CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF FALLING LEAF
We had walked deep into the woods in the Catskills. It was that perfect fall day we wait all year for– the trees just beginning to turn color, crisp clear blue sky air with small defined cumulous clouds, a soft breeze with just enough gusts to release one yellow leaf at a time, detached, unfettered spinning though the forest. Each leaf tell me a small story about the life of this forest, a small particle of a tree, a part of the understory below the conifers, a part intwined and connected by the mycelium and richness of soils from the composting of countless other seasons. So many worlds in consort with one another released in this fall splendor. Each passage through the perfect dappled light. I love this narrative silently placing it in each breath, connecting with every part of the forest. Taking a deep breath feeling gratitude. Feeling surrounded by something magical I take out my camera and follow the next leaf ’s journey— up, down, back forth and this one landing in the eddies of the stream, capturing this perfect moment of its slow motion touchdown, a small spin as it turns into the original origin of a raft, floating backwards then in a circle and then it morphs into a life boat for some small living creature and then it is caught the flow of the current and became an athletes kayak. The magic eye follows the slow movement gain momentum as the stream funnels into riffles, the leaf picking up speed, over two small water falls and then into the placid stillness where the water turns to a mirror and all the other golden yellow leaves have collected along the shore in the shape of a heart.. The glowing maples reflecting in the afternoon golden light. I take the photo of the heart feeling lost in thought a voice startles me. “How quickly the mind can capture a moment and watch it unfold,” Primavera says, obviously reading my mind, I think she has secret powers.
“Ha ha you saw that too?” Impressed that a moment was shared without an exchange of words. “I love watching the fall leaves do their thing,” I say. “Such a beautiful fall day,” she says joyfully with a Spanish accent that make the word beautiful become even more exotic and colorful. “This light is remarkable.” “I love the change of color, it’s like the first day of fall, I love feeling the change,” I say. “It’s good to feel the change, God knows we need to feel some quality change, it’s felt pretty dark this year, I’ll take the change of season.” “I love Fall. It’s been a hard year. Its a good day for gratitude” The voice of her daughter suddenly ignites the air with laughter and joyful words. ‘Mommy!”
“Hi Daria!” “Mommy look at these purple flowers!” I lean forward. The flowers are Purple Aster. I know them well I have planted them in gardens in California. “Want to see something cool?” I begin to move my hand through the flowers. They are pollinators and bloom in summer and Fall. I know there will be many bees doing their Godly work and there are honey bees, but I am looking for something else. “Ah here she is.” I softly cupped my hand near the wild bee. “I love these native bees so much,” and delicately hold out my index finger, ever so slowly, meditating on kindness, she slowly climbs aboard. “See how beautiful this native bee is, her soft fur, the yellow highlights and dark browns and black?” I whispered. Daria leans in watching intently. “She’s so stunning. Bees like me.” I say, as I nudge her back onto the Purple Aster. “Don’t want to keep it too long, she has important work to do, these bees live alone. They’re different than honey bees. That is a honey bee over there.” Suddenly my eye adjusts to see the smaller honey bee and then there are hundreds. “look at them all.” Daria is mesmerized, she shows no fear of bees. To me that’s good parenting. I’m always distressed when I see parents teaching their kids to be fearful of honey bees. Yellow Jacket yes. Honey bees and native bees are just too special to fear. “I love bees too,” Daria says.
