Camping: The Way We Used to Live

"The yogin walked into the forest, built a fire, and sat down to meditate."

The ancient Vedic and Vedantic literature contain thousands of stories, rich with drama, but this terse fable is a jewel distilled down to its essence. The pandemic reminded many of us that, in spite of all the restrictions and dangers, we might still wander into the woods, a place drenched in oxygen and teeming with life. But a place that if we were to linger for a while, would need some light, some warmth, and some smoke to keep certain manifestations of that life at bay! And once that flame is ignited, we are free to sit on the earth, gaze up at the sky, and explore all the spaces in between.

Into The Forest

The yogin walked into the forest:

Felt the silken air on hungry skin

Moist air flowing under bright blue skies

Softened by white puffs of fluffy clouds

The wafting melody of winged beauty

And steady beat of the bullfrog

Crowned by the haunting call of the loon

Surrendered to a sky of branches

So many kinds of wood leafing to the sun

Built a fire:

A little sun bursting from the earth

Delineates a circle and a cycle of illumination

To smoke out the pests and stake our claim

Calling us to sit low and go slow

Remember and reflect upon our true nature

To laugh over love and embrace loss

We see ourselves clearly in this leaping light

And sat down to meditate:

In this year of shifting truths

Danger from without, death from within,

Our very breath betrayed us

Separated from loved ones

While so many lost so much

And so many were simply lost

We found this forest, sat by this fire,

And returned to our more simple selves