Nature Life

Do you ever feel like you’re walking along, the is air calm and warm, and then a word, a sound, changes everything? The breeze becomes cold flowing from the core, rippling to the surface.

This kind of energy has been flowing through me on and off the last few days as I’ve considered some changes. What does one do with this energy?

Walking on, when I got to the light I stopped. I looked back at the person I barely noticed passing. Did I say, “Good morning?”

The light changed and I walked on still shivering. Passing another person I said, “Good morning.” They replied with a kind smile. I heard them say to another behind me, “Good morning.”

Branches sway cracking
ripples inward outward flow,
Silent lion roars

A friend shared a book he was reading titled “Haiku” and I found this:

*”Sitting quietly, doing nothing,
Spring comes, grass grows of itself”

On the internet I found that haiku attributed to Matsu Bashio along with a commentary on doing nothing, just to be. However, I find the winds are not always still and to ‘just be’ not so easy.

I had just finished shoveling snow and raking the roof when I noticed the potted bamboo under the weight of the snow sitting quietly. The snow on the bamboo sitting quietly. And the barrel and dirt sitting quietly. It was then it occurred to me that the winds will always blow and that the practice is to sit quietly and ‘just be’ within them.

Right after I took this photograph, I pondered about changing the title to “Sitting quietly”.

*Reginald Horace Blyth (1952): _Haiku_, Tōkyō: Hokuseido pg.20