I found a piece of paper, carefully folded among the pages of my journal. It was from about this time a year ago, I was on the mend of a broken ankle. I remember biking out to the river, with my walking boot strapped carefully over an ankle that was still in the process of healing. Fed up with the amount of time I was spending indoors, I set up my hammock on some trees just barely overhanging the water. I felt an urge to write but had forgotten my journal. I tore out a piece of paper I had in a similar notebook and transferred some thoughts to the page. I’ve grown a lot this past year, I’ve learned (and am learning) to coexist and to love this “ego”. Many things still ring true and there is a wisdom that prevails. It is always interesting to look back upon where I was in the past, how much I’ve grown; but also how much of life (if not all of it) goes in a circle. The paper read:
I’m sitting in a new hammock spot by a familiar river and a familiar path. It looks very different from the last time I was here. The rushing water brings with it a sense of peace and serenity, like only nature can bring. My soul craves the water, the sound, the sensation, the peace it’s depths can bring. Everything looks a lot more green. On a traditional year I would have been more in tune with the change, I would have ran through the changes. But this year isn’t a normal year, I guess none of them are. COVID, a broken ankle and a long blink and its at its end. I still have lessons to learn, I’m sure. I can’t picture the alternative. I have a lot more to grow, to learn, to accept. Unexpected events are everywhere, but none exist in isolation. It’s all connected, every word, every thought, every event, every soul. Suffering comes from the root of delusion- that I exist as a seperate entity, that natures out there and I am in here. The latter is true but so is the former. It’s a concept I grasp intellectually but my ego- who I confuse to be me- wants the light, the attention, the glory, wants to be right, to be hailed. What a fragile being. It’s hard to notice the line. Where does the ego end and my true self begin? All the books and things I have read have shown me glimpses of truth, enlightenment, freedom, but they never stay with me. Just the finger pointing at the moon.
I’ve been perching out my window recently, observing the cars and the people as they go about their lives. Rarely do they notice me, no one every really looks up. I imagine they’re lost in their thoughts- much like how I go about my own life. Absorbed in this concept that I have created of myself, how this concept interacts with the outward world, how that concept is perceived by others- and whether that conception is in alignment with my own. So focused on the faults of others that I overlook my own, believing somehow that I am different, linking that with superiority. But I am the same, identical to nature and every individual- but how? We have different attitudes, perspectives, experiences, beliefs, the list goes on. Even if I could explain and conceptualize it, the words would hold no value, empty boxes. Growth is silent, change can be slow and unnoticeable and it can come crashing down in an instant. Nature tends to come in pairs, opposites. Humans are more more selective with their mates- but maybe thats just my ego’s justification. When the time is right, you’ll know, whispers the water as it rushes by. The trees shake their branches and leaves in agreement. They say everything is perfect. Trust in the present moment. The universe is a flower unfolding in the spring of the present moment- it stretches on forever, even in its destruction.
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