In each life a time arises when spaces become cluttered and too full.
No matter how much work remains to be done, regardless of stacks of unanswered papers, in spite of unopened e-mail, irrespective of unanswered phone calls, each person needs to return to some semblance of wilderness.
In such spaces not completely paved by unending miles of asphalt, where parks are more than some scraggly excuses for trees, in areas where houses or apartments don't cluster so close together as to appear to be an endless human dormitory, there is an opportunity to rediscover Source.
There is a hope to return to nature, a chance, almost like an echo of a dream, to remember that rarefied emotion known as optimism.
We can return, if not to innocence, to the bittersweet experience of less frantic times,the wish to linger so that we might savor slower rhythms, when life isn't one insistent urgency after another ...
In a section of the outback I dare not reveal, on a trip long overdue, in a quiet place as yet undiscovered by city folk with multiple credit cards, I traveled in my rusted '87 Toyota Tercel to a land that the Taliban, the Bush administration, and the congested freeways have forgotten. I dare not reveal its location, lest online readers flock to its old-fashioned charms and quickly destroy its lack of pretensions with the unctuous poison of Taco Bell's, Denny's, and gift shop tourism.
The buildings were simply constructed, but not of particle board. There were few electric lights and only one traffic signal, hanging haphazardly by a wire above the dusty earthen road. The oak trees were unmarred by graffiti. And no cops with hidden radar guns marred the view, pulling you over with snarls of urbanity. You see, there were insufficient voyagers to support city ticket quotas.
I sensed that some inner clock of tensions began to unwind from the stress of notorious self-significance. I asked for a visible sign from the Holy Spirit. And I began to feel less anxious about the so-called importance of the stock market, religious fanatics, corporate propaganda, and Capitol Hill pundits planning the next massive media spin.
I actually stopped to appreciate the color of the sky. It was no longer gray.
The wind whispered poetry without drumbeats and offensive cultural caricatures. I began to breathe deeply, then shut off the car radio. My ears no longer required heightened, heated dramas concerning the next oh-so-important war in Iraq ...
or another "BUSH PUSH" for environmental destruction in the name of progress ... and obscenely overpaid CEO's.
I leisurely stopped for a mug of Ceylon black tea by an old cafe, decorated with faded signs from an age gone by ...
... And pondered my need for repose and moments when I can simply BE, without doing. I don't need another requirement or deadline to be fulfilled. Just as in music, negative space is part of sound's glorious receipt in order to be ringing, so, too, is emptiness one daily essential requirement for nectar, for inner gratitude to flow.
Could it be that what the world requires isn't to be more filled, and more occupied, yet to be emptied of stress and sorrow? For love and well-being to be received, first there must be room -- and even emptiness -- for an expanding heart to grow.
All I really want is a freely flowing river, with some polished granite rocks, and a chance to express gratitude for the beauty which still exists even within this agitated world. Would that for these moments I could become like limber necks of supple trunks of trees looking upward into the blue emptiness of sky.
