Sifting Through-The removal of self

 

I am disheartened...No matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, I cannot upload any pictures to this blog. Any peace that my "place" has fortified me with has been eviscerated in a moment. I want to share some visuals for those of you that are not familiar with Flagstaff Hill in Schenley Park. I don't know what to do and I am furious: Just disgusted beyond belief. Disgusted with myself for seemingly not being able to successfully operate one of the easiest things technology has to offer: uploading a photograph. I am disgusted with technology for being as inconsistent as it is, angry for my ineptitude, but more so because of the loss of control. 

"Load this app to upoload pics from your iphone" are my directions. "Your phone is incompatible with this app and you haven't been to our store therefore..." blah blah blah.  "Upload from Picassa" is another option. I downloaded the program. It will not retrieve photos from it. "Upload any jpeg from your folders". So I try that, only to see a rejection every time from every photograph I try. I want to throw something. I am seething.

Ahhhh, I have succumbed to that other side of nature that we seldom celebrate, that destructive impatient, irrational, self-loathing, dark side that often leaves us impotent and paralyzed. I will not give up. I will try to return my better efforts at sharing the original experience of my time at my "place". But, alas, this episode has irrevocably colored my perspective and will influence the outcome of my meager attempts of describing a much more beautiful place devoid of those personal insignificant and petty thoughts.

That is the difficulty of this exercise. I can’t recreate the immediacy of the moments I share with my place. I find this frustrating because my recollections of my time in that present dissipate with every passing moment. On top of that fluid change, looking at my notes that are jotted down with exigent excitement every time an authentic moment reveals itself to me, further distances me from the authenticity of that ephemeral moment.  Reading my own thoughts of the genuine exchanges I experience in my natural place immediately alters them and separates me from accurately portraying their relevance and spiritual beauty. Once again, I struggle to remove myself from expressing the purity inherent in the spiritual connectedness that comes through the interdependence of nature. I will attempt to let go of control, of doing what I think I should and do what I try to do when contemplating and observing at my “place.”  I will let the Universe stand up to meet me and claim my highest form of good so that I might lend a light and recapture, through these notes, my time at Flagstaff Hill on Sunday afternoon at 1:40 p.m.  

As I walk up the long incline of a snow covered hill, I feel the wind increase and see the warmth of the sun move the trees. The wind cuts and sharpens but the songs from the crackling crunchiness of compact snow beneath my feet gives way to a time far away but never out reach. Each step brings me back in time to innocence, a time when every snowfall brought in an indescribable comfort and security.  The thought of blankets and fire in front of the T.V. as a child rush over me and make me forget the biting cold on the tip of my nose and watery eyes.  I notice holes in the snow on the hill. Like Swiss cheese, the hill is dotted with brackish outcrops where the snow no longer lays it’s serene pure blanket. The scarred brown and bent grasses seem to be pulling themselves into a place they shouldn’t be yet. The snow, like frost, gives them shelter, a safe haven and warmth from the elements.  Lie low and rest for the beacon up above. She will do her bidding and let you know when it is warm enough to show yourself again. The sun will be the lantern that guides you from under and brings those remaining grasses to their feet. 
 
I walk up the bank to the top of my hill. The sounds of the city down below in Oakland are drowned out. They may be there, but I can't hear them. I see the plumes of steam rising and disappearing into the iridescent blue expanse of sky. The busses are moving and stopping and moving and stopping… Cars meander through the maze. Yes, the incessant activity and surround sound of civilization moving through their day is all tangibly visible, but there is something louder here: something that partakes and lives off that childhood memory that suffused my sensory feelings in my short travel up the hill. These sounds were natural, were primal, spontaneous, and genuine.  This chorus, this anthem was made from joy and infused itself with the clean pure air. These ballads came from children swishing, swirling, and circling down the hill on sleds.

The magnanimity of playfulness amongst my human cohorts seemed to drive any evidence of wildlife away. Those magnificent birds dancing ,darting, diving like whirling dervishes in a concerted unison as if following a rehearsed choreography were not in view this week. Perhaps they were now quietly observing our dancing playful promenade upon the hill. The racing leaves sprinting in the wind were now buried beneath the sheath of snow.  The tracks of any inhabitant of that place were now glossed over by the tracks of man-made sleds rushing down the hill. The imprint of man over nature is in evidence once again, but this time displaying a symbiotic relationship taking each element to transcendent heights through their interconnected cooperation with one another.

