FOURTEEN TWENTY-TWO AND BEYOND (NATURE WALKING NARRATIVES)

I actually dreamed of Jack Kerouac, though if I read that, I would not believe it. ‘Tis true though. And ‘dreams of…such and such’ is even more poetic if it is loosed more loosely, denoting not real night dreams, but say, ‘Dreams of Northern Ontario,’ or ‘Dreams of Pompano Beach.’ But they were real dreams, and they came after a day and night of travelling. First we were in a white car, a Cobalt, and going along in the sun. Music was playing, and the Virgo majestic Queen was with me. Looking out the windows, the cities had been excited and it was all these beauteous flaxen fields on the sides with the picaresque blue sky overhead. Beyond the purlieu of the fields erupted so many verdant woodlands that I was put in a sort of waking trance state? The blue, the coppery-white-yellow stalks, the deep greens, - and sometimes a pastel or darkly painted barn, dwelling or other. Along we went. Soon in other towns I thought of how well positioned the little stores w...

The wind in the forest was throwing white fluff from somewhere all along the corridors. It was like a living dream and I didn’t know where the white cotton-like particles came from. I watched it go through the air and then some bits of it would alight on verdant leaves whist others kept on going. The forest itself held up a large hill adjacent to it and that hill was hardly trodden. I could see the flaxen summit with its tall feral flowers and grasses being brushed over just so by the wind. I wondered about all the people that were known, a long time ago, in New Port Richie, in Dade County, or even other places, closer to this North, and where they had been. The departed also came to mind, and whether they had come again, or were to be no more saving for remnants of memory. The place had for the most part cleared out. I looked up to the ceiling of branches that for the most part covered the sky. A strange plane could be seen as it went overhead. It looked like something old, from th...

That is not a long stretch of way. Yet, it’s interesting. The new world tries to make everything uniform, safe, practical, and loses the poetry and whimsy, the character of the old. But there, for some reason, in that small town north of other small towns, something remains. People were walking around, some with umbrellas in the sun. Others were fast at work under cars on lifts, the opening bay doors letting in the bright light of the afternoon. I remember Dade County on a day like that in the middle nineteen eighties when one of those repair shops had a man out front adorned in blue coveralls and he was singing along with h the loud radio the song Hey Jude. The tall wildflowers and bushes grow uncut and unnoticed in vacant lots. It seems every other property is a vacant lot. A racoon goes past on a metal roof, just there in the shadows, not for too long, towards some place he knows. The temperature rises. There is a Laundromat with friendly folks, a dog outside, a little parking lo...

It has been a long time I had travelled and a far distance. Feeling okay, but fatigued from it, because all body-minds differ, I saw some people in an old homestead. They brought me to the table and there was nothing I really wanted, but they had a bit of water and nice talk about the past, the present, and the upcoming possible and probable events. I looked soon out the windows, and afterwards found myself outside. An older neighborhood then, I stood on the same patio stones, under the old eaves, beside long grape vines, and around all the things that so many events happened around and on and in. Overall, those events were good, and the spiritual feelings of the summer air or the winter snow were also right and graceful and a gift. Most of the people from those old times are gone, and he few, the very few that remain and could probably be found are changed, are perhaps more cynical. The world makes people serious, suspicious even. So I stayed there and thought and tried to feel out...

It’s humid there and the airplanes wait out somewhere in the distance. Cars are few, it being after midnight. The planes have not come in yet, but soon seven flights will land and the pickup area will fill up, the flight crews coming out, the passengers coming out, all searching in the night for their rides, and some for nicotine, some for fresh air, all in a way part of the organic night. There is a strange beauty hard to explain that has to do with the way electrical lights cast their glows on the cement, the glass, the world there, a world within a world,- a liminal and transitory place. Maybe that is it also, the idea of possibility, of the many things other that come with travel. There is a van with a Guyana sticker. There is a white cowboy smoking a cigarette in the distance, brim down, like in a movie, solitary, waiting for someone. A couple walks past. The cabs. The shuttle buses. I drink a coffee and glance down at my shoes, then look up at the monorail that passes overhead...

Trees and tree stumps. The crowds held back from a bit of rain. No thunder or lightning. And the rain then ceases. There is a lady who has too many dogs, about fifteen small dogs, toy dogs or smaller actually, - weird dogs, - and they are untrained and incessantly bark, growl, snarl. So annoying to encounter. They are more like lively rats than dogs, - and she probably loves them so, - her life and purpose. But we avoid her. Unfortunately we ran into her on a small narrow path, - and still, - we try to move far to the side to let her pass. The homeless man and his car have disappeared.  The sky, overcast, glum, grey. Some haystacks in the distant-distance, - even they look a bit sad, water-logged for the night’s rain. The told perennial place, sales place, that I never went to but saw from the street, is for sale. A grandmother is with her grandson on a long and barren street that is closed save for through traffic, but she is having a hard time handling him, - a...

