back on the hill
and the sounds of the forest
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I drove up the dirt road, all gutted and worn from the waters of a million years (both myself and the road). I drove past the dry ditches still blooming alive with green willow and cottonwood. I drove through the bald and dusty hillsides, the crispy dead grasses and past the wise old juniper standing alone near the dilapidated fence post. I drove to the top of a high place and stopped there, in the middle of the old cracked road, and turned the engine off.
Sweat already dripping down my spine, I look south out my open window, to the perfect pyramid of a mountain, to her forests and gullies, the black cattle speckled here and there. I see the cascading green of aspens falling down her steep slopes and the deeper greens of her spruce forests. The diminishing splatter of snow up near her peak and the rolling hills at her feet.
And suddenly, all at once, I hear a sound coming from the forests, from all the livingness of the all the trees, all together: a sound. A moaning, a wailing almost - as if the forests were an ocean and I could hear their waves crashing - the winds blowing through them, the leaves’ song and cry through space - enormous, visceral, and hauntingly emanating through the otherwise silent landscape, as if the mountain herself were speaking through her hundreds of thousands of tree representatives, sending out a tonal wave of communication, the song of a giant.
The sound entered my car, my ears, my heart. In one great rush I understood something about the forest and the mystery of our relationship to this planet.
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I have recently returned to my humble mountain home here at the base of this sacred mountain, on this windy hillside, in the dust and sun and gullies of green, water loving plants. I am living again in a circle with my daughter. I am healing from the winter in an electric box, in the static of modern culture, electricity and human-ing. I am deeply slowing down, gathering the bits and pieces of myself, forgotten, seeded and blooming. I feel I am on the edge of an entirely new consciousness - as if the land is remembering itself through me. Each day feels like an eternity here, a deep homecoming to earth time, and layers of the matrix are shedding, sometimes sharply, sometimes softly. And when I must go to the world “out there”, I feel strange in comparison. I feel rooted and clear, slow and discerning, no longer quick to lick the lollipop of modernity, no longer frazzled by EMF chaos or global news or gossip. And sometimes, the machine of “out there”, simply crushes me, like a wildflower beneath the wheels of a dark machine.
The further I go, the further I go. The more I shed, the more the land consciousness claims me as her own, teaches me as her child, guides me in the Old Ways - how to survive physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally. She shows me where to place my attention, how to direct my mind, the times of day for work and rest and how non-negotiable the daily care of my body is (see Regenerate Method, total life saver). She shows me what matters and what can wait, the importance of how my feet meet the Earth and how my hips greet the horizon.
There is a deep presence-ing available when, in utter barefoot simplicity, we learn to live with our Earth.
There is also a brutal severity, a no-nonsense reality, an abiding in the smallness that I am, the truth of my fragility that brings a deep sense of respect for the powers and forces of this sacred land.
In that quiet humility, in that daily schooling by the trees and dust and water - I learn what it means to rise, to truly rise - to rise with integrity to the human blueprint that we were given as spirit beings here on Earth, as students of Earth, as disciples of Life. I learn what resilience means, how to not give up, find a new way, and to work with what is given. My body adapts. I don’t fight - I listen, I learn.
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I drive back down the mountain, down the dusty road, past the willows and meadows of dying golden grass, my child now asleep in the backseat, and I arrive on this land called “mine” and park in the shade. There is stillness. Silence. I open the door and wonder what to do next. There are a million things to do. I get out. I take the first step.
My feet create small clouds of dust as they land on the Earth.
I open my hands and imagine the smell of rain.
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Ahh to be present. So much to notice inside, and out, in the nature of things. 🙏♥️🪶 Headed there, going to slow down and get really present, exhale. Thank you for sharing your beautiful palatable poetic perceptions of being a soul in a human body.