Thursday, December 06, 2007

Any Thought in a Storm


When I set out for my daily walk this morning it was 9:00 a.m. but the sky was so dull and dark and heavy that it felt as though night had not yet fully retreated. It was raining and a strong wind was blowing. The hedgerows were sodden and there were parallel streams of water running down the margins of the lane, heading for the already swollen river at the bottom of the combe. I set off downhill, head bent, huddling into my wet weather gear, ears tuned, just in case a car or tractor should come down behind me, the sound of its engine drowned out by the roar of wind and water.

I paused on the bridge to contemplate the river, rushing and roiling, churned to the colour of of our local clay, and thought ruefully that I should have done my quarterly otter survey before the rains began. There will be little to record now, for any prints or spraint will have been washed away in the torrent.




I climbed the hill on the other side of the combe. Once at the top, out of the shelter of the trees, I met the full force of the westerly wind, as it drove the rain into slanting sheets – the kind that penetrate the gaps around cuffs and collars, sending trickles of cold water through the layers of clothing, like clever spies on a mission to discover skin.

My walking boots are sturdy, and although they leak a little I wear thick wool socks inside. So it was more than half an hour before I noticed the squelching. From then on, however, it felt as though my feet were encased in sphagnum moss.

There was something else I noticed, too, at around the half-hour mark. Which was that I was still there. I mean THERE there. There with the wind, there with the rain, there with my squelchy socks. There with the bare, stunted wind-sheared trees that grow in the exposed places, there with the damp sheep in the field, munching on wet grass, their tiny stick-like feet sunk several inches into the sodden ground. There with the few crows and seagulls still attempting to get somewhere but forced into detours by the insistent wind. There with the tiny, pink faces of the last half dozen campions, stragglers of summer, still blooming in their sheltered microclimate at the base of the hedge, their petals bruised and drooping.

Usually, by that time, I am just coming to the realization that I have walked for thirty minutes without seeing anything except the pictures in my mind. Usually, half an hour into my walk, I am reproaching myself for being 'out of my body' and off on a journey to one of the four places to which, like everyone else, I go whenever I leave the Now: i.e. the past, the imagined future, the 'me-world' of my troubles and schemes or my conceptual 'you-world' of all that is not me.*

Most days, the half hour point is where I realise that I have gone missing, so to speak, and remind myself that as well as good exercise, my morning walk is also, potentially, a meditation. But it can only be that if I stay present.

This morning, in the twenty miles an hour westerly wind that gusted to nearer thirty on the corners, in the drenching rain, with cold water trickling down my neck, I didn't go off anywhere. I stayed. And in the staying, I became aware, once again, of what Martin Buber called the 'I-Thou' relationship. Nature is not something to use. It is not wallpaper. It is not an 'It'. It is a 'Thou'. When I touch a tree, the tree also touches me. When I see a bird, the bird sees me also. As Thomas Berry says, "The world is not a collection of objects. It is a communion of subjects." Oh amen, amen, amen.

Why, this morning, did I find it so much easier to stay present to the here and now? Do we need 'bad weather' – floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, drought, global warming – to wake us out of our collective, sleepwalking state and propel us into a better, more mindful way of being in the world? Hmmm. Perhaps we do.

(*as described by Richard Moss
in his latest book,
The Mandala of Being)





6 comments:

  1. I think I would have "stayed" too, if I was trying to walk in traffic amid rain driven by thirty mile per hour winds!

    Again, you already have the most important part of the answer you seek--the act of questioning the way your mind works when you leave it to its own agendas.

    Thanks for sharing the walk. As a youth I had livestock chores that took me out into whatever weather each day brought. Since then, I haven't had many walks that required my active presence.

    And, an otter survey sounds like something I would want to do far more frequently than every three months. They are such interesting creatures! I would guess that they "stay" in their moments, even on the nicest days.

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  2. I wouldn't exactly call it 'walking in traffic', as I usually don't encounter more than half a dozen vehicles per hour, but these lanes are only ten feet wide in most places so I need to get out of the way when one does appear. Better to have some warning, rather than leaping suddenly into the nearest ditch.
    And yes, otters are fascinating. And so shy that I never see them, but I live in hope and always keep an eye out. The Biodiversity Records Centre only wants quarterly reports though.

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  3. Brrr, I was freezing and ready for some hot tea after reading your post today.

    I could literally feel that trickle of cold water, and shivered a little in contemplation...now that's good writin', darlin'!

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  4. that sounds like a lovely walk, squelchy boots aside! i love feeling a part of nature, in the 'now' of it all...
    and how lovely that you go for a daily walk, something which i would love to do, and i think the world would be a better place if more people went for a daily walk!
    hope you had a nice change of warm dry footwear waiting at home.
    have a good weekend

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  5. Absolutely we do "...need 'bad weather'...to wake us out of our collective, sleepwalking state and propel us into a better, more mindful way of being in the world."

    But I find the weather can do that for me when it's in much less than the extreme states you mentioned. In fact, the weather which you described so well does that for me.

    And, why, I ask do we refer to cloudy, rainy, snowy, etc. days as "bad" (or at least they do here in perpetually sunny So. Cal.) as I delight in those days when the sun takes a rest, hiding out of sight.

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  6. I loved your thoughts.

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