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…