In the moment of where I am

In this vast space nudged up against the Rockies, spring comes late. This week, snow fell, ice melted. Water flowed. The first delicate pussy willows burst open. 

Spring is in the air.

Still nippy, the spring air brushes my cheeks with a tint of cool and I remember. YES! I am alive.

Alive!

What a glorious, spectacular, sensational feeling.

I walked along the ridge over looking the river, the Rockies shrouded in billowy grey clouds clinging to their ridges with the tenacity of winter snow clinging to the edge of the river waters flowing freely. Ellie, the wonder pooch, and I walked down the hillside, sliding in the mud and grit. At the bottom, Ellie ran into the river and splashed about as I built a rock tower at the edge of the water, a guardian of the river's journey to the sea, a talisman for my heart.

We climbed back up to the ridge and I searched for signs of spring amidst the grasses turning green. And yesterday, I spied my first crocus of the year pushing its way up through the earth. 

I sat on the ridge, let the cool breeze caress my cheeks as Ellie snuffled in the grasses. I'm sure she was a horse, or maybe a cow in a former life. She eats grass with the same vigilance.

I sat on the ridge and meditated, letting my body sink into ease and tranquility. I sat on the ridge and let my thoughts flow out like the river flowing below me. We are on the easterly side of the Great Divide here. Waters flow into Hudson's Bay, thousands of miles away. I thought of the waters flowing, ever flowing eastward, into the Bay to mingle with the waters of life flowing all around me.

Water doesn't flow backwards, my eldest daughter once said to me. 


We can never go back. Always forward. Always moving effortlessly through this moment to the next. Like the river below, flowing ever onward towards the sea.

I cannot go back in time. I can only be in this moment. Move from this moment forward to arrive at another moment in time, in the future. Never in the past.

"The point of traveling is not

to arrive but to return home

laden with pollen you shall work up

into honey the mind feeds on."

R.S. Thomas

The point of all this traveling is not to 'arrive' writes R.S.Thomas.

I sit on the ridge and imagine, if I were a traveler arriving here in this moment, what would I see? Sunshine filtered through clouds. Winter grass turning green. A woman. Sitting quietly on a ridge. A golden haired dog wandering through the grasses. A river flowing. Trees standing silent sentinel along the ridge. Golden grasses blowing in the breeze. And life. Every where life. Moving. Flowing. Being.

I sat on a ridge and let the sunsoaked air breathe upon my skin.

I sat on a ridge and knew, no matter where I was, I am home within myself when I let myself be present in the moment of being where ever I am.