Lost Objects, Found Souls

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

― John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir

Austin may not be the walking paradise that Mr. Muir usually traversed, but it does offer its oddities [“Keep Austin Weird”] for the curious, observant walker. 

I prefer to explore new territory, but time constraints often force me to the same neighborhood trail. No two sunsets are alike, and the same certainly holds true for the trail scenery, if I look for what is  “new” in the flowers and wildlife. 

For example, see the photos to the left with a very large fuzzy spider and a blooming cactus.

Finding the Unusual

Each walk also presents something unusual,which inspired this blog post.

We will begin with this photo taken on a spring walk:

As you look at the photo, what story can you create about it? 

Now, do the same for this found object:

Think about the story you created for these two photographs.  In the first story, is Teddy eagerly awaiting his new companion to come get him, or is he abandoned? Is the story funny or sad? What about the sandwich? Was it dropped, thrown at someone, rancid, or just left to feed someone [or the parking lot]? 

These objects not only beg for a story, but also tell us about our own stories. We filter what we see in the world through our own lens. Our soul, our inner self, is telling us a story if we pay attention and listen. To observe our story does not mean we judge it, or ourselves, as good or bad. It just tells us how we are looking at the world, and then we decide if we want to change the lens.

 

In this way, the objects we originally saw as lost may actually be the soul’s way of telling you how it can be found. 

Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time. 

—Steven Wright

Do As Wildflowers Do

Although I never seem to have my "big camera" for these unexpected delights, the wildflowers still look stunning:

 

As the Texas wildflowers continue to dazzle the landscape with their whimsy and beauty, the following Rumi poem has also been occupying my thoughts:

Very little grows on jagged rock.

Be ground. 

Be crumbled,

so wildflowers will come up

where you are.

You have been stony for too many years.

Try something different.

Surrender.

                           -Rumi

Not a wildflower, but certainly a "rose among thorns."

A Return to the Bridge

It's a crisp, cold Thanksgiving morning in Austin, Texas.  From the middle of the Congress Avenue bridge I watch the sun fire up the colors of the Town Lake tree line and warm the egrets in their tree-condominium. A rock band plays in the distance for me and 20,000+ other runners of the annual Turkey Trot, but a stillness hovers--a pause pregnant with magic. A woman begins the national anthem over a loudspeaker, and like any public event, a few clueless people scurry to their self-appointed pecking order. The rest of us attentively stand facing the flag just beyond the tree punctuated with egrets. 

 

Something about hearing our national anthem always makes me cry. It's not the lyrics, but the energy connecting everyone. At that electric crescendo moment, when the right pitch affirms our freedom, I feel goosebumps, tears, and connection.

 

I am an urban nomad. From my first National Geographic World magazine, I yearned to be a cultural anthropologist, and in some ways I have been fulfilling that yearning. Beyond traveling, I have uprooted myself many times to destinations of varied cultures, weather patterns, and lifestyles. People have criticized my restlessness and a few marveled at what they perceived to be courage to move and start over somewhere new. I hesitate to characterize this as courage because the urge draws from a place deeper than my heart.

 

The critics often ask what I am running from or searching for, implying that I should be settling

down. Of course, I have also asked myself similar questions, which brings me back to that bridge on Thanksgiving morning...

All of us strangers are standing on the bridge awaiting the trot start and listening to the anthem roll along. Suddenly the sound quits, and without missing a beat, the entire crowd begins singing. And, we sound pretty damn good. Eventually the sound returns, just before the crescendo, and we are exactly in time, and singing, and connected. This is the magic, and I am reminded of part of my favorite Hafiz poem:

 

Still though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect. Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying, with that sweet moon language, What every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

 

I realize that rather than forcing myself to settle into a specific place, I can just allow a connection wherever I am at the moment. Eventually, something pings me, and my soul feels drawn to a new adventure. Wherever I am, though, I can return to the bridge.