SNOWWONDER

Another 4-5 inches of snow is falling and all the footprints of the past weeks are covered in a pristine blanket of white that unrolls itself up the back hill and breathes a soft quiet throughout the woods. Stephen and Sadie and I have been heading into the woods for snowshoe adventures because our teenager puppy needs a safe haven to pretend she is a snowshoe hare. She bombs through the woods making Hopkin tracks, and following them again. Walking with her is comical and I find myself outdoors more often and laughing out loud because of her. She has drawn me away from the rhythmic noise of my treadmill into the deep silence of the snowy woods where I breathe and sweat almost every step in the knee deep new powder. The snow depth and the uphill climb together give me a workout full of wonder. It is so quiet I wonder if I can hear the trees breathing. The old yellow beech leaves quake in the wind...they shiver and shake and make a song. Tat-a-tat-a-tat...and somewhere nearby a woodpecker drums out a rhythm and seems to sing along. The woods are full of music even when they are silent. Today is the last day of February and I am wondering how to empty my mind to become fresh and new like a baby's innocent awareness. How to reach back and allow my mind to be unknowing, to not have any labels for things but to see all with the freshness of a baby or a puppy. Sadie bounces along through the woods...through the snow...she trusts her feet and her nose and she doesn't worry about what lies underneath and if she sinks in up to her back, she just swims. She frolics like she is an integral part of the woods ...like a beech leaf quaking in the breeze.

Lately, I've been very aware of my breath interacting with the exhalation of trees. It

Is on my mind almost every time I walk into the woods. Before Sadie came, I spent much too much time inside and now I am aware of a stiff heaviness that falls away when I am in the woods with my heart wide open. It's almost as if the cubic shape of the building has become a crusty form around me and when I am among the forest trees, they lift me free from the constraints of too much man made surround sound. I wonder if the deer can hear my laughter or the turkeys our sharp whistles. I am sensing myself as an animal creature and trying to remember that my consciousness is embedded in the natural world as much a part of the forest as the trees and animals and rocks. This is a frame of mind that replenishes my good humor.

Yesterday Stephen and I watched "THE COVE". It is a horrifying reality like so many others where the beauty of creation lies in the evil clutches of a shortsighted and greedy species called Man. Watching the dolphin slaughter made my guts feel wrenched like they did when the news was broadcasting the animals and birds washing up in the oil slick in the gulf. Tears are natural and flow easily. What I fail to understand is how humans can continue to degrade all of Mother Nature when so little is left. Is it that hard to see that our species is just one animal amongst many? That we interrelate with all species and there is intelligence beyond what science can prove? When I walk in the woods, the trees do not care what I'm wearing or if my hair is combed.. Yet I feel them welcome me. There is a silent invitation to enter the woods and to become at home as one of the creatures breathing the air. There is a relief that welcomes all of myself. I don't need to pretend to be someone I am not. I don't have to put on any airs or behave in a particularly civilized way. I don't want to be a human who is separated from all of nature by pride and self importance. When I think of myself as "knowing", I become separated from what I behold but if I am exploring...the woods become new and full and different from a few moments ago. I guess that is what the Buddhists call Beginners Mind. An open mind doesn't have all the answers and it doesn't know all the labels and if it does, it allows the possibility of not-knowing and because of that, it...the open mind...has wisdom. What can I do for the Dolphins? What can I do for the turtles and pelicans and fish along the gulf coast?

I can go into the woods as a fellow creature, open to the tall teachers and small nuances of change and I can be moved by the signs as they change day to day. I feel relieved. I do not want to identify with the monsters who slaughter 23,000 dolphins a year or the big corporations that bleed oil into the sea...they are all human created and yet I fear that creation. I fear the pride that leads humans to believe they are the only intelligent life of the planet and especially the white supremacists that believe only in themselves. I prefer to aspire to that beautiful female cardinal with the orange beak and soft peachy feathers who is at home in the vast openness of sky. I prefer to seek solace in the trustworthiness of nature...she who follows cycles and rhythms of wave, of season, of weather. The songs of the whales, the dolphins, the birds...thats the music I yearn to play...the song that seeps out of my deep nature. When I go into the woods...I think I hear it.