Yesterday I took Adele out to see the old dryland pasture. Randy S. came with us. Our families used to have adjoining properties out here off Valley Creek Road. We trespassed on land that once had belonged to our fathers, driving the Audi out where most Audis never quite make it. Adele was skeptical, but Randy helped convince her I knew what I was doing, though I don't think he was quite sure, either.

We drove as far as we could, until we came to a gate with three padlocks on it. We stopped there. Talked about building fence and land swaps. Listened to a meadowlark sing. Watched a lone antelope move through the distant timber, out into the open, then over the next hill. Adele took a little walk up to the top of the nearby rise to see what she could see, Butler chasing up behind her.

I said to Randy, "Listen: that's something you don't hear in L.A." There was quiet. Then the meadowlark. Then quiet. A magpie. Quiet. 

"Silence," I said.

Randy listened, then cocked his head. "What's that? Is that the wind?" 

There was no wind where we were, but there was a sound, moving toward us, advancing through the trees on the hill and over the gullies. Swishing through the spring grass. A quiet roar. Then there was the wind, suddenly upon us, rushing past, fluttering our clothes, our hair, then fading and gone.

Now my father and Randy's father would never admit this, but I think they knew it  at times as clearly as Randy and I did at that moment: the land was speaking to us. We stopped to pay attention, and the land noticed and payed attention back. It said hello. Welcome back. Good to see you. It doesn't matter who's claiming this property today. You're here and we're happy for that.

The Veda says there is only one thing. That this one thing is consciousness itself. When we give our attention to some other aspect of this one thing, that other aspect notices and responds in kind.

There's a story about an anthropologist in the Himalayas who noticed, on the other side of this deep valley, a holy man, dancing, naked, through the afternoon and deep into the full-moon night. Next morning he was back, and the anthropologist could see him through his telescope, there in his mountain meadow amid the grasses and flowers of spring, laughing as he danced and dancing without pause. He had to know what was happening over there, so he trekked back to where he was able to climb down into the valley and, eventually, up the other side. Finally reaching the holy man a full day later, he was able to ask him, "How can you have this much happiness here, day in and day out, when you are so absolutely alone?"

And the holy man replied, "Whatever do you mean, 'alone'?" 

He was there with nature, with the personalities of nature. With the life and the life force that cannot be denied, that must come out, that must be expressed and that, as it turns out, loves an audience. This is the world we live in. Believe in it or not. It believes in you.

Today I will say hello to a plant of some sort. I will smile at the sky. I will take a breath and thank the air for its cooperation.