blog 5

    Black, mysterious eyes, orbs of infinity, and black, flaring nostrils covered in thick, mucous moisture stare in my direction, fixed. Soft snow slants in the wind as a deer stands in the distance, camouflaged by trees and hanging vines, disguised by snow and stillness. I move a few steps forward, and so does he or she. We lose sight of each other as trees and brush comes between us.

   There's another deer. It moves through the brush beyond the other. I creep forward; each step is a risk that may take me further from the mystery of encounter. They are nervous, and as I step too close, off they go, four or five deer bound and weave through hanging vines and dead limbs. Where were the others standing? I hadn't even seen them, and all I see now are white tails leaping through the brush. What did they see?

   "Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration – that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.” – Bill Hicks

   From a distance their eyes look solid black. Empty orbs, but up close, dark-brown and orange-brown pigmentation surround horizontal pupils. Do the darks of my eye look any different to the deer than theirs look to me? What am I to the deer, anything more than life existing independent of itself?

   “a great unifying life force flow[s] in and through all things—the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals—and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred and brought together by the same Great Mystery” – Luther Standing Bear

   Before the deer, there was a hawk. Not far into the forest, it saw me before I saw it and startled me when I came too close. With a loud flap of feathers, it jumped from its low perch to a higher branch. With dark eyes and white-brown feathers, its body blended with a landscape of bare tree limbs and falling snow. Like the third, fourth, and fifth deer, it appeared from out of sight, emerging from the landscape. From a higher perch, the hawk watched me, another consciousness. We observed the actions of the other, a short encounter, until the hawk caught the wind. High above the trees, it flew further than my eye could follow.

   “We never cease to stand like curious children before the great Mystery into which we are born.”

   Below the ridge of deer, in the grassy clearing, there are pines, maybe a few fir trees. There are two species, one with short, lanceate needles, and the other has longer, thinner needles. Some of them are caged and the others stand free, but they're all young, no more than a few years old. There are four conifers above the clearing of grass and more below. They are clearly planted between the bike trail and the clearing, on the upper and lower edges. They might be loblolly or white pine, fir trees, maybe even spruce.  For now, they remain another mystery.

    The deer, the hawk, the pine, and myself, existing separate and distinct from each other, yet flowing from the same force, from the same eternal mystery.

   “'This Mighty Mudball of a world spews out breath, and that breath is called wind,' began Adept Piebald. 'Everything is fine so long as it's still. But when it blows, the ten thousand holes cry and moan. Haven't you heard them wailing on and on? In the awesome beauty of mountain forest, it's all huge trees a hundred feet around, and they're full of wailing hollows and holes – like noses, like mouths, like ears, like posts and beams, like cups and bowls, like empty ditches and puddles: water-splashers, arrow-whistlers, howlers, gaspers, callers, screamers, laughers, warblers – leaders singing out yuuu! and followers answering yeee! When the wind's light, the harmony's gentle; but when the storm wails, it's a mighty chorus. And then, once the fierce wind has passed through, the holes are empty again. Haven't you seen felicity and depravity thrashing and flailing together?'

    'So the music of the earth means all those holes singing together,' said Adept Adrift, 'and the music of humans means bamboo pipes singing. Could I ask you to explain the music of heaven for me?'
    'Sounding the ten thousand things differently, so each becomes itself according to itself alone – who could make such music?'” – The Inner Chapters