Tales and Journeys

A little valley, a sink in the landscape. A tree on a tiny hill. Nature around me, teeming. A clucking stream bending around the hill.

I lift my arms, take it all in. Hanging from a branch in the tree. Effortlessly. Nature is coming. Animals approach. A deer, many birds.

A fox. I understand. I follow her.

The stream is bigger here. A waterfall. She jumps over, I follow. It’s ridiculously easy.

Up a hill, leading to another waterfall above. I practically float up the hill. There is an opening behind the waterfall. We go in.

There is light behind the water. It opens into another valley, more beautiful than the previous one. I see a crooked tree on the top of a hill that’s arranged in great steps.

She speaks. “Follow my lead.” Now we’re in the grass on a hill close by. “Break free of bonds… of limitations.”

We lay down in the grass. She curls up by my left hand. Friendship. Presence. Calm. Then she crawls up to my neck and curls up there. Intimacy. Support. Empathy. At last, the settles down atop my heart. Understanding. Protection. Attachment.

“Of course I know.” She accepts me and guards me. She is, after all, a part of me.

For a short while, we lie like this. Not too short, but not too long. She stands up and walks away. I can manage, now. The sky, once blue, has filled with stars. She runs towards them and grows wings. In flight, she turns to me. “See you around.” She disappears in the night, but not before she has made the trees bloom all around me. A beautiful, protecting sight against the dark sky. I am content, and I lie there for a while longer.

Then I’m outside. I find the little valley and the tree. I sit down on a branch and listen to nature. Thinking about her. And then, as if she’d always been there, she appears in the corner of my arm. Calm.

Here I end the meditation session.