Spirit-earth’s Relief Map

Awakening begins.  One’s sense of dimension starts flat.

Body shower, brush teeth, comb hair as awareness anticipation begins. On the walk to the underground train, he wonders what today’s trek will reveal.

The up/down nature of subway travel serves as the day’s early foundation.

Upstairs to street level reminds one of stepping into what many see as most growth. Changes in the environment grow large with the air, sun, water, and minds and hearts, finding the merger with others spawns certain kinds of growth spurts.

Whether a baker’s sign being hung above the sidewalk or attached to the outer wall, rest assured there are probably 40 more floors  of another Manhattan tower above the baker.

Dog walker smiles at his canine’s sense of smell, picking up the scent of another four-legged city tenant lounging on a windowsill 3 stories above, watching lessor dimensions saunter by, occasionally eyeing the burger wrapper catching an updraft and floating up and past him oh so lightly to an even higher destination… unknown.  The window lover used to bark at such marvels but realized a while back that like so much that rose above him, it was not for him to waste any more barks on.

Peering higher on the relief map, some realized there was so life left behind, so many yesterdays of calmer times, even for the few with penthouses and roof gardens, with their extension of living even higher, in spite being nurtured by sunlight and water cans, such residents thought it nothing abnormal.

Such were and are of  many empty hearts and shallow minds, unaware of their mimicry of rewarding lives below that seem to be surviving without accouterments of luxury that living high seems to afford.  Yet, many of these higher lives remain unable to find the contentment of entitlement promised.  How puzzled they remain looking down at the life that created a continual exit up the stairs from the bowels of travel deep below to many street-level work places.

From Grand Central train steps, to sidewalk, to building entrance, to elevator, to arrival, is when the corporate executive is apt to lose sense of dimension as he drops into his desk chair and is greeted by his secretary’s cup of coffee habitually delivered.  He takes one last glance out the high-rise window at a business helicopter rising from an adjacent concrete and glass dimension as it disappears into a thin cloud layer.

He stares down at the many pages of a development contract for land that not long ago was protected by government preservation laws, but had been amended to accommodate the building of a massive resort and several many-storied hotels beside a crystal clear lake in New Mexico.

Many miles away from the desk of the land contract details, a young Navaho boy asks his grandfather why they have to move.

“More white people’s turning of the earth”

“But why?” the boy asks.

Grandfather pauses, eyes beginning to glisten with his deep-seated sadness, “Because that is what happens when too much thinking is void of the heart’s partnership.”  He points to the sky.  “Going higher and higher, forgetting how low lands are what was here for so many years before people from far away came and began with dreams of the soil movement and the growing desire to rearrange mother earth… at her expense.  High became higher.  Higher became Highest.  Highest became the dream of only a few, but enough to make so many think it okay.  Little did they know our belief that the earth has the sacred license to naturally push up the ground, make hills and mountains.” 

He reached down and picked up a handful of dirt and placed it in the boy’s hands. “We are deep-rooted, my son.  Some things must be respected forever.  We will find another place to start again.  Don’t worry.”

The boy paused, looking out at the virgin land around him and nodded.