Moments in time...

“The happiest man is he who learns

from nature the lesson of worship.”

- Emerson RW; Nature

The skies above the Western slope of the Catalina Mountains were the kind of vision only a creative artist could paint.  The high nimbostratus clouds darkened, knitting together a living black and white shaded patchwork quilt with an intricacy that was at the same time intimate and overwhelming.

Lower, lightly colored cumulus clouds sat under the covering blanket in just the right places; accented in pinks and salmon.  It was a visual paradox to see the lightly colored cotton balls capture the setting sun to the west – a dynamic and living tapestry, shifting every few seconds…changing with a compelling magnetic draw that dared you to look away…dared you to miss the subtle shift on the living canvas lasting but a few minutes – never to be seen again by anyone…anywhere…at anytime.  It was awesome!

The wind at ground level was strong.  The kind of wind, that blowing through tree leaves carries with it a rustling sound undulating in and out with a hypnotic and unpredictable rhythm…equally compelling to the rapidly darkened sky – the shift from visual to auditory predominance so smooth, so subtle, that as your mind yielded to this symphony, the rich, dark tones drew you into its creative force...life giving, familiar, fully integrated.

A little context…

My early life, meaning all of my early life, there was a part of the year to which I looked forward without variance and without fail.  My mother’s people had some land on a beautiful lake in a magical region of Central Ontario, Canada called Muskoka.  It was the Camelot of my youth.  We had a cottage on the shores of Lake Joseph where we spent the month of August every year through my mid to late twenties.

In my early years, a number of relatives shared a ‘family cottage’ at different times during the summer, but as the years passed and families grew, each spread out and built little places near the water’s edge of Stanley bay.  There are so many things that could be said…so many people who I loved and in return loved me…so many experiences recorded in the nether regions of my mind, accumulated from decades during those days in the month of August when we disappeared from life and slipped into hardwood forests of maple and pine of our“…never never land…”

The old family cottage had a covered veranda with sections of vertical pine logs supporting the overhanging roof and a lovely railing made up of smaller pine pieces with even smaller branches crisscrossing and attached to the its horizontal base.  It was about 20 feet long and 8 feet or so deep, and a favorite place for me to sit during rainstorms as the summer skies brought occasional rainy days with thunderous lightening snapping bright for milliseconds and bringing a sense of oneness to my soul.

Sometimes gusty winds would blow the rain onto the porch driving most of us indoors.  But for me, there was a secret place on that old veranda - a screened in bunk bed recessed on the far end by the broad stairs at the head of a path leading to the boathouse.  When the rains came and strong winds blew, I would slip into the bottom bunk and drift into a magical timeless place where I felt fully alive.

My mother had taught us to love and respect nature.  Water was deadly, but if carefully respected a “…gift from God.”  Storms could be dangerous, but their sights and sound were “…reminders of just how awesome our Creator is.”  Like Pavlov’s dog, when the storms came, because of her love and the safety we felt in her presence, we embraced their power and relished in the astounding strength they represented. To this day, when the storms come, the strength and love my mother planted so long ago, returns to fill my soul with excitement and anticipation.

The here and now…

Tonight, as the desert monsoon storm approached, I found myself returning to the land of my birth and the screened in porch that was, for me an almost sacred place.  Tonight as the winds picked up and the rains came I moved inside behind the screen door in my little home office.  I lay back in the chair with my feet up as Leah slipped in, and curled up on the mat by the door purring - her engines at full steam.  She felt the calm that had been planted in me so long ago and joined in this timeless moment of bliss.

When I returned to my little office from the ‘place’ I found with Leah - the winds and thunderous rain - I had been drifting for a little more than an hour…that would be on the clock…in fact ‘I’ was simply ‘hanging in space.’

It was still storming when I gathered myself and wandered off to bed.  I was tired…not the exhausted kind when you just flat run out of energy, but the kind you feel when you have been quietly ‘filled’ up and know that sleep will bring an extra bit of nourishing refreshment.

And so it was…

- ted