Walking Contradictions

The weather was perfect. I took a gravel trail of the main rode. I found myself in a small cluster of Aspen trees, which always remind me of the mountains of Utah. The sound their leaves make in the wind is unmistakable, like a hurried digital hushing that waxes and wanes with the breeze. There were goslings, and ducklings mentored by doting parents. The swallows darted and swayed at the surface of the lake. There were bald eagles circling in majesty. Blue herons stoicly stalking. I saw a pair of cedar wax wings frolicking in a windrow of lombardy poplars that stood tall and thin. I scouted a few beaver lodges hidden by brush. I watched amphibious rafts of lily pads, with their beautiful white lotus-like flowers emerging from the water like resurrection. The good earth is in full swing, living.

I was not hiking in a remote wilderness. I was in the center of the Lower mainland of British Columbia. I was walking around Burnaby Lake. I crossed a pedestrian bridge from the Skytrain and walked a trail that also led to a large sports complex. A busy highway was nearby. On my way back I saw an endless train of coal heading to the port for export. That black dust is the energy captured and sequestered by the bodies of countless ancient ancestors of animals and plants doing the same thing I saw life doing today at the Lake, living. And now the burning of those bodies in the ovens of industry threatens life. We should not have disturbed the graves of the ancestors. They are coming back to haunt us.

Please have a look at my latest online Workshop: Holyscapes: Mapping your Personal Spiritual Ecology