Climbing the Earth
With clear sea air come clear thoughts, and clear intentions. There's something about my hands gripping the roughness of rock that connects me to the earth more thoroughly than anything else. The relationship is amplified even more when my feet, as now, are also bare upon the rocks. The wind buffets me playfully as my fingers and toes search the weather-worn face for the niches that will become their next holds, crevices that have not often known a human touch. It almost seems as though the face is moving underneath me; rolling with the ocean's rhythm. I can hear the waves crashing below, nipping at the feet of the rock formation, and I relish the thrilling downward look that they tempt from me. In this moment, I exist on the edge of final mortality, a tiny living speck upon this vast golden face; a face that has looked toward the same sea since time began. And yet here, upon the edge of death, I am so full of life. I turn my gaze upward and continue to climb high underneath the misty evening sky. The wind is damp with the taste of the sea, and the heavens are a reflection of the weary sun's pale gold.
I stand on a ledge of the hard-won peak, chalky hands at my sides and toes curling around the last solid piece of rock between me and space. The advancing waves still speak, but their distant crashes are but a whisper and my ears listen now for heaven's call. The north wind whips my hair back from my face and strips my impurities away. Overhead a lone hawk catches sight of my body, outlined against the sky. His cry mingles with the waves. I stand in one of nature's great temples, in one and every instant feeling the wind on my body, the rock under my feet, my hands dangling at my sides, and my eyes gazing out over the beautiful world. They drink in the expanse of ocean and mountain, silent and ancient, yet alive with energy. I breathe in the wind. I breathe in the wind.
Meditation loves no place more than the pinnacles of earth's ancient form. I raise my arms and acknowledge my connection to earth, sky, and all of the grand mystery that is life. The energy flows through me. I close my eyes and slide softly into the calm, deep waters of my soul.
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