As I hiked my favorite nearby trail along a meandering stream up to Cranberry Meadow Pond I was delighted to find no one else on the path. Choosing a spot along the shore I began my ceremony for blessing the earth. The moment I started to speak a great heron rose from the far side of the pond and glided along the surface of the water to a distant inlet, stirring my heart.
I felt the spirit of Anne Dosher (the elder of the circle of women I and others in this group were part of called the Circle of 7) on my shoulder. Anne was a pipe-carrier and over the many years we gathered she would speak a version of the Navajo blessing: “Beauty before me, Beauty behind me, Beauty above me, Beauty below me, Beauty all around” So I spoke these words and more. Somewhere during my afternoon I tasted a communion of being. I in being and being in me and the deeper radiance in all. May all be.
On my decent the sky suddenly opened up with a downpour of cold rain. In my rush to get to the shelter of my car I stumbled off the path and became lost in boggy soil surrounded by fallen trees. It was bucketing and I could hardly see through my glasses. I had great difficulty getting my bearings. I had to laugh even though I was a bit frightened because on my trek up David Wagoner’s poem “Lost” had drifted into my thoughts. And here I was lost! I was soaked by the time I bushwhacked my roundabout path back to my car. Maybe there is a message in all this as Wagoner recommends:
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside youAre not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,Must ask permission to know it and be known.The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,I have made this place around you.If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.No two trees are the same to Raven.No two branches are the same to Wren.If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knowsWhere you are. You must let it find you.
Thank you for reminding me of this powerful words! It’s a kind of paradox; to be found we also have to get lost…
take the risk of getting lost….🙏