Within easy walking distance of my residence there is a slated-bottom stream that appears to flow ceaselessly on. Although at certain times it has more water than at other times it always has water.
The place along the stream having the greatest attaction for me is about twenty feet wide and ten feet below the bank where I stand to observe it. On either side of the stream, in parallel, there are two fountain-like flows that produce loud melodious fountain-like sounds when passing over slated rocks at the particular point where there is an elevation followed by an abrupt dip.
For several years I have experienced this Nourishing Stream as something of an oasis that provided me with solace and inspiration.
About a year ago a storm passed through the area and felled a forty-plus feet tree that landed across the stream at the very location that appeals most to me. When I first saw this felled tree lying in a horizontal positon, to put it mildly, I was not pleased. Now it was difficult for me to reach the mound between that fallen tree and the fountain-like flows that had been a playful space for me where occasionally I would touch the water with my feet and hands. It had also been for me a contemplation space.
On my next visit to the Nourishing Stream my attitude had changed. I observed the felled tree with a sense that it was sacred. The felled tree has twelve limbs that reach about twenty feet beyond the opposite side of the stream from its roots. Within inches of the limbs of the felled tree is a live tree that serves as a back rest for me when I sit on the first and second limbs of the felled tree facing the fountain-like flows. The third and fourth limbs serve as a foot stood and the seventh limb serves as an arm rest when I am facing the fountain-like flows and as a back rest when I am facing in the opposite direction.
As I sit about ten feet above the water and some twenty feet from the two fountain-like flows I am ideally situated to observe the flowing water, listen to the fountain-like sounds, relax, enjoy and experience heightening meaning and peace. Indeed, the felled tree is a blessing, not a curse. On reflection, I am once again reminded that nature acts best and whenever human beings embrace nature and her manifold expressions they are nourished.
During my visits to the Nourishing Stream, in an environment that is void of man-made constructions and other humans,I remain there for more than an hour communing with the trees, singing birds,fly-dancing butterflies and feasting on her offerings, some of which are mystical and cannot be expressed in words but are real as any experience to the experiencing person.
During most of my visits to the Nourishing Stream I chant my favorite meditation that I composed more than a decade ago when I was a four-year resident near Flagstaff, Arizona and in closer proximity to the Navajo Reservation. While living there My Most Sigificant Other and I had to haul water from a community reservoir that was four miles from our home. I was at the community reservoir that community pople called "The Well" when this meditation first entered into my mind. Usually I chant this meditation:
Om... Om... Om...
I am meditating,
It is quiet within me and all is calm;
My senses are asleep and I am in
the depth of my subconscious;
I am fully surrendered to the only
Cosmic Power there is...
I am at peace... I am at peace...
I am at peace... .
Following my chanting the meditation I remain silent, sometimes with my eyes closed and at other times while visually focusing on the fountain-like flows, for about ten or fifteen minutes.
Most times when I go to the Nourishing Stream, after spending at least a half hour at the site of the felled tree, I walk upstream about forty feet and about twenty feet from the fountain-like flows. There, the sounds are louder and the view clearer than at the first location but no more or less soulful and nourishing.
One day while I was sitting on a small log that I had placed near the edge of the bank at the upstream location I became enamored with my surrounding and while in a trance, not realizing it, I slowly moved near the edge of the bank and closer to the water where I was about to take a ten feet plunge into the strean when,fortuantely, I regain consciousness in time to take control of myself.
Invariably, when I leave the Nourishing Stream which is about a fifteen-minute walk from my residence I feel filled with the things that make for inspiration, gratitude, creativity and peace.
My ah experiences at the Nourishing Stream extend far beyond the actual time I spend there. They are also eternal now experiences.
Copyright 2010 by Uriah J.Fields
Note: If you are rewarded by reading this article you may be rewarded when you read my article "I Go to Nature" that can be accessed on the website below:
