Without a Trail

I found myself at the snowy aspen grove of the mountain I had hiked. Or perhaps the mountain and the forest simply appeared; the mind could not retrieve the beginning of the trail, as if the act of walking had never happened. 

There was no past to recollect, I felt I was transported there by a wave I was familiar with, yet the mind couldn’t make sense out of what was happening. When I got there, everything felt still and quiet. It was not a new place, it felt like somewhere I had never left.

The forest around stood in silence, almost deafening as if it was announcing its intention, though nothing intended it. 

Nothing asked to be heard, there were no questions, no answers, there were no words forming thoughts. Wind moved through trees without purpose, carrying a silent yet profound wisdom that did not belong to anyone.

Gratitude appeared without a center. Not gratitude for the moment, not for subject or object, gratitude as the natural state that did not need content to be filled with. 

Movement and stillness revealed themselves as equal, effortless and harmonized. There was no witness standing separate from the scene, only seeing. There was no impulse to correct or transcend anything.  Nothing needed to be held or released. There was no arrival. The mountains offered no confirmation. The silence gave no explanation; it did not declare itself as sacred.

Nothing was absent.

There was no one left to name it.