Sunday, March 29, 2009


BEING THERE


Yesterday afternoon Echo and I went down mountain a bit to scavenge some wild cherry logs (I'm going to try making some cherrywood cutting boards out of some of them) that had been piled there by the landowner, a landscaper who is creating/cleaning up a garden or scaping someones land somewhere. I chainsawed and we carried and stacked sectioned logs amid the bamboo forest for a couple of hours until it would soon be getting too dark, so we called it quits; Echo drove the loaded car back home and I walked up.

Coming out of the tunnel under the highway as I have a few thousand times, thinking about something other than where I was, I was surprised once more by the way the mountains suddenly appear, spread out up there in a high horizon, the whole long chain of darkling snow-capped peaks textured with their spring robes, rising into the Prussian-blue sky that comes at dusk this time of year when the sky is clear, and as my eyes savored the sight, my lungs savored the air, the very cream of air, that comes sliding down from those forested slopes toward the Lake at evening, washing and filling me with the ki of mountainsides...

I just stopped and stood, seeing and breathing, exalting at this privilege, that I could walk here, breathe here, simply open my eyes to view these mountains, merely turn to see the Lake spread out like cooling silver in a dark surround...

And then go up home.

6 comments:

Delwyn said...

You wrote that so well that I breathed in the air as you did, and looked up at the sky when you suggested it...

Karen Sella said...

...the very cream of air... god, that's just a luscious description that lingers in me. Thanks. As usual, I am inspired by your way with words.

Alice said...

I liked the tone, too, but it was interesting to see this when I clicked the link for ki (since I wasn't clear about what it was):

"This article's tone or style may not be appropriate for Wikipedia."

Is it because "ki" might perhaps uh uhmmmmm mean . . . gas . . .? Nah! I'm sure it doesn't. Sorry to break the spell.

Robert Brady said...

Alice, may your understanding of ki become cloudless...

Ruahines said...

Kia ora Bob,
I arrived via Vegetable Japan and found this wonderfully written tribute to your home and the mountains. I feel much the same interacting with the mountains of New Zealand which have become my home.
Cheers,
Robb

Robert Brady said...

Thank you, Robb-- And all the best to you too, among the mountains of home.