Saturday, June 20, 2009

When nature calls...

I woke yesterday morning with a bit of apprehension and a touch of funk, questioning why I made the move from Atlanta, wondering how I was going to make a living. After all, four days had passed and I had no clear direction of where my life was headed. Patience is a virtue, and I'm not the most virtuous man at times. The fear and self-doubt had crept up on me, at first appearing like a trickle of water under the door, and within minutes the entire house was flooded. Sitting and meditating in my apartment helped some, but I was still submerged in the stagnant waters. As I've learned from all the other floods, pumps of therapists' voices, prayers, and self-help books, can help some, but nature is the only way to fully get the waters to recede.

Two miles down the road, Griffith Park and the Griffith Park Observatory, and that's where I headed. Finding trails near the Los Angeles Zoo with heavy traffic, I left in search of more privacy. The other day, visiting the Griffith Park Observatory, I had noticed the vacant trails nearby, ones leading into the canyons. That's where I headed. About a mile up in the hills, and I found a secluded spot up on the rocks. Overlooking the city of Los Angeles and with the expansive and clear sky just above me. I began meditating. After about five minutes, I had an unexplained urge to open my eyes and leave a deep, peaceful meditation, and as I did, a beautiful, enormous hawk soared from below. Hanging in flight five feet in front of me, the hawk turned its head and stared at me. My heart skipped a beat, and in the pit of my stomach, I felt some anxiety. I didn't know if the creature viewed me as prey and planned to peck my eyes out, or if I was being acknowledged and seen. Soon the hawk flew away and landed in a tree that jutted from the side of the hill. I returned to my meditation, and I became keenly aware of how I'd been just as scared at the prospect of being seen, as I was at the prospect of being attacked. Upon completion of my meditation, I looked up and witnessed the hawk circling the sky in unison with another hawk. I understood.

A Little Black Veil, a musical about drag queens mourning the loss of Cherise, the Queen of the Drag Bar, was entertaining. My neighbor, Ruth, had told me that friends of hers had written and produced the show, and I decided to attend. Listening to the humorous dialogue and hearing the silly and well-crafted songs, I became aware that my entire day had been filled with reminders that I needed to accept myself more. We are all different, and we are all the same. I am in a foreign land, but I still belong here.

We all instinctively honor the physical calls of nature. When we feel the urge to urinate or defecate, we do it. How much better we'd all be, if we honored the intuitive calls of nature. If we did, we wouldn't be so poisoned by unreleased, toxic thoughts or constipated by trapped, hardened emotions.

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