While on a meditation retreat in Northern California, I wandered up into the hills and fell in love. First on my senses was the incredible earthy smell, like soft, moist soil, moss, cedar, and eucalyptus. I did not want to exhale, because it meant I would go one second without smelling the earth.
Next was the texture of the ground, tufts of tall grasses interspersed with twigs and dirt. Along one trail, I spotted a tuft of grass that was quite comically getting shorter and shorter before my eyes, apparently swallowed up by an underground critter. The trees were covered with a light green hanging moss. One tree had lost nearly all of its bark and looked like a hairless cat with its smooth and slightly wrinkled skin.
Sparrows darted along the little dirt trails. On several occassions, I came within inches of a sparrow, stopped, and watched him scurry further along the trail, walked ahead until I approached him again, stopped, and again watched him scurry further along the trail. We repeated this dance until I was laughing. My gestures and gentle remarks for the little bird to move sideways were to no avail. Eventually they would fly from the trail probably wondering why I kept following them.
One misty morning, I sat on a hillside and watched a herd of giant wild turkey poke around on the hill opposite mine. They were only perhaps ten yards away. Our hillsides were separated by a dirt trail. I watched as the turkey formed a line and proceeded to cross the trail from their hill to mine. En route, another retreat member, my friend Daniel from the lab, came rambling along and had to stop for the turkey crossing. I laughed and planned to ask him later, after the rule of silence was lifted, why did the turkey cross the road?
On my first day, I hiked to the top of a hill where I could look out across the entire valley, and I laid in the grass and napped in the sun. I slept so deeply that when I awoke hours later, I felt as though I had turned into a stone and come back to life.
A team of world class cooks prepared the daily meals which were both nourishing and spectacularly delicious. I knew the food would be healthy when I saw that one of the condiments was Beano. I found that very amusing until about the third day (d’oh). In the mornings, breakfast was set out: a large steel pot of oatmeal with corresponding oversize ladel for which the first word automatically occuring to me was “slop.” But it was the best oatmeal I ever had, all fluffy, buttery, and warm topped with raisins and toasted almonds. I looked forward to it every morning.
My heart was pulsating with love, love for the dirt under my feet, the bright sun in the clear sky, the vast open space, eagles and hummingbirds smaller than my thumb, curious lizards, and fearless, frolicking deer. I felt so much love that there was no me in it. I gave myself to the here and now, leaving behind whatever I thought I needed in order to be present, and it seemed that my inner experience became an offering to the divine. If I had any thoughts prior to the moment, they soon seemed unimportant. What overcame them was a stillness so quiet that not even silence remained.
Just as I was losing myself in the sacredness of nature, I found my own. One afternoon, I was walking back to my room and stumbled across a small building, the “gratitude hut,” which housed a shrine to many gurus. I was humbled by the display of photos and biographies. These sacred people dedicated their entire lives to the spiritual well being of the world. I wrote a prayer on a slip of paper and placed it in the bowl with hundreds of others. Before I left, I looked at the photos and bowed my head and said the only thing that my heart was saying in that moment, the most sincere thought in my head, a sad remorse I laid at the feet of all of these amazing people: “Forgive me for not being you.”
Moments later, I was back in my room. I had just removed my shoes outside the door, and I realized that hours of hiking made it necessary for me to wash my feet. As I washed my feet, I was reminded of a scene in a movie about Jesus where a woman rushes to him, weeping and full of remorse, and washes his feet as a sign of love and devotion. I started to laugh. I’m washing my own feet! How apropos, I thought. I felt my own sacredness, like the earth and sky, as divine as any guru, and the guru seemed no more special and no less sacred than the beautiful rocks and dirt. From the stones to the goddesses, all was sacred.
