Life consists of many journeys. Each one is meant to give a new experience and a new link for past experiences to come together. These experiences breed insight; insight breeds wisdom. There are people who can travel for thousands of miles yet their mentality shows little of the distance, and there are others who may travel only to the next town but their minds have understood and gone much further. The second group is the one well traveled and wise.
Walking has always managed to calm my frazzled mind. The smells and colors of the seasons combined with the feeling of freedom I get from motion, all meld into a oneness that is easily misplaced among computer printouts, assignment deadlines, and call waiting. I suppose by walking I mean in the woods, more or less. Walking along a busy sidewalk doesn't have the same feel to me. That association of freedom makes sense now that I live in a small city, but while I was growing up things were different. Living in a town with six thousand people and twelve thousand cows, there wasn't a whole lot of technology to avoid. We didn't even get cable until I was seventeen. Maybe that was why my mother became involved in so many things. She was probably as bored as I, which is something a child doesn't think of at the time. All I could do was to try to get out of her way before I got caught up in something bizarre; that's where my walks came in.
At sixteen, I visited the Insight Meditation Society with my parents, and reached some conclusions about my life while walking there. Actually, I'm just endowed with 20/20 hindsight. At the time my thoughts were pretty scattered. I remember that there was a distinct, easy to follow path through the woods. It was warm; school had started only a few weeks earlier. The trees were green yet there was the ever present blanket of golden pine needles between the ferns. Rays of light reflected off this bed giving the woods a royal appearance. All around was the smell of green growth and the pungent odor of pine. Fall was coming, but that particular smell that goes with Halloween wasn't here yet.
My thoughts raced. Okay, concentrate on the breath. Let it fill you, and wash over you. In . . . Out . . . Just a few more steps. Its a gorgeous day and there are miles of trails to explore. Still, what am I doing here? I'd gone along with Mom's trends in the past but this was different. What was I thinking? "Sure Mom and Dad, I'll go with you to smack in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I'll learn meditation with a bunch of robe wearing, zombified, anorexics. Yeah, that would be a dream come true." I'm such an idiot. I could have a hundred of my closest friends drinking beer at my house this very minute. "Sure Mom and Dad, I'll watch the house while you're gone." That is what I should have said. It had been almost two months since the last big blow out of the summer. It was time. But no, I had to think this would be interesting.
I had walked a ways. My mind was playing hopscotch. One minute acutely aware of my surroundings, the next only concerned with what was welling up inside me. The sun now felt warmer, and I avoided a patch of laurel alive with the work song of bees. I suppose if the weekend offered me moments like this it wasn't all a waste. Meditation has a good premise after all- living in the present moment, and this particular present moment was beautiful. The only sounds were those of the woods: birds, insects, a frog in a nearby pond, a slight trickle of water. And as I stopped to listen, the beating of my own heart was added to the score. Maybe it was this sort of absolute peace Mom was really looking for.
Poor Mom. She had started growing her own sprouts and making her own yogurt a few years back, but I don't think it quieted her mind. I remember the first time she tried out her new yogurt contraption. It was nothing more than a Styrofoam cooler with a light bulb inside. By putting milk and cultures into this box, they slowly soured and got lumpy and presto, yogurt. Gee, a little preserved fruit and nuts with this slop for breakfast really replaced the Sugar Smacks I was originally brought up on. Mom was always looking for the quick cure. I don't have any explanations for Dad, however. Everyone thinks he's great - the level headed one of the family. But in reality he is a total enigma. After all, he is the one who made that little oven thing, but maybe that was just to avoid an argument. Mom can be set in her whims. I wonder where that Styrofoam container is now? She probably threw it out. Now that's environmentally sound, yeah Mom.
Then she got into those books: Codependent No More, Saying No Without Feeling Guilty, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People . . . She even had me going for self hypnosis at the age of twelve to lose weight. I never had the heart to tell her that the only reason I was fat was because of my store of junk food. Actually it was the only sane solution considering Mom was just as likely as not to serve "Tofu Casserole" , and it did not matter if I had a guest . "Tofu Casserole" is the Hamburger Helper of the health food world. The only one in the house who was ever happy that it was being served was my pet parakeet, Charlie. Mom would place the steaming tray of mashed squash, broccoli, spinach, and tofu on the table, and Charlie would freak. He'd leave his cage and dive bomb the table. Having attacked the strange toasted bread crumb and sunflower topping, he'd fly away with bits of it stuck to his little beak and claws. Occasionally he'd "let go" during this maneuver, and considering that Mom is extremely squeamish this would add a little excitement to the evening. I'd make sure to "forget" to leave his cage open whenever I saw that monstrosity of a meal in the oven. Later, excusing myself to retire to the meal of pop tarts and chips I had nestled under my bed.