In the dusk the town is not bad. It cools off a few degrees and some wind comes from somewhere and dances ‘round. The electrical lights click on soon enough, and the dusk learns how to be night. The hard edges disappear for the most part, and happy people with energetic gaits walk as do dogs, and somewhere in the forest it is liked to be thought, the animals prance around a bit, cool, relaxed. Maybe there are even spirits, forests devas and sprites. The rain is far away, for now, for then. And so it goes. Cars whistle past. The lights from the trucks near the highways are white but some are also yellow and orange and green. Several decades before, we drove through Eastern states, yes, in big Buicks, and there were places where they sold fireworks, and later, we saw many interesting things and friends and family. Night there was even better, especially once the ocean was reached. The salt air, the sound of the lapping waves, the vision of the whitecaps atop the sea reaching up each o...

How the birds sing in the early pre-dawn, announcing that it is time to begin the world. Do the birds actually begin the world? Is their causality? Of course not. It all happens at once, and is seamless. There is the field and some dew will stay, quietly stubborn, while the water droplets copy it and wait as if affixed to branches that be. Far and far and far some wild cat or other animal keeps calling. There are bumpy little hills, and crops planted just so making straight lines until they turn that is, like a racetrack, like lines of corn, - actually they could be lines of corn after all. The little fox looks around and goes its way up to where there is a secluded tree so thick and tall and old it could hardly be believed. On it, untouched, is the largest mushroom, dark, brown, grey, that could have ever been known. Nobody really talks or knows about this giant mushroom, and it can be seen as a king, or else an aberration, depending. There is the sun. Grasshopper and snake, fly ...

One deer was just standing there, staring, waiting. Calm. Collected. I wondered what it was doing. As it turned  out it was looking at me, but really waiting for his friend, sibling, whatnot, to follow. And soon such did, as the second one came out from the bushes and then they both crossed. They were large, and light and dark brown. I loved them. I was too slow with the camera. I think that they often cross there. I read that deer and coyotes often stay settled near the roads and underpasses because, oddly enough, once they get accustomed to the sound, there is no foot traffic, no people. People go into the forests, along the path, with their bikes, dogs, gear, et cetera. So they have a good enough life there, if not perfect. Heck, they have grown large and muscular and healthy and stealthy so something must have gone right. There is a little path, hard to discern, that leads that way. I have never taken it. One day I might. Beyond there is a wide opening, a large hil...

Sometimes the rain, followed by the sun, but first the rain surprised us on the soft pathways carpeted thickly with old discarded brown pine needles. The tops of the trees protected us, like guardians of some sort. Out in the open fields afterwards there were little trees that looked tropical and the mosquitoes were lessened but did not go away. Out of sight is the farmer, and out of sight are the little animals, perhaps hidden in dens, sleeping the day away or watching the water and listening to the outside sounds cautiously. The valley top has a path that winds along the edge the way a shirt sleeve follows your arm. Distant, down there, are fallen trees, a beautiful chaos of a certain type, tuned somehow in its discordance. Some sun seems to come and reach down. Birch, Oak, and other. We make it short, and walk briskly, for there are places to go and things to do. The terrene earth is soon left behind, left waiting under and beside the verdant leaves and some feral shrubs. An impo...

The glistening of the light from the sky upon the leaves and the signs and the rest was akin to the sparkles the sun can make upon water. Cuba and its coast, and Havana, are in fact waiting, but first the days of incredible shimmering, laden also with mosquitoes, have to be gotten through. Cuba is the goal, and Cuba shall provide much material visual and literary. In the meantime, we tackle the forests and fields. Yet, what is this? There was a man, homeless, who lives in his car, and he is stuck in the middle of the parking way. A city truck tries to help him, an impossibly grand and nicely odd looking vehicle with many tires and tools and so sturdy to look at. He, plus three men, but they can’t move his vehicle for some reason. The truck leaves and I pull in up the way and pause. Soon he is asking me Can you boost me? If I have cables. I don’t have them anymore I don’t think. I had three sets at one time. Let me check. Nobody wants to boost me because they say it will harm...

