Lately I have been vision questing via running - enjoying the warmer weather, feeling alive as spring unfolds and searching for answers to deep questions. Recently I went on a multi-hour run quest on and around the popular favorite Peet’s Hill. The spot is so simple and accessible, and still so wild. With a view of the mountains beyond and town below, the place offers powerful perspective.
I was drawn into the graveyard, a beautiful spot covered with a thicket of lovely trees. Feeling my dad’s death fresh in my heart and moving through big life transitions, visiting this spot helped remind me of the natural state of impermanence – and understand the precious nature of life. After running out my tears and pausing to pay respects, I wandered into the field just beyond the grave.
I found myself just 10 yards from two grazing deer. Maybe they sensed my raw and peaceful state; after an initial startle they returned to grazing. Captivated, I edged my way toward them playfully. They did the same. We became so close I would be among them if I took just a few more steps. As I did, the stone-still herd watching nearby rose and alerted the whole group to run. Those two lingered, looking back. One even remained for a minute, the two of us curiously meeting eyes, until it too finally fled.
These are the same animals I help my friends butcher every fall, whose lean local meat nourishes us throughout the year. I respect each life we take and feel connected to these creatures through eating them. Their life force allows mine to continue. This is the cycle of life and death that we are all part of, whether we are eating plants or animals.
I was so moved I wept again under the setting sun. It struck me that the web of life - this whole earth - is one integrated organism. The clouds and the mountains themselves are alive, just as indigenous cultures have always said - each tree and rock and bug a part of the whole. Including me. But I don’t entirely know our true place within this whole.
Under the rising moon, I made my way back to the trail. Something seemed so wrong about the blaring lights of the hospital, the paved town below and beautiful old trees carved around electric wires. Where the trail winds to the road I came across another deer – this one limping by the pavement, freshly hit by a fast-moving vehicle. I vowed then and there not to take one more step in the direction of devastating this planet or causing needless injury. I don’t know what the full picture of harmony looks like, but I am doing all I can to create it. I encourage all of us to all join together and find a way for humans to co-exist on the planet peacefully. It is, after all, a part of us, and therefore harm to one really is harm to all.
0 comments:
Post a Comment