The Edge

I've been hearing on the radio about two young women who were kayaking in Maine this week, disappeared, and later were both found "unresponsive" in the 48 degree water - dead. First they had not shown up when they were expected to, then their empty kayaks were found, and finally their bodies were found. They were 18 and 20.

With our world-wide media, tales of young people dying come to us all the time, and we can develop a numbness to this information out of necessity. But something about these girls' story struck me deeply. I heard about it when they were simply missing, and then again once their bodies had been recovered. I can imagine them going out happily for their Sunday kayaking, I can imagine a variety of waves, accidents that could have flipped one and then the other into the water, their last moments in this life. And I can imagine the people who love them, mourning them now and forever.

Their deaths came to them with such swiftness; not through an illness in which it could have been anticipated, but just by an accident that happened to befall them both that day. In the morning they were alive, planning an adventure, and later that day their lives were done.

The knowledge of what has happened to these two young women reminds me forcefully, deeply, that we are all right at the edge of death all the time - potential death, at least. Are we not? A gas explosion, a heart attack, food caught in our throats as we eat alone... A few years back, a man in western Mass was walking down the sidewalk when a manhole cover was blown high into the air by a freak explosion in the sewer pipe and landed on him, crushing him. Death is with us, around us every moment, and we simply don't know when it will take us. (Garrison Keillor's chosen poem for today's Writer's Almanac touches this subject, as well.)

This knowledge is a gift: we are straddling the line between life and death at every moment. When this knowing comes to mind, it offers an effortless route to an especially sacred presence. Because if I might die in five minutes (or one minute), then it does not really matter if I get through my to-do list for the day. It matters that I really listen to and look at my boy as he chatters about his world to me. It matters that I drink in the astonishing sheen on the swallow's feathers out the window. That I notice and point out to my boy the gentle way the clouds are moving across our sky. What a precious gift, this awakening to what actually matters, when we are also gifted a little more time to love it all.

Intentions

Now that the challenge has ended, I'm going to return to my use of this blog as a place to record, reflect upon, and share a variety of my experiences, mostly in the natural world, some at my sit spot, and some otherwise.

Reverie - May 11

Afternoon sit.

Robins, jays, red-winged blackbirds. Someone repeated a high, falling “peee-oooo,” just like the initial whiz of fireworks immediately before they “pop”.

After a cold morning, a tickling, playful wind was sweeping through, just warm enough to keep it comfortable, buffeting against me as I sat on the limb.

The little maple claiming its ground under my sit pine has fanned its leaves out into a sheet, which was catching the afternoon sunlight head-on. Older, larger leaves reached out on long stems to make room for a scattering of sizes of smaller leaves closer to the branch, each with stem length relative to size. The combined effect was a fluttering, glowing, green work of art.

Sit Spot, Day 31 (May 10)

Afternoon sit. Thought about what someone said about revisiting an old sit spot. During this last day of the challenge, I looked down to my old sit spot at the base of the tree I sit in now and welcomed any memories of those sits that wanted to reveal themselves. What came up didn’t include any specific insights or learnings, but rather filled me with a sense of having been complete during that time, having been deeply in touch with who and what I am. A knowing welled up within me that during those sits during last year’s challenge, I had been nurturing myself in a way that helped me be the person I am supposed to be in this life, the person I am capable of being when I work at it.

This raises the question of whether I am walking that path as closely now as then, since I have been sitting and reflecting on my sits as regularly recently as during that time. I can certainly see that I’ve settled into awareness and silence when I sit – I’m worlds away from where I was when I started this 30-day challenge. But I wouldn’t say that I feel decidedly closer to walking my true path than before. Perhaps growth of this sort can only been seen in retrospect.

I thanked the tree for holding me and hosting my sits, thanked the Earth and her inhabitants for being with me and teaching me during the sits.

aaargh!

My (very powerful) demon whose sole purpose is to try to prevent me from ever completing tasks caught on to the fact that I have only one more post to do before officially completing the 30-day challenge.....hang on....I'll write this weekend (travelling tomorrow, so tomorrow will be genuinely hard).

Balancing...

Been working on balancing my home life with my sits, now that the imagined obligation of the challenge is over. Sat yesterday and today, but gave up the writing time for other pursuits. Plan to write tomorrow.

Sit Spot, Day 30

Last day of the 30-Day Sit Spot Challenge, hosted by Wilderness Awareness School's Kamana program, though the end date was originally set at May 10, so I'll consider it done tomorrow.

Twilight sit, at the tail end of another Parrish sky.

Brisk, hearty, cold wind shoveling down from the North. It was a strong presence over the land tonight, calling up the voices of every tree and bush, every whistling corner of every house.

The familiar sound of leaves rustling in the wind took me by surprise, after a season's absence. The maple leaves have completed just enough growth to offer up their own rendition of the wind's music.

The nearer cricket in the back yard was silent for half my sit, then started up with a slow selection of quiet, weak calls. Is it the cold slowing him down, or the remembered terror of the lawn mower passing by this afternoon? Peepers also were silent for some time, then two of them struck up a duet just before I went inside.

Sit Spot, Day 29

Afternoon sit.

Drizzly day. Low clouds, cool, moist air.

Felt the rainwater on the pine bark as I sat and leaned against the trunk, but was grateful for it after a day spent indoors, numb to so many of life's sensations.

