For years I've had this strange (by some standards) habit of 'wandering wraithlike', as Marcy and I have come to know it, whereby at some random and late hour I wander the house (and sometimes the land) in utter darkness. Typically my mind is a flurry of anxieties and concern that I've not been able to lay aside and, in hopes of relief, I stop staring at the ceiling and go on walkabout. This usually doesn't actually help, so I can't say as I recommend it, but may in reality exacerbate the condition as I'm left to contend with not solely the crescendo of thoughts but not a small dose of sensory deprivation as well. What I have noticed, however, is that the simple act of walking, if I can allow myself to be mindful, allows some of these tumbling thoughts to unspool, and just maybe every now and again, to release. Walking. Releasing.
Years ago I practiced Amithaba (pardon any mangled spelling: it's been some time) walking meditation in the Mahayana lineage (Mahayana being 'the Great Vehicle'...any modicum of irony was not lost on me) and did experience some moments of what may be considered a somewhat altered state. Maybe it was the general Buddhist 'taming of the monkey mind', maybe it was simply an act of meditation that allowed me to be released for a time from the monkey mind; whatever the impulse the result was clear: Walking. Releasing.Today, walking through the forest, baby on my back, I was struck by a sense of the ephemeral grace (Grace?) that was surely around me. Not because I was experiencing it, but because I wasn't experiencing it. The forest, the family, lilting voices and profound silence. All there. Where was I?
I don't know where I was. But I was decidedly not in the most gracious reality that was before me. And I began to wonder, is this really such an anomaly? Aren't I immersed in beauty and grandeur (again...Grace) quite often? And if so, the second place prize goes to 'why?' am I otherwise unable to experience it, I'd rather know 'what?', as in what can I do to change that perspective?
Today I took my shoes off.
I continued our walk on the trail barefoot. There were a variety of moss beds, softer than pillows; pine needles so densely packed that it was as walking on reed mats; sharp shales, smooth granites, knobby quartz outcroppings. Uphill the balls of the feet spread the toes that want to crook for a hold; downhill the toes splay of their own accord. I became acutely aware of terrain, of how my body responded. I slowed down. I softened. I watched far ahead as everyone in the party trudged through an opening that seemed almost radiantly green to my eyes, and smiled verging on tears when Kiki, passing through just ahead of me, validated my doubting mind by stopping and saying, "Wow, Daddy! Look how greeeen it is here!" The Grace was back. Likely it never left, likely it was me that was back. Mindfulness. Walking. Releasing.
I don't really make a practice of meditating anymore, at least not in the academic sense. I don't walk without purpose much anymore, either. To be utterly honest, I don't know that this experience will motivate me to do much more of either. But maybe, as would be my loftiest of hopes, this is shared in order that it creates a ripple that someone else may feel the wave of the impulse and, that it is borne of Grace and Love, that it might be experienced in other unique measures. Maybe it's regenerative. Maybe it's for you.
In love and gratitude,
Lee
