Bow NH trails – The Light Behind the Story

The Gathered Blessings of a Blueberry Hill

The first time I met my husband he told me a story about Blueberry Mountain. In truth, the mountain was a hill, and it had some other name, but that’s not really what matters. What matters is the magic the hill held for him. We were just seventeen, and we were on our first “date.” We first met on the 4th of July thirty years ago at the ASP program at St. Paul’s School. I was studying biology, and he, ecology. But on the 4th of July his dorm hosted my dorm for an ice cream social. The rest is our story…

Which, you could say, began atop a hill covered in blueberries. Although we could not leave the campus for our first date, he still took me to that special place. Together we sat in the tower room of the school’s library as we shared stories and got to know each other. Dave was working on an essay for the required writing course, and I was offering my feedback. The story was about a hill he climbed with his family during their summers at the lake. A hill topped in midseason with wild blueberries.

The hill, alas, as fallen into private hands, but I was lucky enough to climb it with my husband to gather blueberries together before the “No Trespassing” signs went up. Now we have our own “blueberry hill,” and there we went last night on the eve of our wedding anniversary to gather the hill’s blessings and enjoy the summer’s evening.

I call it “Dragon Hill.” The first time we climbed it, I saw the head of a dragon on the side of the path. There are places woven through Earth where the dragon lines are strong, and this is one of them. It is, undeniably, a special place. Even though it is a small hill in a small town, seekers find it from other states. They may not be consciously aware of its magic, but they are drawn to it nonetheless.

Yesterday, as day settled into dusk, we walked the back of the dragon with our two dogs and I found joy peeling away the outer layers of stress. It has been a trying couple of years for many of us, for a variety of reasons not just related to the pandemic, and in that moment of walking I felt some of that holding release. I was reminded, in the walking, that Earth offers us healing when we seek it through the space of the heart. It merely requires an opening.

What a gift it is to walk the Mother-body of Gaia. To feel the surrender to her love. There is a joy in the unity that comes from walking into her embrace. She might not actively reach for us, but her arms are always open to receive.

We had not thought to bring a collection bag with us. In truth, we were going for the sunset, which gave us in returned a clouded sky. When we saw fellow climbers gathering the ripe fruit from the hilltop, we paused but continued on. It was only in the turning back that we stopped to gather. Taking a small bag meant for the dogs’ waste, we opened up to the gift of the hill’s abundance, recalling the hill that thirty years before symbolically brought us together.

Although the area had peaked with its offering, we took just enough to make a batch of muffins and perhaps some pancakes. Not enough for a pie, but enough for joy.

raindrop-1913347_1280 — Photo Credit: <a href="http://Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Pixabay

I have been thinking about ephemeral beauty and how we cling to form like raindrops to branches. Our lives, individual only for a millisecond in the great cosmos of time. One shimmering spark holding onto a momentary existence, and yet the soul sings an eternal symphony. We are born through the woven membrane of light. Released into density for a moment, we cling to existence to become defined by matter.

At night, my dreams show me the clutter of the brain and how it folds memories of lack and doubt until darkness lets them loose to run amok. Our minds form impossible fantasies and horrors we think could never be real until we open our eyes and see the world we have created.

As I released to slumber last night, Badger threw open the veil to stare me in the face. Fearless digger, unearthing what I may try to hide, Badger gave way to Owl before I was flung into the shadowland. It’s almost funny how we tumble restless to the surrender. Revisiting old haunts we thought we had exorcised in the landscape of dreams. Least we think we are watching reruns, familiar specters morph into new forms and find another curtain to tug open.

How exhausting it can be to tumble backwards when life holds you for a mere millisecond, urging you only to let go.

Yesterday, I walked into the woods nearby our home with my family and our two dogs. Zelda led the way, choosing a trail we had never taken together. Only Rosy, myself and Daisy, who passed more than five years ago, had ventured down it before.

Rosy trailing the pack just ahead of me. Zelda, somewhere up ahead with Alex.

The day was over-cast and windy. The clouds, eager to rain, darkened the trail littered with last year’s leaves. While we walked, I took in what the forest reveals before growth unfurls. There were more fallen trees than I cared to count, their bare trunks leaning on their neighbors. Others were already splintering into decay in their final resting places on their forest bed. Beach leaves lightened the ground, bleached by winter to the color of sand. They lent a light to the forest that was absent from above.

You can just make out Zelda here, between Ava and Alex.

As we walked, I found myself wondering about the hand that guides unseen. Perhaps Daisy had urged Zelda’s feet to take us off the beaten path we were used to traveling together. Perhaps not. It doesn’t really matter. What matters was that we were there now, individually and together. Each of us mindful of our own moments.

Me and Daisy 12/25/14. Less than two months before she passed back into light.

“There goes the camera,” my daughter, ahead of me, caught the sign at the same moment I did. She knew I would linger to take a photo. While I did, I found myself wondering how long the sign had been there. If somehow I had missed it walking the path years ago with Daisy and Rosy. Who had placed the sign, and when?

E5B37CE3-D8AA-41ED-8121-450FF72B2E44 — The Namaste Tree that caught my eye.

I don’t remember too much from my jumbled dreams last night. Perhaps it’s because I choose not to. There were travels with familiar people, and those who were not so familiar. There was lots of clutter and the feeling of being pulled into too many directions, through no will but my own. There was the feeling of tending more for other’s wants and need, while neglecting the self. Perhaps it is not so surprising that there is one scene, in particular, that lingers with me.

I am sitting on a bus filled with people, traveling to some forgotten destination. A woman sits beside me. My guide for the night. She looks with intention into my face, then presses her hand to my heart. “I see the beauty of the light that is you,” she tells me. Even though her words are genuine and almost urgent, I’m not sure I believe them. Yet, it’s enough. Enough to weave the darkness back to dawn.

The word “Namaste,” is Sanskrit in origin. It is a greeting of one being to another. A bowing to honor, often with hands joined at the palms above the heart, of the light that resides in the other, that is also in the self. It is a gesture of reverence and of unity, and through Namaste we are reminded of the tapestry of light that threads through all life.

I like to think we are being reminded of this thread right now as we reside individually, yet together, in our shared millisecond of life. Reminded that within each form resides the beauty of the light that finds a temporary home inside each heart. A beauty that perhaps radiates more readily in some than in others, but only because of the block of fear.