Friday Ramble - Drifting

On September mornings, the village can be a mysterious place. The earth is often warmer than the air above, the meeting of the two elements turning otherwise mundane landscape features into entities fey and luminous. Autumn is here, and she is comfortable in her tenure of mist, rain, wind and madcap tumbling leaves.

There is nothing like a good fog, and September dishes up some splendid atmospheric murks. In early morning, mist swirls around everything like a veil. It drapes whiskery trees in the park, smooths the contours of the houses and streets and parked vehicles along our way. The wind tugs playfully at the leaves of old trees, and they fall, rustling underfoot as Beau and I wander along. If we listen carefully, we can sometimes hear Cassie and Spencer (his big sister and brother) pottering along beside us, their happy feet doing a kind of scuffling dance through the fallen treasure. 

Out of the pearly gray and sepia come sounds now and again. Birds converse in hedgerows and geese move unseen among the clouds, singing as they pass over our heads. Doors open and close as sleepy residents collect their morning papers. There is the growling of automobiles and the rumble of buses, the muffled cadence of joggers gliding through the park, children chattering on their way to school, commuters heading downtown to work. Some mornings, rain beats a staccato rhythm on roofs, and little rivers sing through the gutters. Once in a while, there is the whistle of a faraway train, only a faint echoing in the air.  All together, it is symphonic.

On such mornings, the world seems boundless and brimming with luminous floating Zen possibility, soil and trees and sky and mist giving tongue in a language that is wild and compelling. Part of me is curled up and engaged in a slow breathing meditation, counting my breaths, in and out, in and out. Other parts are out there drifting along with the fog and happy to be doing it. Emaho!