Boulder

It is dark now looking out my window, and still my keyboard warms my thighs. I close my eyes and breathe myself into the ripples that float me back to Boulder where I began my day watching the light play on the folding currents of the creek—some winding round and some sliding over rocks that break them into voice and song. The air is dry and cool here though the summer sun at peak presses on me persistently, ignoring any pale resistance raised by the atmosphere of thin blue sky. It heats my insides—burns my indoor skin.

I pull my plastic bottle from its pouch and gratefully suck down into my dry throat the water still cool from the air-conditioned car I left parked in a shaded space on the visitors’ lot. I climb back up to the trail, slipping once on the rocky slope, and as I step onto the rough edged concrete, I feel the sun’s reflected heat jump up at me—and yet the air I draw into my cramping chest is cool. Am I a visitor here, I wonder as I look over to my car in the lot, or could this place of such paradoxical ambience be my home?

Several yards away from the rushing tumble of the water, the voice of the creek changes its quality and tone. Further up the hill and across the road in the shady yard of a yoga center, the creek’s presence below is a well kept secret—here, its voice imitates the sounds of freeway traffic during rush hour. But on the trail, where I am walking now, it lilts and tosses the currents of sound softly across the drums of my ears in pleasant percussion.

I look for another break in the trees where a navigable bank might offer an additional view, one from an angle that looks down the tangled ribbon flow for a distance, revealing secret shiny satin billows everywhere the shimmering light breaks through. I never bring a camera, always relying upon the pictures my eyes press precisely into memory. I seal them safely into sensory pockets laced with glistening light, crispy smells of earth, water, and cool sun-burned air. I store the stance of my body which is feeling the pull of the slope towards the cool wet air rising off the shady shallows. I capture a wave of sound and bottle it to carry with me for my soothing in another life far away from here.

Back up on the trail, I walk a while, musing about my situation. I had made this trip with such enthusiasm and anticipation of what potential for a new life I might have here in this part of the country that had always invoked in me such awe and inspiration. A part of me seemed to have always felt at home here, as if these majestic mountains conceived me and birthed me through a spring source in their headlands, freeing me to explore the lands below, walk among those of my kind.

But a cloak of heavy darkness had been weighing on me ever since the blow that had shaken my senses loose and taken my breath away on my third day in Denver. I sigh deeply seeking to recover my lungs’ capacity for capturing air and drawing its life support into my blood and body. I tune into my body’s center and reassure myself of its connection to the larger economy of life surrounding me, pulling, as best I can, my remaining scattered senses into the sustaining medium of that holy essence.

By now, I’ve made the circle back around to the creek again and I begin to formulate a deal with the damaged part of me fearing the 1100 mile move. Actually this part of me was bordering on, or already pushed over the edge, into full-fledged panic. I was in the early stages of shock and denial—frozen in my fear and pain so that my sensory acuity was dull, my awareness, dim. All the wealth of nature’s beauty surrounding me was massively dumbed down, experienced as if I were encased in the padded armor of a deep-sea diver— sealed tightly away from the pressures of a life-threatening condition.

I tell myself that I will sit in the magnificent presence of the living waters before me and move into the stillness of deep meditation, asking my most loving source of wisdom for a sign that will give me resolution. I tentatively agree with this more faithful part of myself and settle into a pose of inquiry on a flat rock that appears to promise temporary accommodation.

I breathe deeply into my center and surrender into the great presence of all I am in that passionate essence and release into it all my fears and doubts. I release my pain as I am able to know it in this moment and ask for the great one who loves me most and wants all the best for me to give me a sign if I should choose to make a major move at this time of my life—if I will be safe and secure here, blessed with the joy and pleasure I seek.

I take another deep breath, knowing my prayer has been delivered as I have felt the energy of it leave through my hands and move into the medium of which I am a holy part. I hold a knowing in my gut that an answer will be forthcoming. When I open my eyes, they come into focus in the center of the stream on the hovering of a hummingbird—I see nothing else but its crystal clear form and color—all else fades into shades of gray.

I am not surprised that I am not surprised, and yet I am astonished at the magic of this manifestation. Can it be real, I ask? How unexpected, how defiant of practical experience is this reality I am clearly witnessing, my senses fully intact. How such a tiny and fragile creature could even reach midstream over what must be torrential currents of air thrown from the tossing, breaking waters, stuns my sensibilities, and yet his little body hangs, seemingly suspended—the natural ability of his wings hold him steady far away from any safety of landing for rest or respite.

Only my inner spirit knows that hummingbird is my secret symbol for “yes”. He is, for my inner child, the ultimate symbol for joy and passion, for love and harmony, and yet he is being displayed for me in the outer expression of the natural landscape, in the reality of my physical experience. How much more vivid, how much more affirming could a message be? And yet there remains a nagging pull in my stomach from the fearful one. I am ashamed of her doubting and quickly ask the universe for her forgiveness lest its gift be taken back from me.

It could be a trick, she whispers to me—you know how energies sometimes conspire in a strange place to trick you into choosing wrongly and leading you into great danger. It could just be the power of your wishful fantasies creating for you what you wanted to see so that you can be supported in making an irresponsible choice—so that you can run away from the difficult life you have created for yourself far away from here. After all, wasn’t the disruptive experience in Denver an attempt at demolition of the dream?

Then I wonder if this may be the voice or reason rather than the voice of fear. How ever am I going to KNOW? Is there some form of meta-knowing I may tap into? Should I believe my eyes and my sensory experience, or my inner voice of caution? Which has served me best in my past, I ask—then answer myself saying these days in which I’m living now are outside the range of my normal experience. Otherwise I wouldn’t be having such difficulty making a decision. I never have before.

I’ve gotten up by now from my sitting rock and am standing back up on the trail. Frustrated with myself now for letting the magic of this moment be disrupted by doubt, I am still unable to quell the queasiness in my stomach. I curse myself for this split state of being and, throwing up my hands, ask the sky what I may do to have peace in me! Clearly some force at work in me is trying to sabotage my peace and happiness. How could I tempt and torture myself so?

Was the shotgun-like blow to my gut in Denver another of my projections into real life—this one of self-criticism, ridicule, humiliation? How cruel could I be to myself to ferret out, find my most secret self-doubt, my most well-protected secret shame, and blast myself with it at the most unexpected moment? A moment of being completely open and trusting in just the place I would expect safety and support on this journey of discovery—a place for acclimatizing, like the base camp at Mt. Everest—the shelter of my oldest daughter’s home?