Living while Dying - what do I mean?

Many people go through life like an ox walking around in circles, grinding corn. They are on automatic pilot; trudging to work, to home for dinner, TV, sleep and yard work on weekends followed by sports. They not only do not stop to smell the roses, the don’t even see them.

Think of a rose. Smell it. Every variety has a different and unique aroma. Feel a petal. It feels like silk between your fingers.
Look at the perfect symmetry of the petals. See the pollen in the center. To really experience a rose, you must do all of these things. I had never experienced a rose until 7 years ago. I was that ox, keeping my nose to the grindstone until I was in my mid fifties.

Consider a bird – from the majesty of its beauty in flight to the plumage you can study when it is perched. Hear the songs of the birds. They are all different and can be easily identified from the cheap of a cardinal, to the raucous scream of a jay, to the coo of a dove, and the intricate songs of the mockingbird. Look at the ungainliness of a pelican on land and compare that image with the soaring and swooping magnificent bird gliding just over the waves. Even a buzzard, reviled for its looks and it place in the ecosystem, is beautiful in flight. And despite our revulsion of its “duty”, think what our streets and highways would be like without them. Without scavengers, dead carcasses would be piled up along the sides of the roads.

The horse: a majestic and strong animal, capable of hurting and killing a human yet they bond with us and allow us to lead them around by a piece of string, to ride them and bid them to go where we want even if the horse does not want to go there. And the smell of a horse – a clean, fresh scent of live animal. Touching a horse’s nose and between its front legs feels like the silk of a rose. Soft and velvety.

We used to live in the country, along a river. For a while we kept our horses at home with us and I would come home every evening and ride my horse in the woods and along the river, dodging cypress knees and uprooted trees. We road through miles of undeveloped swampland, often knee deep in water.

When I walked along the river I would take time to hear the bird songs, the soft sound of the slow moving river, sound of small insects and of small animals moving about in the grass. In one particular spot there were 2 oak trees, a cypress and a tree which I could not identify growing out of one root-ball. I would sit and quietly meditate while “seeing” the trees. The smell of the swamp was also present - a musty, earthy smell.