in one’s eager imagination.
It is on these rare winter days of sun and snow, magnificent blue cloudless sky that the woodland trails pull me onward regardless of what else I may be committed or occupied. I could stand out on the ridge here and be splendidly mesmerized, watching the leaning birches and giant evergreen contrast against the sunglow reflection of those trillion diamond lights, off the mantle of snow, covering so neatly over the picturesque lowland. The wind causes the dried field grasses that rise above the snow crust, to brush together momentarily, and without the chatter of overhead birds and a squirrel annoyed by my intrusion, there would be an intense hush, a sudden silence, a subtle peace even from the bustle, the typical din and earth rumbling of trucks and snow-movers, characteristic of the hometown beginnings of a new work week. It is a moment of reckoning I wish to share with every urban-weary soul, who has become painfully used to jack hammers and earth movers, jet engines whining overhead, and sirens coming from all directions. This silence, this scene in front of me presently, heals the wounds lashed upon the soul, the result of the jagged teeth of frantic pace.....unrelenting life ambitions. After only minutes here, leaning up against the venerable old evergreen, I can feel the gradual unburdening of responsibilities, and if I’m not careful an hour or more will pass, the soothing sun on my face and the glorious silence, removing me effortlessly, from the work week schedule. I will surely catch up on my chores but I will always long for these hiatus periods, wandering this snow-packed trail to nowhere in particular. And this is my passion. To stop when the vista beckons, or there is something unique I wish to examine more closely. Certainly not because I am forced to march from point to point, by some ridiculous command, in a set time for a set purpose.....and the only details I can see are what fall into that perimeter of budgeted time and distance; before I must hustle to the next appointment. Humbug, I say! Alas I am disciplined to be undisciplined when it comes to my strolls in this remarkable, ever-changing Muskoka woodland. And I see nothing at all to feel compromised about. After returning to my office, well, I have no shortage of observations to make via this keyboard. For the writer me, I don’t deny for one second of time that it is the good and vibrant graces of a boundless, limitless nature that continues to nurture the watcher in the woods.......and certainly not the rough and intrusive sounds of mankind chipping away at the earth, to impose something else we don’t need.
To not experience this heaven on earth, is to rob the soul of its nourishment. To ignore this enchanting splendor of winter, is to disregard the true dimension of life itself; the evolving seasons of our cycle, from birth to death, as stark reality of all living things. It is within this illumination and insight that we discover our needs are more elaborate than money and accomplishment can afford. Yet when we pause, and look up from our freshly plowed "straight furrows," as David Grayson initially thought was important, as noted in his book "Adventures in Contentment," the world, the universe it rotates within, is the most precious appreciation to, as they say, the meaning of life.
I have returned from my morning stroll invigorated and excited to write again....though I must confess that even the tap of these keys now seems so atrociously intrusive....and sound nothing at all, like the wondrous symphony of wind and field grass, and snapping cedar in the February cold.