Red-winged blackbird and robin called as I sat. Fog hung over the trees in the distance. Three cold raindrops fell in quick succession on my forehead, then none.

The water on the bark showed me color variations in it that I had overlooked before. Most of the bark had a dark-green sheen to it, some kind of plant life growing across it. But within the green there were some rusty red patches, where it seemed a thin layer of bark was missing. Squirrel marks crossed my mind, but the trunk is tortuous as it rises and this was on the side leaning towards the earth, so the hypothetical squirrels would have to be ascending while somewhat upside-down. I assume squirrels would want to ascend the easiest route possible, so I ruled this option out.

Is the red in the patches the color of the inner layer of bark, or is it another kind of plant/fungi/etc. that prefers to grow on that layer of bark? Looking forward to viewing it tomorrow, under drier conditions.

Sit Spot, Day 28

Night sit.

The air was moist and thick with the scent of cut grass.

Cricket song. Couldn't tell whether it was one or two tonight. There weren't any obviously overlapping calls, but at times it seemed almost constant, making me think there were two calling in tandem. I decided to investigate, and walked towards the calls to determine where the sound was coming from. As I passed under the blossoms of the apple, I looked up to admire them against the night sky and a creature - a moth? - flew against the corner of my mouth.

The sound of the cricket calls was deceptive: I kept thinking myself right upon it, until moving a couple more steps and finding the call coming from over another few yards. The sound finally split and I knew they were two: both situated in long grass on either side of the driveway behind our house. One of them let me come quite close before going silent. When it was calling near me, the sound was so clear and loud that I felt I was hearing the vibrations from the individual ridges on the cricket's body.

One lone peeper, one lone (tree?) frog.

As I looked outside while closing the door behind me, another moth (?) flew into my face, hitting the same corner of my mouth.

Sit Spot, Day 27

Sat out tonight.

Peepers' calls are very faint now, just a small band at a distance.

One lone cricket is continuing his solo in our backyard.

The cold wrapped itself around me and I worked at accepting it as it was, vaguely uncomfortable but so true to itself.

The stars held firmly their places in the sky, constant beings that they are.

A voice overhead said "bzip." A few minutes later, another "bzip" from another direction. Do bats call?

Sit Spot, Day 26

Sat out this morning in the tree. Dusty sunlight filling the pine needles, the spaces and branches looking just like a playground for birds and children.

Picked up a pine cone that was eyeing me on my way up. The cone was fully open, its scales arching back to free the seeds. I've noticed only during this month of sits that they open during the day and close at night. Rich brown scales with a lighter, thicker tip, like a fingernail. Only a couple of seeds remained within. The cone had broken off the tree without much stem to speak of, and gummy sap, yellowish-white, sat on the outside tip of many of the scales, as well as on the stem end.

This will be my day to study and research.

Sit Spot, Day 25

Sat out at night.

The temperature is easy, even with a cold, sinewy night air that seems to be slithering over the land. The grass is wet and cold, vibrant with sensation. Stars. Clouds.

The stars that hold the shape of a lark have set for the season and other constellations have gained their ground, giving the night sky new stories, new pictures.

Peepers. Crickets. A motorcycle.

Everything is so fresh, real, alive. Unapologetic life, just as it is - exquisite.

Sit Spot, Day 24

Didn't sit today. Left it until the nighttime, which I'm realizing I can't do if I want a real chance at sticking to this routine, since my energy and discipline are only truly reliable in the daylight hours.

Sit Spot, Day 23

Still sitting regularly, just a little behind on writing.

Sat out at night. Songs of spring peepers and another frog whose call I don't know yet drifted from a distance. The first cricket I've heard this year called and called from our backyard.

Again, just wanted to stay outside all night. I seem to be temporarily free of the struggle to be present and content during my sits, after two or three weeks of gritting my teeth.

Sit Spot, Day 22

Staying at my father's tonight, in the mountains. Sat out at night.

The only other time I've done my sit here, I sat just outside the cabin door the whole time, both eager and fearful at the prospect of hearing the wildlife I knew must be all about me. I was on hyper-alert, not relaxed but certainly tuned in to my senses. I remember noticing the dark trees overhead against the night sky, and how shadowless and obscured the forest seemed. And indeed, at the tiniest rustling in the grasses near my feet - a small rodent, to be sure - I flew inside, heart beating quickly. I was shocked and embarrassed at how frightened I was, but the fear of the unknown was strong in me, no matter how I wanted myself to feel.

Tonight, I moved instinctively away from the lights at the cabin, wanting my eyes to become better adjusted to the darkness, and wanting to distance myself from the lights I figured would make animals wary. I sat quietly in the driveway, opening up to the night, the lovely darkness, shadowless tonight as on that night. I shortly heard the same rustling in the grasses, and silently greeted the little being going about its night work. More rustling in other areas, and I felt comforted in knowing I had more company in the night. The gift of these sits over the past few weeks have been many, and tonight showed me just how strong and precious are the lessons that have come into my life through this routine: they've moved me from fear to welcome greeting of the noises in the night.

I had the same feeling tonight as last night: complete comfort in the nighttime, so much so that I wanted to stay out all night and sleep under the dark sky, surrounded by the creatures and plants and Earth.