This makes me happy as with that confident confirmation I have made a new friend. Our host who is touring us through these remarkable wonderlands gives a small call and we all follow him down an old road. Primavera’s partner Katia gives a wave and we walk towards her. “Let me guess how old you are,” I say to Daria as we are walking. I’m generally pretty good at this game. I can tell she’s tall for her age and precocious in a delightful way. She didn’t want to get out of her car earlier, maybe out of shyness or maybe out of I’d rather be alone than be with adults, taking all that in. “I guess 8, maybe even 8 1/2!” I know kids at that age look at their ages in fractions. “Ha! Wrong! I’m 8 and 3/4s. I’m going to be 9 in December!” “Dang I was so close.” I hear the two moms laugh. We have become friendly
Our Host takes us to another location. Deeper into the hidden parts of the Catskills we wander up a mountain side until we reach an old quarry. At first you can’t tell it’s an old quarry, or just strange geology. So much beautiful stone scattered about, gods hand or some other kind of story. But then it is obvious. There is ancient history here. These stones are the markers. There is something magical also. I’m feeling up-lifted. I imagine soft lights strewn across the expanse, a pathway set in the flat stones, alters created in the nooks with candles, people sitting in the summer night playing music, talking softly about ideas that will reshape the world. It becomes very apparent. Our host is very low key about the beauty and promise of these places, but he betrays a vision that goes deeper than mine. He is thinking carbon neutral eco-village, alternative self care retreats, and temples. I’m here as a visitor and friend, but I’m also someone who builds temples and I have given them a lot of thought since this pandemic. I’m working on a book about how post pandemic global temples will be needed and how they can turn into community gardens. I arrive in this quarry and I’m feeling intentional. I can see a temple here. The stone is magnificent. Evidently in the 1700s they began to take this stone out to make a castle somewhere. But the wealthy owner forgot to tell them to stop. It is like the ruins of its own castle.
Katia and Primavera are beautiful together. Smiling and laughing you can feel their love. Daria runs joyfully taking pictures and also just taking in the magic of this place, it radiates through their girl. They want to build a temple themselves someplace. I’m in awe of the quality of humans I’m walking with. There is some wealth on this walk, but there is also some love and care in these footsteps. Daria comes running down the crags of rubble and jumps in front of me. “Hey! What is your spirit animal?” she asks wildly. I have to think. I’m 65 is it bad that I’ve never officially chosen a spirit animal? I think it might be the crow but I’m not feeling very crow at the moment. I’m feeling a bit whimsical and hopeful. “I’m going to choose that native bee we saw a while back.” “Well mine is the owl!” she exclaims. “Wow, that’s awesome! Is that because they’re so wise?” “Well, they’re really good hunters, they mate for life, they’re super cool looking. I like the great horned owl. And i know how to draw them.” “When we get back to the car you can show me how you can draw an owl. I’d love to see that.”
“Sure if I can find something to draw with…” Our Host shows us some views and tells about the history of the place. He gives a small nod and we follow him back down towards the cars. Daria runs ahead and grabs her moms and starts taking selfies with them. I can’t resist and take pictures of them taking pictures of themselves. We all walk together down the hill. “I have an owl story do you want to hear it?” “Sure, I want to hear an owl story.” As soon as I say this I begin to regret what I’ve offered. This is really a story about Phoebe and angels and spirit. The owl is a part of that. I’m not sure an 8 3/4 yr old girl is going to want to hear about something as powerful as the death of a daughter. It is a very happy moment! Very quickly I think of ways to edit the story differently. “Okay Daria this is how this story goes.” I look at her so she can see my eyes and make sure that I have all her attention. “This is a true story. It’s an owl story and it’s one of my favorite stories. I know you will like it because I like this story. It happened maybe 10 years ago but when I close my eyes and I can see it as clearly as it happened just now.
