CANARY ISLANDS
That immense space—the great outdoors—that you enter when you go hiking?
Bring it back inside you. Offer it to others, in the form of openness, patience, awareness, compassion.
Some have a yoga practice. Others a meditation practice.
We have a hiking practice.
Hiking is itself a path.
Excited conversation at the trailhead rarely lasts. Banal chatter settles into more personal,
meaningful talk, which distills into discussion of loftier ideas, then slides into long stretches of stillness. So hiking appeals more to those who are comfortable with themselves, because that's
who we all end up with on the trail—ourselves—even if we never hike alone. If you can dive into that tranquility, if you can swim into that solitude, you will find your essence in a realm of calm and clarity.
Nature isn't a resource. It's the source.
Close your eyes, bow your head, and place your palms together.
Or open your eyes, lift your head,
and place one foot in front of the other.
My reflection in
a dry streambed.
Noticing a trickle, I think of my languid self: when I lose volume and speed, accomplishing little, creating nothing, stimulating
no one. But I’m aware we all feel this, and it passes. We’re not
the trickle. We’re the streambed. Life flows—surging, subsiding, surging again—through us. Our calling is to be big, open, ready for inevitable torrents, droughts, challenges, opportunities. Patience, I tell myself. A flood will come soon enough.
Place of Higher Learning
Wilderness is not lonely
Many teachers live here
Boulder explains
the art of silence
Mountain counsels
patience
River demonstrates
the fluid life
Lake says
“Be still within"
Earth gives lessons
in generosity
Sky’s theory:
“All is but a passing cloud"
Forest shows how
to get along together
Leaves remind me
I too will vanish and return