It’s so hot there, the clouds and mist were there in the morning, and it looked as if it was going to continue. The overcast has its own beauty and nuance; it’s kind of willfully sad atmospheres. It reminds one of books gotten into, or good independent films, or thought processes themselves, - explored, in and around the rain. Even with Zen, thought can be wonderful. True wholeness is inclusive, all encompassing, and can include thought. Thought is not the enemy. Mind is not the enemy. Yet, - the clouds dispersed the incredible sun showed. It was not symbol for Enlightment, - not this time- it was really just the sun, - which is oddly enough more of enlightenment. But it was hot. Enlightenment was hot. Enlightenment was full of mosquitoes. They landed on my neck, liked my olive skin, liked something. But I continued. The land was empty and there was certain coolness at the least in the thickness of the wooded areas. The snakes and frogs were hiding. Even the squirrels were not aroun...

I thought a storm would come because such was foretold, and not a figurative one but a literal one. So I headed out earlier than usual and our little trinity, the dogs and I, went up a large hill.   From afar, it could be seen that the hill held wonderful green grasses that danced over in the breeze plus purple, red, and yellow wildflowers well wrought and placed in patches all around. The sun was bright and the sky relatively clear at that time, which was the morning hours still. There would be no people, because they went in the other directions. There was nothing against the souls, but they could not compare to what the trees and summits, the ridges and labyrinthine pathways could offer. What was that? Some Gnostic or esoteric secret that can’t be portrayed in words really. Secrets and totems among and as the strange moths, the yellow butterflies, the surprising spiders, the small milk snake, the garter snake, nest of eggs, watchful hawks, webs, berries, moss, travelling clou...

Something told me to venture out to my old stomping ground, the large fields. Its 64 hectares of openness and blue sky, with a forest around the perimeter. The air was cooler than it has been, and for this I and the dogs were grateful. A Canadian summer day, to me, is ideally about 25 degrees with a light breeze to keep you alert and refreshed, not 30 degrees, humid, with no air, and flies dropping out of mid flight and their souls departing into the heavenly realms. So it was like that. The morning crowd was not finished yet, and the lot was full of vehicles, but I navigated my way through and we began. Soon enough, people had left, and it was noticed that the entire area belonged to us. It had been too long. It was like seeing and old friend. Why had I not thought of going back sooner? In any event, the verdant vines that grew on the far side fence were still there, boastful and exploding all over and up to the sky in a riotous display. The sun. Everything worshipped the s...

As we went I could tell that the way to the old lake was a good way. What does it mean? It is that since we were going in off-hours, on an off-day, that there were not too many cars on the roads. This makes a big difference. Vexatious and discordant become the vibrations when the populace increases. Everybody knows it. At least on some level it happens and at the least everybody knows it on another level. I remember the pieces I wrote way back when about the area, - some anyhow. One lauded the area in a regular and orthodox way as a place to visit. It mentioned the sun, the roominess, the greenery, the water, and could have easily been…heck, - was, a travel article about a northern lake, about camping. But another, something about an ode to the road to Damascus or some such thing,- spoke in more spiritual terms- having a kind of revelation, or little satori,- that whole trip of experience and inspiration. More on the side of plain old inspiration. But now, this day, it was neither. ...

It was an old way but it was new, right? The hustle and bustle was left behind. I went there and due to some summer sun that rose fast and strongly in the sky, I had to just cut it short. The ponds and little water ways had dried up, and besides, I had some things to do. But we still went for a bit. Ah, the greater forest waits though. Even on that small walk, just one hour, I harvested a bit of chaga mushroom and also photographed a large garter snake. He or she was coming across the pathway, or a pathway, and seemed quite wise, still. After a photograph or some, I looked away for really a split second, no exaggeration, and it was gone. Man, that was fast. Fast a woman’s eyes can survey something, surmise, and figure it out. I wonder what will be there on the next ‘run’ as it were. The chaga, the snake, the sun and the grasses that grow. Oh, the wildflowers, white, yellow, blue, sometimes purple. Will we have vivid dreams of them in the night? Due to the chaga? Hot chaga, cold chag...

The night had arrived and the way was made through a neighborhood and down a small street. A few of us traversing by foot to go see others, to meet with friends and I looked back into the sky and saw the light. This light was accompanied by the smoke and it was a firecracker (something like in Kerouac) and it echoed and boomed through the houses a wonderful popping noise but at the same time, an instant before, the popping had come from an underlying dense sound, thick, guttural, and full of prowess. In all the history of the world and before it, and in all the future, and even present, there can be one moment that takes one out of time, or into the newness. I liked the smoke as much as the fire-artifact. And a firecracker can be likened to a flower, no? The middle is the middle, and the long part, the trail, is the stem,- it has come from the earth and is ascending to the sky,- it arches over just a bit,- like a flower in the breeze, in the wind, in the rain, or even the sun,- for ...