Bountiful Being

On an early morning walk, looking to find footing in a new city…

I walked to the edge where my legs would carry me. A new city, a new space. Grey and cold, but green and full of life. My skin prickles as my heart feels an aching weight. I look out on the houses and the trees, in this space I’ve never been before, but this ache is familiar. The whirring of the cars as they all pass by, continuing on, continuing on. I sit on the edge of the hilly slope covered in blackberry vines and I feel the awkward, appropriate metaphor of the brilliant, sweet berries clustering at the tips of the sharp thorny branches just out of reach, but perfectly in sight. I wonder about the cars that pass, wishing I could ask them to all stop, to slow down, to get quiet and listen. I want to reach for the berries but the bushes are too high. I would fall inside, sliced up by the sharp thorns. I see the cars and wonder, what are they thinking? Where are they going? What is it that we are racing towards? And then, again, there is the ache.

The wind rustles through the leaves and I can hear it speak. Its talking to me. Its always speaking. I wonder about listening. I don’t think it is that I don’t hear, it’s that there is a longing deep inside to speak new words, to build a new life. To stop wondering and worrying,

and release what has been bottled up inside, but I’m afraid. The others can’t seem to hear the whirring. The incessant and loud “hush” sound of the cutting through, the racing towards and the forgetting. Simple and sharp like the blackberry. If I reach only for the berries, I miss the becoming. I miss its green leaves and red branching stems, but oh how I long for those berries. What I wouldn’t give to be heard, to be felt, to be seen, and yet, I sense, that I am. I think about my brother. I feel his sorrow and I am sorry too. The ache is not about the job or the place he is going, its about him, and I have that too. That ever-persistent sense that somehow I’ve failed, somehow I’m just not enough. I know it’s not true, I know I can’t change the flight again to get out of dodge. It’s right here, it’s right here, it’s right here, it’s right here. “Then tell me,” I ask, “what do you want?” “Soften, soften,” she says.

Later that day, in connecting with a group of fellow seekers…

Tears poured out of my eyes, streaming down my face as I asked, again, the questions to which I knew there were no answers. The best questions never see to have answers and the same is true for our lives. I was seeking resolution to the chasm of my heart that could not be found in business acumen or thoughtful reflection. Frustrated to find myself repeating the same old story, desperately grasping at finality, the soul longing search for peace, I sensed the futility of my words as I attempted to manage my feelings.

There are no answers, only brief momentary openings that nurture curiosity and guide our gaze, the balm for our souls as we traverse new ground and explore an ever enlarging world.

I set out on my walk. “Follow the flowers,” my intuition said. My mind replied, “It’s likely someone’s yard. Keep walking.” I paused, the wonder and curiosity enough to shift my steps. I moved towards the roses that seemed to reach toward the sky. I reached up and gently bent its stem towards me, filling my heart as I filled my lungs. It was a community garden, well cared for and full of lush summer fruits and flowers, and there along the edge, creeping and climbing over the fence, was a huge collection of blackberries.

Before I could follow down the well-groomed path, I noticed a grandmother gently patting the back of her grandchild and the grandfather looked on. I could sense it was nap tie and they too were hoping that the peace and ease of the garden might lull their little one to sleep.

I wandered down the rows and stared in awe of the giant pumpkins, well prepared for the coming fall months. I turned back around having decided to come back for some berries, these ones were finally in reach, asking to be picked. I walked my way, weaving between the plots admiring the silly human ways we fashion objects into edges, boundaries amidst the bounty. I stopped to admire some towering sunflowers. They were strong and steady, shining brightly against the cloudy, grey sky.

“Excuse me,” she said, “Would you like to take a bouquet of sunflowers home?”, still gently patting the baby’s back. Her warm smile and bright pink shirt matched the sunflowers in her plot and the rainbow array of dahlias and zinnias that she and her husband had harvested in their basket. “Why yes!”, I replied, my heart melting a bit inside. I confessed that I was here visiting my brother, that he had been having a hard time, and how I had wanted to bring him flowers to cheer him up… and here they were, arriving without my demand, an offering of love and acknowledgement.

I admired their flowers and their granddaughter as the gentleman dutifully clipped the large stalks that the gentle caregiver had asked. We connected about tending gardens and loving little ones and I felt nurtured and nourished by her recognition and heartfelt extension of care. He handed me the bouquet, an effortless gesture of joy. I asked them their names and then followed my instructions to put the sunflowers into water, letting my plans for the market shift to the watering of flowers and the planting of seeds.

This small gesture was a grand feat, an affirmation and an acknowledgement. What I know to be true is, in fact, reality. There is no other place I am meant to be. In the dizzying simplicity of the spiraling centers of the sunflowers that aim towards the light, and face the sun, I was again, directed towards to the heart of it.

It is this. Nothing more. It is right here. All of it. It is simple and impossible in its perfection and it is here that all possibility arises from the same soil, but in very different plots.

I cant find the answer because there is always a new question. For now, I can rest at ease, honoring the simplicity of Carmen and Jim, little Mia and the dahlias, and all the beauty that springs forth when we decide to welcome it in.