Under the Big Blue SKy: Meeting the Land

Under the Big Blue SKy: Meeting the Land

Meeting the Land

I adore clear, bright fall mornings and clear sunny days in Northern New Mexico. The softness of the light, a gentle breeze instead of Spring's relentless winds, the refreshing coolness one finds in the shade and bone warming touch of the sun...all that, a friend, or a good book, or simply silence and a nice cup of coffee on the deck. I am grateful to live on this land.  Thats how i usually feel relaxed and rejuvenated.

But yesterday, I was delightfully rejuvenated not from luxuriating on the deck, but from gathering firewood off my land as masses of clouds scuttled across the sky, only occasionally revealing full sunlight. There was a short soft rainfall and the scent of juniper, pinon and sagebrush.  I filled my arms with pinon branches several times (the wood is left from the death of trees due to bark bettle diseases a few years back) and carried it, like the treasure it is, to the wood box. Later on it will help start fires in the wood stove, or the fireplace.

Not recreational exercise, but a full use of my body to meet the necessity of living here. When the wind got stronger I felt the way I imagine the horses do when i see them running, face into the wind, across the mesa. Full hearted and rejoicing in their alive wildness. I felt absolutely complete; and so grateful that living here asks this of me and that I am physically able and totally willing to meet the task.

What a joy.

I have to buy a cord of wood to really heat the house on days when solar gain is not enough, but this wood, this wood is right here.  It grew here, providing pinon nuts to the birds, a bit of shade to us and beauty and grace to the land. And it died here. And it is again of use, and the scent of pinon will fill the drift across the mesa as it burns this winter, giving us its beautiful warmth and light.

I have used alot of words here, but what i feel collecting wood from the land is really beyond words. Such a simple little task and yet so vastly rewarding.


Relating to the elements and to the land I live on...to the necessary task of gathering firewood before the snow falls...leaves me feeling so at home, so ALIVE, so "right-sized" and so integrated with the moment. Right-sized, thats the clue!  This task invites me to experience more deeply that i am a member of the living community here, a part of nature, not a tourist, but a working guest.

 I do truly belong here - in life.   And as they say in Zen, I can be informed by the 10,000 things...nothing opposes me.