Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Today marks my first official day of 'weekend', that strange bookmark that happens in our unnaturally structured lives. And yet I am in love with it. I am appreciating the amount of freedom I have in this newfound stability.
I took the dog out this morning to one of the many amazing bits of forest and beach and ocean that abound in the place I live. Maybe 'we', as a general population sometimes take it for granted that we live in this beautiful spot. I wandered in wide circles through the forest trails of Garry Oak and Arbutus, watching Kimik in his quest for all that moves, darting through the forest, finding things to dig and sniff and occasionally chase.

There is a strange groundedness that has overtaken me of late, as a friend pointed out, of not looking much forward or back, of just being in this moment of my life and seeing it for all that it contains. I have experienced an unexpected kind of landing, another one of those times when timing and my own seemingly directionless path find me arriving at a destination that feels like the right one. A destination only predictable through hindsight; if I look back over the past 15 or more years I can clearly see the threads I have been weaving together, almost unknowingly, over time. How they've become something with a form and pattern. If I happen to look forward, I can only imagine the possibilities.

Each pause to notice is like sowing a seed along the way. It seems like such a small thing, to relent even for a second or two in the pushing forward, the questing that we do in life. To stop wanting for something that is not here yet, or anymore, to see that what is here is worth noticing. If I stop to see things fully I am reminded that everything is contained within a moment.

We are beginning to drift towards the darker days of winter. But today I am attuned to the clarity of the fall light, the way the sun catches and mingles with the crisp air and how the brown leaves rustle underfoot. As I moved through the forest this morning I noticed the texture of the cool-warm breeze, the way the breath of convection has a way of setting loose the smells of dried grasses and moss. I can almost feel the gathering of energy in the trees, as they abandon their outward growth, and begin to set store for the deepening work of winter.