I put my bare-naked hands down on the wintry ground.
On the soil.
On the mud, actually. Wet, gushy, and colder than ice cubes.
Nothing melted under the remaining warmth in my hand; ice cubes would’ve melted
under my fingertips. But not this mud.
I closed my eyes.
I breathed. Deeply. In. Out. In… Out… Innnn…Outttt…
Before the frigidity took hold and my fingers lost their
typically acute sense of texture, I recall feeling small pebbles, twigs, and
silky, half-rotted leaves in that handprint of soggy earth. I heard a breeze
blowing faintly through pine-needled boughs high above my squatting body. I
felt the quick, cold touch of my dog’s nose on my cheek before she darted off
to some other exploration. I crouched a little lower and got a faint scent of
decaying stuff, last summer’s glory now ground cover, becoming energy for
unseeable living beings.
I put my bare-naked hands down on the wintry
ground.
I became one with that impossibly cold mud. And in the
instant that my hands were no longer able to feel separation, distinctness from
that mud, I felt the overwhelming flood of warm, melted calm that is the gift
of inseparability-felt.
Because we are naturally one.
Separating hurts because it is unnatural; the
natural way, nature’s way, the truth,
is that we are inseparable. “Becoming One” is the marker on the road to peace. I’m convinced
of it. The mud taught me this the other day.
I put my bare-naked hands down on the wintry
ground.
I became whole. Again and again and again.
I put my bare-naked hands down on the wintry
ground…Won’t you?
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2016 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
