meditation

I used to believe that meditation was something that I did with closed eyes and straight spine, seated on a zafu cushion with a sort of enforced reverence.  Now I walk.  I find that everything around me reveals unspeakable beauty and an expansiveness of life that is both boundless and breathtaking.

 In flowers caught with petaled arms embracing light without apology.

In hilltops whispering of vistas and broad horizons.

In butterflies, graceful in their victorious post-transformation dance- the caterpillar long forgotten in the bliss of flight.

In my deer tribe, who come again and again, inviting gentleness and grace with every gesture and look.

 In tender beauty wherever it presents itself.

In the chorus of songbirds, a babel of aviary wonder.

 In cool streams

 and running water.

In trails, winding and wooded, leading to places I have not yet seen, each step a new adventure- each step, an invitation to open, imperfectly into this moment.  Vulnerable at last.

 In the sumptuous smell of pine and earth, cedar and sage, of sweat and sun and wind and life.

In the chitter of squirrel and chip-chir of chipmunk, in the soft cadence of insect and the sweet orchestra of life.   In the awe-inspiring explosion of consciousness, of which we are apart.  I walk in wonder.  I meditate in movement or perhaps life meditates me and through these eyes, life glimpses its own beauty and rolls in ecstasy within its own creation.