There was a time in my life, where things were much simpler. I didn’t live in a big city. I didn’t worry about employment, it was just there. I didn’t worry about what I should or should not be doing with my life. I just did. I spent enough time rambling through the mountains and woods of New York, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire, that I was never lacking in my own spirit. Even on my arrival to Colorado, I spent enough time in the mountains there.
In these times past, I basked in the view of the valleys below, the hillsides around me and the peaks that rose taller than where I stood, when atop a lesser peak. I reveled in exploring the beaver ponds, streams, lakes and woods, wherever I lived and beyond. Being an early riser, it was not uncommon, after following an early morning invitation to step out, alone, into these areas as the sun began the day, for someone to ask (upon my return) about what did I experience in my early foray. This query, I’m sure had as much to do with their knowing who I am, as it did with the expression on my face and the energy bursting forth from me.
Sadly, yet gradually, as I allowed life’s clutter of responsibilities and negative attitudes weigh me down, my times in the woods and mountains were reigned in, though the yearning never went away. It became easier to say, “I’m too tired”, though the truth be that these adventures breathe in an exuberance for life and an excitement in every “outing”. While I strove to make it a point to share the excitement and pure joy I find in being “out there” with my children, I’m not certain I gave them as much as I could have.
Add into this physical aspect of my life’s sojourn, the emotional taxation I put on myself in the matter of acceptance with my peers, family and acquaintances in following what, for me, has always been much more than just being out there. That burden be of keeping quiet about what I truly have felt (even to myself) when out communing with Mother Nature, and indeed the Trees. In my youthful days I didn’t find the ability to look people in the eye and say, “you don’t get it”. As an adult, I have chosen mostly to spend alone my time with Mother Nature, The Woods, The Mountains, The Waters, due to others’ inability to comprehend just how I experience these entities. Or, maybe this is my inability to allow their incomprehension to be okay with me. Nevertheless, I gradually stepped back from the place I need to be most, the place I connect with most, the connection that I am just now comprehending to be so beneficial to everyone I love and meet, as they experience it through me.
A couple of year ago, I was drawn back into the trees, as if a giant loving arm gathered me close, allowing me to rest my head against a New Mexico Oak, connecting with the true Spirit of the Trees, in a way I had not yet experienced (at least not on a conscious level). Since then, my experience of Nature and Trees has led me to remember and know of a healing and loving energy that resides there, which is (for lack of a better way to put it) bigger than anything I have ever felt. Knowing what has been (and continues to be) revealed to me, and that which I am simply remembering from other times, leaves me knowing that there has to be a way that I can share this with others. The Love and Energy that I feel here, the Knowledge that is available here is such that should not be hidden from the non-believers, kept from those who choose not to try and comprehend, nor protected and harbored unto myself for any reason. This is all for sharing. This is what I “bring to the table”, in this lifetime as well as others.
I need only remember how.
Peter J Quandt