All I've been longing for for quite a while in this hustle and bustle city is for a little stillness. It's pretty much impossible but never-the-less it remains a goal. I got a taste of it upstate this past weekend. In fact the moment this photograph was taken was during the very moment I felt most still. I had swam to the middle of the lake and thought to come back. At one point I got a little tired so I started swimming on my back. I realized that I could float really well so I stopped moving completely and let me ears fall below the water. I couldn't hear much but the sounds of muffled water and my breath and heart... and had my eyes shut so I couldn't see. I just floated on the surface of water completely unaware of where I was for a short moment in time. I'm not sure how long I was floating there... but I heard a very faint calling and finally opened my eyes. I still had water in my ears so I couldn't hear but I saw the look of distress on Kevin's face. Apparently a large water snake had swam up from the middle of the lake right up to me. It swam against my arm and down my side and then across my stomach... and continued on its way towards the rocks at the shoreline. I was so still that a large, possibly poisonous, snake thought I was a log and just passed me by. Had I noticed I most likely would have overreacted and gotten bit. I love that I had such a close call and was just peacefully floating on my back.
There is a point where in the mystery of
existence contradictions meet;
where movement is not all movement
and stillness is not all stillness;
where the idea and the form,
the within and the without, are united;
where infinite becomes finite,
yet not losing its infinity.
-Tagore
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