It is a beautiful day in October and the leaves are peaking. Sunspots of brilliant crimson, violet, and magenta swirl before my eyes as I sit upon the stone seat by the pond. My goldfish echo that flaming red, rising to the warmer surface in a cistern of green. Here and there a remaining frog peeks out its head. Soon they will be hibernating for the winter. Autumn smells, pungent and sweet bathe me. The sun is oh, so warm. I relax and breathe, be present, and fill my senses with this delight. The surrounding trees are blazing gold, orange, yellow and crimson. Insects have resurrected for an encore with the splash and gurgle of the pond. I sit in silence and ask my heart: Let me venture into the realm where this is all me. I begin to feel a matrix of fullness, of connection that just Is and where my heart feels full to bursting with love. Here everything’s ok–even the chemtrails slashing the sky overhead with their blatant marks. As my friend, Panache Desai says, “There is nothing on the planet right now that is not for the ultimate benefit of human beings.” I trust, let go, and merge again, to the consciousness where I can make the most difference. The place where all of us can. The chirp of a nearby cricket reverberates my heartstrings and the cool sensation of the light air across my skin wakes me. I sway with the plants and leaves in a dance called oneness. A leaf of wild sorrel upon my tongue, and my black cat, Noché greeting my back with repeated rubs.

A Bauneg Beg farm

Insects ring melodically, the afternoon mild and sunny as I sit upon ophiolite rock–a whorled, twisted mixture of shale, quartz, and volcanic bubbles. Some of the oldest rock in the world, pre-dating life on the planet, formed when Europe and North America were rubbing up against each other. I am a little wary because our resident moose is snorting in the woods behind my back and his hoof falls reverberate through the ground. He knows I am here and wants me to know he is here too. The earth message today is not to discount the seeming insignificant. The tiny winged ant crawling on the toe of my boot; every twig, leaf, the microscopic and unseen, to the moose and myself, we all have our place. We are all integral petals in the infinite lotus of creation. The moose is adding his emphasis to this message. I leave my seat for a more comfortable distance and pull down a vine growing wild nearby, loaded with concord grapes dark purple and juicy, frosted with blue. There are a dozen frogs sitting statuesque around the stone edge of my pond, soaking up the lingering warmth of this fall day. They show me their skill in staying present, of which they are masters.

9-25-13 Franciscan monks would be jealous of the peacefulness here. It is a place, once a bustling waterfront in recent centuries, now in recuperation. A place folding back into itself quietly, the Salmon Falls river reflective below, between the dark forest that lines its banks. The historic house rises stately upon a hill overlooking its domain. Despite the richness springing from the earth here, there is an impervious quality that I find masking the depths of the grassy hillock I’m seated upon. One that keeps me from feeling too deep. The message I am getting from the surrounds is to honor and uphold our remaining beautiful, pristine places. They are manna for the Soul. Yet there is the unmistakable quality of strength here too in this soil–the unyielding fortitude of early settlers and the underlying deep love and respect of the Natives who were here before. As the sun comes out I feel an opening, a softening, and I sit a short distance away in another spot. Here I feel a soothing peacefulness, a welcoming. The first spot had some hard usage at some point in its history I fear. Overlooking the sleepier banks of the back river, just past the house, this new one lets me feel in. The earth a soft cradle of kindness and sweetness, the comfort of an old friend. A place to rejuvenate one’s spirit and catch the palpable romance of all here that has come before.

By Lenaye Marsten

Hamilton House, South Berwick, Maine