all night long
At three in the morning there’s an infomercial guiding you to a forest for $19.95. For a few dollars more they’ll include some 3D glasses, but the glasses won’t do anything because those glasses are for movie theaters with 3D movies. You can bring your own goal-oriented attitude if you want but don’t mess with the trees.
Probably best to go at dusk. Get a glimpse of things. Watch the last of the light. It’ll be great. Watch the death of things. It’ll be like watching the life of things except it will look backwards.
Trees are everywhere, but pick one. Plan to journal about it later. About your private moment. Your mini-contemplation. Your bonding with the seeds. You paid them homage because they’re really good at sprinkling just right. You regarded the earlier and infinite set of conditions.
You felt holiness. You realized it was happening. It was really great while it lasted. It made you think, hey, there’s gotta be a holiness in the woods. Hey, that wind’s gotta be holy.
Don’t forget about those roots. Even at dusk those roots work through ground. Even now they’re working. Even though this city exists, this city throbs. Even when you were everywhere you’ve ever been. Even though there are such things as plastic and potholes and microchips and better microchips and the better microchips are better because they are smaller.
There are roots under the city. In the pure dark they’ll keep working and looking for life.
Say something about Mother Nature, Jesus Christ or whatever you like. You believe those pine needles? They’re whispering if you’ll hear. In light of the wind.
Listen hard. Hear the ones way up high and hide near a big rock. Wait and watch for the moon. The trees will look wet in the moonlight. Look at everything.
Watch things turn to crooked shadow. Detect movement. Be confused about whether you’re trembling or just cold. Don’t leave. Get dosed by a new kind of night.
Get dazzled by the noises of the unseen.
Find your heart when the coldness hurts bad. See how bad your body shakes in the cold. Hold on tight. Wait for the chirps. Don’t say it, but think it. And remember. How the sky-high needles shine in the moon. And the wind brushes the needles. The wind and the needles—they go all night.
afternoon
I’m right on time and the canvas is blank. Bob Ross is getting started. I shall listen. May I receive the sounds of brush on canvas. I care very little about what Bob is going to paint. I love very much that I care very little. I care very much about this orb of hair. That it exists. That I may choose to witness it bobbing through time and space. I am very happy that Bob is humming, and he is speaking.
When Bob hums and speaks and paints the world feels fine. When Bob speaks it sounds like a kind of humming and when he brushes it sounds like a kind of wind. I’m dozing off getting this weird type of deep relaxation Bob Ross sleep. I can still hear him speaking and humming and brushing and these things are warm winds in my head.
This is the purpose of watching Bob Ross. To enter the state of Bob Ross. Bob is a man of flow. This is an understatement. May it be so that I receive the gift of watching Bob going with the flow. To watch Bob until I’m no longer watching. Just letting Bob be Bob. Just knowing Bob is there. Knowing that he knows what he’s doing. Bob is painting. May I bathe in this awareness.
I’m awake. Bob is making something big time. The whole canvas is blue for the sky. I don’t understand. How is he going to make a ground if everything’s blue? I don’t have to know. I don’t have to know if there will be a ground. Be patient now. Be present. Allow the unfolding. The blue’s now water on the bottom and sky on the top. You can tell the difference. Grass, rocks and trees near the water. All a bit blue from the sky and water. The work is done. It is good. It is always good. Bob steps away. Things are looking very good.
Bob turns around. He is kindness. He is with us. He has made something. It is nature. “Happy painting,” he says. He smiles like he’s not just happy, but he’s happy for everything.
go with the skin
It’s wild to remember as often as possible the teachings of the body. The language of the chest with its wind and petals contained in pressure. Emotion is like a whirlpool but the central channel takes the helm. No time for flutters. Nature goes linear. It’s time for pulses and signals of creation.
Go with the movement. Go with the skin. As it drags, builds heat. Take smell. Engage gravity. While you’re at it ease into animal mystery. Unpack the physical and take the list of things you think you know. Unwrite the whole thing. Or hell, burn it. Don’t bother starting over. For the love of all things oceanic have a ceremony.
Remembering sometimes love is all about the slow investigation of the edges of kneecaps. After some time getting straight to the point.