i could feel it as we entered the woods. even in the cold. even on a mucky trail. especially in the damp fog. it wrapped around me, my body relaxed and i could breathe.
we are in the middle of a lot. like you, life swirls and dips and is taking us places we didn’t expect. like you, we don’t sign up for the angsts, the challenges, the aloneness of some of it. but it is there, nevertheless.
it’s in those times – in the fermatas of those times – that we need be in the cathedral. for us, that means stepping into the bowed trees in this forest, their very branches arching over us. for us, that means walking, hiking, trekking in the quiet. it’s then that i can hear.
and perspective – arriving on glorious air – reminds me. of my smallness in all of this. of an imperative to not take every single thing personally. of release and of healing in the mist. of a bigger presence that is indeed wrapping around me. and is always there. silently tapping my shoulder.
i step into the trees and i instantly can feel it – that this is the only day. i can throw it away, like i often have – for we all forget. or i can immerse in it. knowing it is now.
i can’t change – so much – what is. i can’t affect – so much – what will come. i certainly can’t transform what was. and all of that will be waiting for me, after the trail, post-cathedral.
but i’m slowly learning – ever-so-slowly – how to stand in it all. i’m learning how to accept it, how to move in it, how to move through it, how to get to next. sometimes.
the bigger picture – under the cathedral of sky – gives me air and every now and then – just in the nick of time – interrupts my moment of worry and chastens me to feel the right now.
that air is always with us – the exhale of wise old trees and the stardust of those before us.
*****
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i could hear the saxophonist on the corner out the window; it’s not uncommon in nyc. at 
it was easy for me to compile a list of the hymns to play; so many years of church music gives me an advantage that way. but on every album, even if it is music i haven’t written but am giving my own voice to (like the 
surrounded by infinite grace and love – God is always with us. like all the tracks on the hymn albums, this piece is solo piano.
the snow, having survived the wind and driving snow. vivid color. in heavy boots, bulky coats, long underwear, double gloves and earmuffs we set out. we weren’t far into our hike when we realized that we were the first out on the trail since the snow. first after the deer. first after the rabbits and tiny birds that had hopped across the path. first after whatever animal it was that made enormous tracks in the snow. longer than his boot, these tracks kept us company for a long way, meandering in and out of the brush, in and out of the woods. we wondered aloud what it was. we quietly pondered that these woods were not ours. they are home to beautiful creatures, big and small. creatures that depend on the turning of the seasons, the sun, the warmth, the snow, the rain, the ecologic responsibility of those of us who are out there, for a bit of time, with them.
mostly, i was bowled over by the fact that we were the first people to walk out there since it had snowed. the trail through the prairie glittered in the sun and in the woods, the trees reflected majesty on the snowy path. we were first; we weren’t first. but to make the first people-tracks in the snow…to know that in at least the last 36 hours or so, no one else had walked there…something about that was humbling. hugely grateful for the universe in all its goodness, in that place of quiet-quiet, that space of pristine clear that single digit temperatures make possible, the smell of sun in our hair, i was struck by our smallness. four footprints in the snow, walking together, side by side. hand in hand. on trails. through the woods. in life. that’s really it – four footprints. each set of prints count. each stride counts. each breathless moment that we get to breathe counts. now counts. now is the only thing that really counts, the only thing that really is.
reverse threading 