As
at home
as I am
leading technical
seminars
in corporate boardrooms, I'm ecstatic hiking the parks, the
forests, the wildernesses of
our planet.
There are two main benefits of this. One of them clearly is it's
great exercise. But that's only the secondary benefit. The primary
benefit is there's a
presence
here, an experience of what I call the
Big Quiet,
the
vast
uninterrupted
beingsphere
largely unnoticed by man. It's a pristine environment which hasn't
changed (at least not by much) since primitives walked the face of
the Earth.
All physical spaces are reactivating - especially this one. What
this space reactivates, I like.
The
Big Quiet
notwithstanding, nature's splendor in and of itself isn't enough
since it isn't formatted to engender, to bring forth
transformation.
Descriptors like
peaceful,
magnificent, awesome, beautiful, even spiritual
abound here. But none of them come with any guarantee of
transformation
- in fact they may even distract from it.
Transformation
is brought forth by taking a stand for
transformation.
Paradoxically
this splendid environment can lend itself to be a shield
from the
rigors
of bringing forth
transformation.
Taking this stand isn't for the faint hearted. It takes a certain
daring, it calls for bringing something to the table, it
demands I ante up, it insists I have something at stake.
But if you plan to hide or to hold back from the
rigors
and the risks of bringing forth
transformation,
then this park (anywhere in nature actually) is a
great place to come. By the same token,
bringing already
transformation
to a place like this gives the perfect
congruency
of the greatest
work
we can do in Life, with the magnificence of
creation.
The walk I'm taking along the paths of this park is around five
miles. Unlike other walks on some other occasions, I'm not taking
this one briskly. Rather I'm putting one foot in front of the other
- slowly heel and toe. Time's no object. The idea is to
savor every step, every moment. This could last forever. Or
longer. I've got time. Every foot's a new vista, every step's a new
country. By the way, so's Main Street USA. It's just more
obvious, more immediate here.
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