Day 327 Battling Depression

I Am Dardanelle

So I decide I’m going to go for a hike but I don’t want to drive. What to do?  Well my strength is imagination, pursuing thoughts, strong holding onto old memories, er, you get the picture.  So let’s take a virtual walk.  Summon all my daily thoughts and tell them to take the day off, I’m going on a hike!  This is my hike.  It is on my planet and is free for all to enjoy.  I speed through the uneventful drive but secretly delight in the destination ahead.  I always get lost so part of the adventure is finding the right spot to park.  I have to unclutter my mind and focus on the feeling that tells me the right place to stop.  I stop and get out and look at where I am.  The road is planted in the middle of an immense garden of pines, cedars, elms, big rocks, pine needles and clouds.   My path today is traipsing through this garden with no thought of later.

I skip across the street and instantly I’m straining my way over a well chiseled trail.  Nothing is smooth as rocks and roots wrestle constantly with my feet and ankles.  It’s not a bother, better than the smooth tiles of death at my job.  My feet are treated fair there but bumpy upon this creaky, chipped rugged throughway.  I try to look up and not down at my toes.  There’s so many interesting things to see.  Trees, old, young, dying, laying down, skinny, thick, fungy, mossy, stoic, silent and strong.  Their extremely elaborate natures defy emotions, thoughts, feelings.  They just are.  One after another, each no less beautiful than the other yet each so different.  You think they are green but that is just a trick they play on you because the subtleties of colors would dizzy you if you pined away meditatively on discovering each shade.  So they’re green, okay, light green, purplish green, brownish even but still holding on to a green.  And yes, the browns are equally vertiginous.  They’re happy, joyful, bashful, loud, tempered, wavy, solid, wistful.  There’s something temptatious about the conjoining of the greens and browns.  There’s no blues to descend to for one thing.  But they mix in a kind hearted symbiotic manner, a breeze of peace for your eyes.  You’re softening at the edges now, your feet are moving you in and on.

Gently you place your hand on the bark of a tree and feel how solid, how textured and almost how holy the sensation is.  A little bit of God talks to you through minute wooden vibrations.  Too small for you to perceive but awakening tiny hopes in different parts of your brain.  You breathe deeply because the trail is difficult but it feels like the natural way to submit to the experience.  Your breath goes all the way to the back of your head, the current gently hemorrhaging the thoughts of old routines, nasty people and desperate expectations.  You sway like a branch but don’t break.  Willfully taking in the drama of leaves tittering, birds chirping, creeks tinklings and just delight in the wonder you find yourself in.

Up high in the mountains your view is startling treetops, immense mountainous escarpments and low lying clouds gently brushing the skies.  It is total peace up here, no background grumbling, no cars, no barking and no phones ringing. Just quiet, silence.  The air is thinner and you can hear the thrust of your exhalations as the only loud sound. It’s deep breathing, rhythmic and mildly hypnotizing.  You feel wider, your wings unfolding as you take it all in.  The experience as a thought fulfills you.  There is no room for random thoughts of yesterday, last month, a year ago, the gloomy muck of childhood.  You lock in locally and follow one foot in front of the other.  Push branches away from your face as you push old thoughts from your brain.

Your body is perspiring but it feels strangely organic and you feel physically connected to the forest now.   A little tired so you find a spot to rest.  You come upon a tree laying majestically on its side, inviting all to have a wee sit.  Denuded of bark, it must have lain there for centuries.  It’s still solid, still robust.  Despite all the life around it, it is still a vital part of the ecosystem here.  Life goes on despite its death, despite it not still standing tall.  Everything just adapts to its presence, letting it lie in repose, its beauty no less powerful without the spark of its life.  It has no thought yet still commands attention silently lying through a copse of bushy trees.  Thoughts of my death morbidly transpire in this serendipitous setting.  Would it be so quiet when I die?  So peaceful, so beautiful?  With all the rabid thoughts, feelings, seas of opinions, moods, depressions that I entertain in civilization, would they all come to this point in death?  So would it really matter or is it really important to yield to those agents so personally on a daily basis?  If it all ends in an august sanguineness spell lasting eons, what’s the point of writhing under the painful patch of such wretched daily thinking?  But this is a hike and I hop off of the lovely tree and head on.

Up and over a small ridge I am electrified by a thousand burning green whorls shooting out of the ground.  Little lava piles jutting randomly in different spaces giving it a wondrous appeal of a miniature mountain valley.  It’s gorgeous, breathtaking.  The bright greens are lit up like ethereal lights in the darkest of nights and the leaves look like solemn hands in prayer.  No more than 6 inches high it looks like a carpet covering the forest floor.  I reverently step through the carpet and feel the shining of color radiating upwards.  Little life, big life, no life, it doesn’t matter in the woods.  Every leaf, blade of grass, bend in the creek is just is.  Everything makes sense and a calm descends stopping time and thoughts.

Just witness each little miracle as the hand of the universe delicately and spontaneously puts everything flawlessly in its place.   I’m genuinely a part of this too.  My presence, my impressions, my breath, my joyfully experiencing the simple, uncomplicated elegance of Mother Nature.  My feet, my hands, my legs, my head, my heart all beating in a cosmic rhythm tuned to the dirt of this planet.  This is just the journey and not even the destination.