I joined my partner on a walk in the wood yesterday. This photo shows where we paused for a while in silence.
Both of us were thinking different thoughts while standing and admiring the spirit of the forest. My partner was in awe of the giant in the centre and I was taking in the majestic grandeur and silence that was so readily available to us. As we slowly started moving along the path again I suddenly heard someone calling my name from… the pocket in my backpack. Oops.
My phone was tucked away in the backpack and apparently managed to FaceTime a friend from Tel Aviv - ‘What??’…. Funny enough I was just sort of thinking of her, the way the mind can travel all over the place, but this was weird. When I picked my phone and saw her face all ready to chat I quickly said ‘I can’t talk now I am in the middle of a walk - but hey nice to see you….’
It took a while for me to register that it was my phone that called hers and oh well, it was not really important. What was important was that I was enjoying a moment in nature. But then… she was still ‘here’. My partner said ‘Isn’t that interesting, maybe you two should be talking for some reason’. ‘No we don’t’ my mind was thinking. Still, the chatter continued focusing on her and our old friendship.
Finally the conversation died out. We were back walking quietly to the sound of dried leaves crackling under our feet. And then an airplane emerged out of nowhere, piercing the silence. It was a small aircraft flying above the fields and it was making a racket. We had just entered one of our favourite areas in the wood, a higher ridge dense with ancient yew trees. It never fails to bring a sense of sacredness.
Incidentally, it’s also the spot where my partner proposed to me a few years ago [with a red and yellow hollow candy]. So, there we were in our favourite spot yesterday and this idiot airplane pilot was ruining our woodland walk. At some point - after a long pause - I could’t help myself from saying ‘I bet we are both thinking the same’. ‘Yes, exactly’ came the satisfied response, 'we are both wishing for the plane to crash!’
We laughed and I was a little shaken by the imagined violence of the annoyed mind. Oh the mind….. I guess I am coming to the point of today’s writing.
All this time I was watching my mind and my inner experience. It’s a deeply etched habit that has grown with my human design experiment. There is me, and there is what I am observing. The ‘me’ tends to run into all sorts of experiences and then it has thoughts about it. And there is my observing self. The trick is to let go of the judgment [of the judgment of the judgment…] and stay with the novelty.
Yea, things are not as they ‘should’ be - often. I wanted silence and sacredness but I got an unwanted phone call with a video connection I was not invited to. I also got pulled into a conversation I did not want to focus on. And then there came an airplane buzz that concealed the sound of the trees in the wind, that triggered annoyance and nervousness. That’s reality. And it’s a privileged often amusing reality…
Sometimes it’s difficult to see the wood for the trees when self observing with awareness. Sometimes it’s impossible to see either with the best of intentions, when awareness is sliding into self judgment.
It will not prevent me from getting lost in the woods. But it will wait for me to spot the bread crumbs on the path back home.