backlit ferns

I'm in a forest in New Zealand. It is the morning, quite early still, though the forest is wide awake: birds are singing, the bees are busy at work. I've stopped in a clearing, a small clearing. There's the remains of a large tree trunk off to the side. I guess that tree has fallen and left this opening. My mind is not yet busy with the day. I love this time of day, when the consciousness is more feeling and sensing than thinking. It's a beautiful time to take a walk in nature.

I stopped at this point in the forest because in the clearing, the first growth to really take the space are the ferns. Some other small bushes or saplings are also here, making the most of the opportunity too. But it's the ferns that are really delighting in this opening. And from my viewpoint the ferns are backlit by the morning sun. It's a beautiful sight: bright, light green, translucent fern fronds, amongst the rather dark greens and browns of the forest.

Stopping, though, and not just looking at these ferns, but feeling them, allowing them to touch me, it's very clear that there's something here that cannot be put into words, the way the ferns move me. They're touching me emotionally. Yet I cannot even put words on the emotions. There's a connection here, an interplay, a dance, a dance of energy, a relating – and yet impossible to say anything about.

This is part of the mystery of life: this constant interplay between all that is. One's whole experience, one's whole life experience, is formed by these mysterious moments of relating. It is only when we are touched by the mystery of life that we are really partaking in life. And of course this will be a two way communion. I know not what my being is doing for these ferns. That is not for me to know.

This is life, though this I know. Here in this tranquil moment in the forest, there is a sublime beauty to the moment, and this deep connection. It's somewhere so deep in my being, so deep, so beautiful. This is what life is about. This is what life is. So though I cannot put it into words, I feel immense gratitude for these ferns backlit by the morning sun, deep in a forest. Ahh.