February 13, 2009
Walking with the wind
So the path was closed, but I went around the long way, through the maze of fenced-in small athletic fields, trying to figure out how to get to where I was trying to go. (I could have just gone the really long way, around the fields altogether, down through the woods and back along the bottom path, but I was curious.) I thought I was walled in for sure at one point, faced with a wire fence that there didn’t seem to be any way out of — and that would have been okay, since I found a good sitting stone there, at the foot of a silver beech tree, with a fine view of the water. But after a few minutes I went on through the trees and finally found a break in the fence where they’re in the midst of installing a new one (to be electrified eventually, but fortunately not yet). From there, I was able to follow the nature-walk path — open at the bottom end — up onto the hill, and spend a little time right where I wanted to be: at the top of the cutting, about thirty feet above the crossroad, looking out across the bridge and the lake, listening to the wind roar in the treetops and hiss in the rattling beech leaves and tall, sere grasses, and talking to my various gods. It was good.
And coming back, I was able to pinpoint exactly where the path closure is, so in the future I can get around it without quite so extensive a diversion. But still, it was a fun detour. There’s a lot to be said for going woods-romping on one’s lunch break. And the wind! Shake-you-to-the-heart wind, powerful and fierce, yet warm and vital and alive.
Wind lion roaring,
Great Shu, facing yesterday —
fangs bared, mane flaring.