UNDER★THE★VAULT OF HEAVEN

It is so hard to believe, some might actually choose a manufactured world over the natural world consistently without hesitation.  This is not to say I do not appreciate the amenities of the manufactured world.  To be in a warm shower with pure water pouring over a tired body is heaven after a few weeks wherein a bath has consisted of a damp cloth run across the limbs that comes back covered in soil.  This being said, as the water cleanses the body one finds that the heart and mind is often still and quiet with memories of being on the open land far from city lights and sounds.

I remember back in the day married to my first husband. We were driving down a highway in Southern California. I was in the passenger seat and looking out to the right at a wide expanse of untouched land - verdant / full of life. . . I said. . 'Isn’t it beautiful!' --- My then husband agreed wholeheartedly. I looked over at him and saw he was looking across the left side of the road to sterile new high rise office buildings lined up like dominos. - - - I never said anything-- what was there to say. . .

Growing up in a small town on the coast of Southern California in middle 1950s there was still much open land – fields wild with life.  I was the child who all in the neighborhood knew to find among the wild things.  I was the one who lived in the tree tops.  When I woke in the morning in the summer time, if my mom was not taking my brother and me along with all the neighbor kids to the beach I might choose to play with my toys, play tag with the neighbor kids or read one of the 6 books my mother allowed me to check out from the library every 2 weeks (though I was more likely to read after the sun was down than when sunlight was burning). 

However, I would just as likely pack a lunch and head for a family of old oak trees.  The branches reached out and touched one another and I could climb from one tree to the other without touching the earth.  My fondest memories of childhood always included time with the trees.  Time would fly by in the trees and before I knew it the sun was setting and it was time to head for home.  This was before cell phones and worries about strangers – the simple rule of summer was: be home in time for dinner.  I do not remember many thoughts from this time in the trees  -  however the feeling of peace and joy are viscerally strong memories.  I do remember how time would fly by and the sun which had been in the eastern sky would magically be in the western sky.

Climbing trees is no longer an effortless and easy task as the years begin to weigh on this body – however – to lay my head against a trunk of one of the old ones can still bring the peace and joy and we can know we are …

ONE Heart

ONE Mind

ONE Body