A Sort of Groove

When I walk the same trail over and over it is repetition only at the most shallow of levels. Only someone who has never given attention to the fields and forests could call it that. A chickadee in this pine where yesterday she was perched in that one - that is a new walk. Helpful examples multiply (they always do when we are ready at last to learn): fox scat, seed husks, deer tracks, cloud patterns, pond color, brook sounds, fallen leaves, the wind through pines, dew, spider webs, spiders, and the slant of the sun, falling just so. One perceives the divine et cetera! What I am saying is that this kind of walking is in the nature of polishing a piece of quartz. Day after day one returns to it with the requisite tools: patch of flannel, patch of denim, water, vinegar, a brush. And polishes, which is to touch the same spot in the same way over and over, intentionally. Thus, a groove emerges, and a gleam emerges: the stone interacts differently with light. One perceives then with clarity (which is a form of gratitude) the spectral radiance. Which was always there? One enters - becomes - a sort of groove - and a clarity - and a shining emerges. A shine? Yet "emerges" is the fitting verb. The light of which we are composed is real but only sometimes reveals itself. Is it becoming clear? We walk the way we do because we are bent on bringing light there, which light is both literal and not literal, as "God" is both a word, an idea signified by a word, and that - nothingness - from which ideas emerge. We are bringing something out then? We are polishing, joyfully. Morning after morning I eschew "again" for the familiar trail, discovering as I go is always here.