Day 20, Thursday, March 20, Spring!

away from home yesterday, no sit.

evening sit tonight, just on the back deck for convenience reasons. practiced the sense meditation at the start of my sit, and am still suprised at how effective such a simple practice is at bringing me alive into the present moment and place. it makes me feel like i'm newly born as some other kind of animal, because the experience of having all of my senses awakened at the same time is so foreign to me. it does't feel like what i think of as "human."

practiced foxwalking back and forth during my sit, and it amplified my sense of alertness. by the end of my sit, i felt myself, for the first time in memory, as truly a part of the woods. whenever i complete my sits and thank the forest and my tree, i always have a vague sense of being an intruder, however welcome. but tonight, i felt that there was nothing to apologize for, because i was finally obeying the rules of the forest along with everyione else who lived in it. i wasn't just trampling my way loudly through it in a straight line to my destination in order to accomplish my agenda; i was respecting the way of life of other creatures, i was respecting the peace of the forest.

made me reflect on the reality that humans are the only creatures i've ever encountered that barge through the natural world with little regard for or awareness of the ways of all the other creatures. tonight, i felt what it is to be one of the animals, to belong in the woods. and then how vast the woods seemed! every shadow i considered as a potential spot to take cover in, i considered seeing if there were a dry spot to rest on behind the compost bin, that patch of snow there would be loud to walk on, better to travel over that bare earth there, which is also in the shadow of the neighbor's street lamp. and on and on, each individual space on the earth took on so much more significance when i looked at the world from the perspective of caution, of keeping quiet and hidden.

when i stepped into our porch, i was struck at how little the opening is that we call a "door." i generally don't give them a second thought, of course, but tonight i saw that my "front door" is nothing but a little hole into the den of my house, just as so many other creatures have narrow entrances to their shelters, all of us trying to keep out potential predators, pests, the elements.