Walking in Silence
Walking in silence, through the valleys
of the shadow…
Being connected to our Essence,
fearing no evil…
Following our path with heart,
continuing on with our journey
towards healing and wholeness,
stillness and now.
Lifelong Memories
The sight of tall, straight pine trees
that line the hillsides and
valleys of the Sierra Mountains…
The rocky mountainous walls that rise up
and reach heavenward,
still with a whiff of snow
on their uppermost ridges…
The intense, sun-drenched heat at midday,
mixed with intermittent seasons
of dark clouds,
thunderheads forming
with humidity and
electricity in the air,
drops of rain the size of quarters…
The dusky smell of Indian tobacco
that grows with abundance
along the hillsides and
meadows of this place…
The utter quietness,
sitting alone
on the shores of Salmon Lake,
save for a watchful mother duck and
her six ducklings,
along with squadrons of
dragonflies and mosquitoes…
Or, the hypnotic roar of the rapids
sitting beside the shore
at a bend
where the North Fork
of the Feather River flows,
above Gansner Bar…
The sights and sounds
of a swift Sierra stream
as it’s rushing waters
cascade over its rock-ladened course,
captivate and fill the senses
with the beauty
and awe of the stream’s Essence
in nature’s order…
The total blackness when flashlights
and campfires are extinguished,
a blinding darkness
that defines the limitations
of our sense of sight…
And then, our sense of sound
stimulates our imaginations
as we lie in our sleeping bags,
awaiting our night’s slumber…
The sense of being
at the mercy of forces
that are totally beyond our control:
lightning strikes,
forest fires, unexpected flurries of snow and whiteouts,
the sudden rise in the current of a stream,
rock slides, widowmakers silently poised
to plunge towards the ground
without warning…
The exhilaration
of achieving the completion of a hike,
the catching of a German Brown,
seeing a breathtaking waterfall or sunset,
swimming for the first time
in a snow-filled, ice-cold lake,
returning to an old familiar trail
for another time of fellowship
with sights, sounds and smells…
Eating breakfast outdoors in the mountain air,
potatoes, onions and Swiss cheese
wrapped in tinfoil,
steamed over a camp stove…
Food never tasted so flavourful
and satisfying…
Simple fare transformed into an outdoor feast…
The shared fleeting moments
where loved ones and friends
congregate and share
around a crackling campfire at dusk…
The songs, stories and smores…
Of such moments,
precious lifelong
memories are made.
An Experience of Alienation
Talked at, talked over, misinterpreted, judged, accused of things that
had not been said, not listened to, caught in someone else’s
monologue.
A sense of frustration…
Nowhere to go, to get away from the
bewilderment of what just happened…
A brief moment, after a “good morning” wish at breakfast… so far, the
beginnings of not such a good day.
Then, I wondered, what had just taken place? How I reacted to what I
had experienced.
After some head-clearing reflection, a pause, I felt a calming inside of
myself… that alone helped me focus on what had taken place.
I wondered what the Buddha would have thought about what had
happened… I began to realize that I was reacting to storylines about
myself that were not true and were hurtful… I was being faced with a
situation that touched my areas of pain, and I reacted accordingly.
Once I brought awareness and compassion into my reactive experience, I was able to separate myself from what had happened and go on, free from being stuck in reactive patterns from my past.
Projection
Our judgmental ways reflect our unmet needs…
Our emotional hunger determines the menu of our appetites…
Our pain creates buffer-zones of insensitivity…
We project onto others our unacknowledged shadow issues, and we callously
move through life, attributing to others the darkness that resides within us…
Men and women become victims of our own emotional voids…
Darkness rests upon darkness…
Acknowledgement, healing and reconciliation
are beyond our present circumstance…
Lost are we in the emptiness of our own unconsciousness.
Following Our Path With Heart
Being present…
Open to relating with another,
connecting with the needs of someone else…
Sharing our essence—our awareness,
empathy, compassion and kindness
Affirming that we are one with the Eternal,
each of us a part of all of creation, and members
of the one human family…
Our need is to be present and listen to
the person who stands before us… treating one
another as we would want to be treated…
acknowledging that, but by the grace of God, there
go I.
Interbeeing
A Brother Buzz down…
Buffeted by strong headwinds…
Famished, exhausted…
Providing some drops of honey
on a piece of paper…
His proboscis is lowered…
Sips taken…
Renewed with
Loving-kindness and
honey…
A fellow traveller,
ready to resume his journey
through the petals
and blossoms of life.
«RELATED READ» POEMS BY GEORGE PAYNE: Irish Moon, Vow, Amy and more»
image: Wikimedia Commons
