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my mountain

6:00 AM  Green Mountain:  Somedays it just feels like the mountain is calling me... a gentle whisper and my heart leaps with longing.  So I don walking shoes and these days, a stocking cap and vest, and begin my sojourn up her sloping trails before school.  Occasionally my heart is heavy and I feel as if the hillsides open in embrace, each step a gift is offered.  Each moment a gesture of life giving back to life.
I often see my tribe.  Deer.  This morning I saw twenty of them along the trail.  I talk to them in hushed tones of welcome, my heart breaking with love.
The colors of fall are already kissing the landscape. Rich, earthy tones.  A constant conversation in texture and hue.  I often stop and stare, amazed that every inch can be filled with so much splendor.  Hiking is rarely exercise for me.  I am too slow, too awestruck...constantly bending to admire a flower, or insect...ears seeking the solace of silence or birdsong or wind.
So many mysteries unfolding, moment by moment, step by step.  That is how life is, isn't it?  It is easier for me to experience it on my mountain.  Life is less chaotic and it stands out in its stillness.  But the same mystery is dancing in everything, everywhere and we are not separate from it.  No matter how sophisticated our attempts at camouflage or how complicated our concepts and beliefs may be.

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