I miss my sweet earth. Almost every day I would walk seven or eight miles of earth’s sacred corridors. I breathed her incense. I touched her stained glass windows of trees, flowers, rock, and grass. I listened to the sun’s sermons. I sang with the choirs of wind sweeping through the trees. I knelt at the sacred mountain altars.

My work now has me sitting for eight hours walking inside the hearts and minds of those in pain. A sacred so sacred journey. I am humbled and grace to take such walks. No doubt in my heart the time spent in nature prepared me for the new landscape I now walk. But still, I miss the time of earth’s monastery. Even the time set aside from those forty or more hours of work is limited by my eyes, the dark, the cold, and the snow. It feels like even nature conspires to keep me at a distance. But still, I yearn for the time within nature’s monastery.

Today, buoyed by the sun and warmer temps, I didn’t let the muddy paths stop me. I could go out and drive. And I did. Open space. An eagle perched atop a tree. Ordinary things made miraculous. I felt like a forgotten warrior returning to a dazzling parade on either side of the road. How I saw you my friend I still don’t know. I thank you again for the chat. As I sat in my car telling you of all I had seen, it occurred to me that the fence made it seem you were looking out as I looked in. I had not noticed the fence. And then, so soft came the whisper from Rumi, ” “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”