As the pristine cold clutches on to the side of the sleds and the winter wind’s sound kisses each child’s cheek, the child-like fervor and glee-filled cries break the icy stillness to a crescendo of splendor and pure joy.  I am struck with fond flash-backs and a smiling face thinking of the next snow storm, so I can put my daughter in my memory’s place.

Watching the soft, white, glittering sparkles travail the wooden and plastic frames like a comet, I give gratitude and descend the glorious hill. It has been a short and beautiful afternoon: one that made sense. An afternoon, that even upon reflection after the fact, still holds a transformative power to relieve a self- imposed discord and dissonance caused by unrootedness in petty everyday frustrations, the temporary loss of control and the disintegrated fragmentation of spirit.

   

 

The Plunge - Flagstaff Hill, Schenley Park -1/19/13

I am scared…Why? Fear is a big part of human nature. It is an instinct that is important for survival. We need to fear that which is dangerous to us, but writing a nature blog is not dangerous. So, is it nervousness? Anxiety? Insecurity? Whatever it is, it has taken me right out of presence and place. I move immediately inward to try and extinguish these ignominious feelings. It isn’t the place I am in; I know this place well. It is a part of me, and I, a tiny part of it. 

Flagstaff Hill, in Schenley Park, is a place I have been coming to since I was a burgeoning teenager.  It was a significant part of my early high school summers waiting for “The Song Remains The Same”, “The Wall” or some other cult favorite that the summer movie program would show. My familiarity of this place gives me comfort. I have grand memories from here. The beneficent natural surroundings give me serenity. The pillars of society below stand tall in their impressive glory and give me a sense of privilege to be civilized and reason to feel proud to be a human being. The museum, library, cathedrals of learning , culture and worship, hospitals and theaters, the people in all of their differences and similarities, flocking together like birds in flight then disengaging to their own new patterns of searching and doing, all give me a profound sense of gratification. So, it is not the place that is initiating these insecurities. No, it is the ego, that strange part of our selves that seems to survive only by its own self-acknowledgement and aggrandizement, its need to make us independent and separate from a greater whole.

What I fear is what to write and how to write it. I have no style. I have a magnanimous and open heart that wants to write like a poet, but my mind and talents fall far short of that desire. I want to share something profound and make brilliant insights that impress. I want to say it in a way that elevates my own understanding of nature. I want my observations, reflections and descriptions to make a beautiful painting, through words, for our class to experience. I am asking for too much. I must start at the beginning. I must diffuse these very real feelings and get out of my own way. I must remain humble, become a supplicant to my place, give it, and myself, the compassion needed to surrender to the sublime and essence of what surrounds me.

I ask myself, "Are our minds trapped within our physical bodies as a by-product of our brains? Or is it possible for us to experience a greater mind located beyond ourselves in the world around us?"  Although I see evidence of our intrusion and imprint all around me as I glorify the institutions I have mentioned above, I don’t see nature as seperate from us, a mere machine, without consciousness, purpose or meaning. That view has led to a devastating destruction of life on earth. Here, while contemplating my own mind and looking outward, something is revealing life as inherently intelligent, purposive and meaningfully communicative. Maybe there really is mind in nature. Our place and our meaning in the world are constantly being communicated by the natural world around us – the context within which we evolve and live. But in this age of fast-paced, cut-down, often electronic, communication, we struggle to hear, see or feel these signals. We are not the only ones who have been able to develop an intelligent system of interaction. It comes from nature.

I see it in the rustling, jubilant leaves chasing themselves through the wind, as if in a race at a festival, following an architectural pattern that has purpose and direction. The highly coordinated movements of the flock of birds above me, bending and flowing in unison, are among the most fascinating phenomena to be found in nature. The group seems to turn and maneuver as a single unit, changing direction almost instantaneously, as if there is some form of “thought transference."

 There is a mind in nature. It just isn’t scared like the petulant ego trying to control things, impress others or impose itself over the very thing that will dissolve it.  I will keep trying… I will keep looking…