I have been camping in the beautiful George Washington National Forest, at Todd Lake, high in the mountains. I was awoken in the dawn hours by certain coldness on my feet, which had stretched out beyond the coverings. I was up and out as soon as I glanced the brightening sky through the open tent flap.
I took the path above Todd Lake, as the sun played with the light over the rim of the mountains to the East. The lake was lower down by a good depth, looking eerie as the dark space below swirled about in fog.
I sat on a rock near a dead tree that dominated my immediate landscape. As the sun came over the rim and penetrated down into the dark lake hallow, the fog seemed desperate to escape this light and ran into a corner of the lake where two high banks met, causing the wind to swirl that fog into a cylindrical, visible cone that danced before my eyes. It was electrifying to see this perfectly formed funnel, a light grey in color, gyrate before me. It quickly disappeared.
Three rabbits sat on a mown path along a meadow plateau near where I sat. The younger two rabbits jumped over each other in a mating dance of their own.
A baby wren landed on a small tree and cried out to be fed, addressing the sky, its parents, and the sunshine. It sent out its signals in all four directions.
The tree above me became very busy, as two black-capped chickadees seemed to object to the little wren being there. The baby wren ignored their posturing and chirps completely.
On the bare stick branches of the dead tree nearby, between the rising sun, and me a woodpecker climbed up looking for breakfast, knocking on the wood, four beats. The round thumps swelled out from the rotten wood.
It was hard to close my eyes against this busy breakfast time all around me above the lake. The wonders of the lake were played on by the sun, wind and shade. The speckles of light on the lake shone with newness after a night of rain. My silence brought newness inside.
I have always been puzzled about how Jesus fits into the grand scheme of the spiritual and meditation. My mother had a palpable love for Jesus and my Granduncle the priest shared his “Imitation of Christ” with her and I have it now. This never prevented me from having a false feeling when I would say I loved Jesus. My Bible Group prayed over me “by the Spilt Blood of Jesus.” The muscles in my leg let go and gave way to their entreaties.
As I rode my bike alone in the early evening down by the North End Green Way, the feeling toward Jesus, or the lack there of, came to my mind and all I ever read on this subject fell into place. Jesus never said we were to do anything other than “Love God.” He said, “Me and he Father are one.” In his last days on earth, prior to his crucifixion, he is reported to have gone to great pains to explain this to his followers. I tried for a while to read John’s gospel daily, Chapter’s fourteen through seventeen. Edgar Cayce’s comments relating to these verses were many and varied insisting on how helpful they would be to anyone who would read them in and of themselves.
As I went along the flat multi use bicycle path, I was hemmed in by tall flowering plants and newly planted trees. The black-eyed Susans waved their yellow heads by the thousand and bee-balm struck a blue note here and there. Even the thistles mostly on the right of me, with their purple show were of great interest to the golden yellow finches, which could be seen flying in a wave like motion.
The stream nearby was dry and the stony bottom was visible. A dear emerged out of the riverbank and briefly stared at me. His big round eyes and smart ears and beautiful golden color caught me by surprise. The eyes held me briefly, as we were only a few feet apart.
Racing on that greenway, deserted of people because of the heat, and silent because of being a little removed from the trucks on Liberty Street, dragged me into a gap and I briefly saw, what I wanted to see for so long.
Jesus was riding along with me, listening to my mantra, and affirming me in reaching out through the top of my head for the mist of God, feeling that overflowing down over me a dress.
My personal effort to reach into the gap, connecting in ever widening circles throughout my body; I felt a note of attunement as I sung.
Spending time alone, even on a bike, cutting off the world in favor of the gap where I can hide and look for the back of God flying by.
The intention of finding, however foggy, the gap where the back of God flies by is the wanted prize for me.
I dreamed that my inner man has his feet on mine and preventing me from moving with any fluidity. It will do me well to note that this is not another person but part of me that holds me back. It is a result of the sticky stuff of my habits and harmful ways.
The swimming goddess – from the dreams. 
From the dreams – watercolor completed by a client prior to coming to session. 
From the Dreams
That it is obscure and intractable and an undesirable fruit will only become clear if I take that responsibility of asking for liberation from the feet that bind me, my own, transfixing my physical body into an inability to free myself from the obscure and the tricky that is sticky in me
Dream work, prayer mantra and meditation are the stuff that brings into the flow of the mountain streams, that fills the rivers and that liberates the energy in my backbones. May the Love of God be in your Back Bone? Love from Rose.
PS: – I pray for you and you pray for me. It is working. I am remembering more often to do this. You can too. A new habit.
Rose Longworth Counseling 