“I lost something so special to me. It was my greatest gift. It was something that I loved and cherished so much. And then just one day it was gone. Just like that one day here then gone. I wanted to find it, hold it, see it, talk, love. But it was gone.” We were walking slowly and Daria was listening. The moms were quiet, they knew this story was for their daughter so they walked near us, listening intently. “One day a friend told me about a woman who could find things. She could hear things and see things that other people could not see. So I went to her. I’m not sure if I really believe she can see things and I’m thinking that when I walk in. “Do you know you brought angels here with you?” She said the moment I walked in. You have a great loss. One of these angels is the most brilliant light I have ever seen. She is right here in the room with us now. I’ve seen this kinda thing in movies. Im not sure what I believed. How I could feel the presence of this wonderful gift that I had lost. So I told her that. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what to believe.’ The wise lady then said to me… ‘what
you lost is right her and they want you to believe in their presence. They told me that they are going to give you a gift today to prove that they are really here right next to you. They want you to know how much you are loved and they are with you all the time. The gift will be a bird, and this bird is going to be a color you have never seen.’” I look at Daria, she’s all in. “So then what happened?” “Yeah, that sounded pretty strange to me too. Well, I’ve seen a lot of birds, we even had a blue and gold macaw parrot and that darn bird had every color imaginable. The whole thing just made me even sadder.” I paused pretending like I forgot I was telling the story. “Then what happened?” “Something I like to do when I’m feeling sad is to ride my mountain bike in the woods. I decided to take a trail I had never been on before. It was late in the afternoon, all foggy and misty. I came down a steep hill to a clearing, I felt confused, where am I? So I just stopped. I didn’t even put me feet down and just balanced on the bike.
Suddenly, a large coyote, all full grown, proud and beautiful in its winter coat, walks across my path. It just walked right across the trail, just a few feet away from me, it paused and looked at me. Almost like it was nodding, saying, hey wait here we got something for you, and then it walked down the hill and disappeared. It was so beautiful, I’d never seen a coyote close up like that before. But that was no bird with no color I’d ever seen... so I just stood there.” I stop walking so I can tell Daria the next part of the story facing her. I need both my arms to describe it. “It was late, the mist had turned to light rain, I was cold and wet. I started to go, but no sooner than I made a movement I looked up and saw this large animal catapult from an oak tree, flying straight at me. It gave me a fright. I jumped, It was large and flying straight at my eyes. I could tell right away that it was an owl. It was super big and it was flying right for my nose. Then suddenly at the last moment, it reared up and flashed open its wings and came to a perfect stop in front of my face.” I opened up my arms as wide as they go and demonstrated the dynamics and strength of the owl’s wingspan. I hold
my arms out wide. “All I saw was a flash of brilliant light, but then I could see every detail of perfect white feathers. Their alignment, sized large to small, crisp edges to the softest down. This moment is forever frozen like that, whenever I close my eyes i can still see it. This owl flashing it’s wings open, 6 feet across all its glory and then it flew over my head and into the woods. And it was gone.” And I put my arms down. I paused pretending I was out of breath. “That’s my owl story. I’d never seen an owl before I didn’t know they were white under their wings.” “Wait wait, so white is not a color, it’s no color you can see. Ha ha. The lady was right!” Daria says excitedly. “Oh wow!! You’re right! I’ve never thought of it like that before! So I guess this really proof there are angels.” “Of course there are!”
When we got back to the cars we were getting ready to leave. Out comes Daria running out of their rental van. She has a piece of paper and runs up to me. “Here is your gift.” And she hands me a napkin with an owl drawn with a blue felt pen. “Oh my god, what a great gift! This is fantastic!!! You’re so talented!!! Thank you for making this such a special day. I’m going to do something special with this drawing and send it to your mom. Okay.?” “Okay!” Primavera and Katia come over. “That was a great story, we’re sorry for your loss. It was so great meeting you. Have a great trip home.” “I used to make T-shirts... I’ll turn this into a T-shirt design. I see a great future in Daria starting her own custom designed spirit animal company.” “Ha ha! That’s actually a great idea!” Primavera says and I can tell she means it, but in what way I have no clue. They turn to go. “Good luck with your finding a place for your temple!” I tell them. “Thank you,” they say sincerely. I look up and see a yellow leaf and for a moment I watch it become weightless. There is suddenly a gust of wind and suddenly many yellow leaves are moving across through the forest. Phoebe has a way of making herself known. I smile. Maybe we will survive.