I looked up from my reverie and blinked. Somewhere along the way I had lost the trail. I was still on some sort of a faint path, but it was about to break off into a "Y" around a large boulder. Going to one side of the boulder, I found that the path ended. There was a thirty foot ledge there to be precise. I circled back to the original trail, but it seemed to have vanished by the time I got there. I took a deep breath and tromped off in the direction I thought the path was. The twigs and small plants of ground cover crunched under my feet. After wandering a few moments, I slowly came to the realization that I was actually lost. I climbed the next hill to get a sighting of the Center, but either the woods were too dense, or I had just wandered too far. I turned and headed in the same direction I thought the path had been but found nothing. Fear started to consume me. Beads of wetness that had formed on my forehead now trickled into my eyes. My vision blurred as these drops mixed with my own tears, which I angrily smeared away. Panic stricken, I ran to the top of the next hill. My footing then gave and I slid into a stream on the other side. I sat for a moment helpless. I am really alone, I thought. The nature sounds I had heard earlier turned into threatening noises. Now I've really done it. Nature can make you happy, peaceful. It can also kill you, you fool. I started to laugh, being hysterical really. That first scene in the Meditation Center came flooding back, accompanied by my sense of the bizarre waiting to happen. When we walked in my eyes felt wide with amazement. People shuffled around in dead silence. Their eyes were open, yet the natural light behind them was gone. The regulars told us that there would be Meditation classes three times a day. They held yoga classes and conferences with instructors in the evenings. All meals were served at set times in the dining hall. There would be no talking except to perform our chores during our assigned meal and during conferences. Despite these strange proceedings I tried to keep a positive frame of mind. I found the building itself was beautiful. The halls were covered in rich oak carvings, but there was a faint smell of decaying food. All meals were Vegan and Macro Biotic. No salt, fat, or animal products of any kind. Great. Tasteless food and dead silence.
The scene reminded me of the first time I went to "hippie hill", an old farm house that had been converted into an ashram. Mom had decided to take yoga there. I met and honestly liked the owners' daughter, Synnava. We had spent the day raking a pile of leaves together. It smelled like Halloween then, and our pile had gotten so large, we jumped off the roof of an old van into it, colors swirling. Later, I went inside to get my mom. The sterile looking kitchen also smelled faintly of decaying food. I had one of my usual headaches and Mom relayed this to her instructor, Victor. He then proceeded to explain to her the concept of pressure points located in the hands and feet. By applying pressure to these nerve endings you could send impulses to other parts of the body relieving stress there. Meanwhile, he was demonstrating as he was babbling, pinching and grinding into my flesh. I thought the small bones in my feet were going to crack and I yelled out in pain. No one responded.
I must get out of this. No one was coming to my rescue. I had screamed out for help, but as I had suspected no one answered. I had no idea where the Center was. Following the stream, I figured I at least wouldn't be going in circles. As I walked I let the tears flow easily. No one could see me after all. I've never been very religious, much to my Catholic mother's grief, but I prayed this time. I prayed to God, Jesus, Mary; Christ, I would have prayed to Allah. It seemed like I had walked forever. " Buddha enlighten my mind and show me the path home," I pleaded under my breath. I looked down to see that I was on the trail. I have no idea how, but it was there. The worn trail of golden pine needles under my feet. I jumped up and down laughing until I realized I had twisted my ankle in the fall. One deep breath, and then back to the Center.
The sun was still showing beautifully and the birds sang, but this time I wasn't fooled. Never again. I repeated the words to myself for reinforcement. This had been horrible. Just because I'm able to step back, calm myself, and get through things doesn't take away from the fact that this had been horrible. Synnava's house flashed in my head again as the Center started to emerge through the trees. I had ran from her house after Victor finished his little pressure point session and Mom announced that she was staying for herbal tea. Synnava ran after me and we ended up hiking in the woods between our houses. We found an incredible knoll made of gray, bare, bushes. When we got to the other side of the twined branches, there was a clearing filled with blackberry bushes. Beyond them was the most wonderful tree to climb and we nicknamed the spot Candyland. Two months later Synnava was pulled out of the sixth grade for demonic possession.
I won't fall for this again, I thought, as I entered the grounds. My clothes were torn and I was covered with mud but no one seemed to notice. I wandered aimlessly looking for my parents. I said " Hi" to the delivery man but he just looked at me widely like I had looked at everyone upon arrival. " He thinks I'm one of them." Finally, I saw my mom inside the main building. I whispered that I needed to talk, knowing this was strictly against the rules. She motioned for me to follow and then she wrote a small note instructing me to meet her out front beyond the hedge. We met fifteen minutes latter and she gave a sigh of relief.
"I was starting to go insane in there," she said smiling." What happened to you?"
I proceeded to tell her the whole story of getting lost. It just came gushing out. " So I thought to myself even if I yell and someone happens to hear me, they won't answer because they won't talk."
She laughed. " Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, huh? Well, I think I'll gather up your father now. We are only supposed to stay another couple of hours. It won't matter if we leave a little early."
She looked sorry and a little sad. I hadn't meant to hurt her. "Maybe we can do it again in a few years, Mom. Just as long as we're all ready."