Page 98 - ECOlogic Book

day. I wonder about the chemical that might be released at these times.
Endorphins? Or perhaps, as the ancient Hindus called it, “amrita”?
Whatever it is, I’m convinced that this “happy juice” is something that exists
in all life forms: an indicator that all’s right with the world; a sign that one is
in right relationship with the other life forms and with the larger whole of
which one is a part.

My soul knew this before I moved to this country-place. My soul had died
every night as I’d closed the windows to keep out the traffic noise. I realize
now that what I hated about the traffic noise was that it covered all the
delicate, subtle sounds of the night that I now treasure. Now, in this
country place, with only an occasional hot-rodder to disturb the peace, (yes,
here, too) these nourishing, mysterious sounds of the night keep me happily
awake for hours.

Living in urban areas, we give up our most immediate and acute way of
knowing the world. Recluses like me do not like quiet, though that is what I
thought I was moving to the country for. We like to hear all the music,
down to the tiniest insect click. We like it because it makes us whole. It
brings us into the web of life from which we’ve become isolated in our
workaday lives. We bloom. We know we are blooming because of the goose
bumps we feel when we open ourselves deeply to the world around us. You
can shut these goose-bumps off, and we usually do when they first start to
move in our bodies, because it feels so different from our “normal” state;
different and somewhat erotic.

Try it. When that first symptom of blooming appears in your body, draw it
in with a long, slow breath, then sigh it out (ahhhhhhh . . .). Allow the
goose-bumps to gravel everywhere through your body. It’s like standing in
a cool waterfall on a hot day, only better.

Goose-bumps are evidence of a shift in consciousness, away from control,
assertiveness, and ego, to openness, yielding, allowing the world to come in.
I believe this single act is more healing than anything we can do. Diet,
exercise, meditation . . . all are subsumed in one single “ahhhh . . . “. All
you have to do is hear. As trees open to nourishment when they “hear”
birdsong, so we open to nourishment as well. Of course, it helps if, with
your “ahhhh . . .” you’re breathing in the scent of the earth after rainstorm
or autumn leaves, or a pine forest.

It’s different at different times of the day and at different times of the year.
In the spring, it’s birdsong and spring peepers. Later in the summer, it’s
crickets in the tall grass. In the fall, it’s the honking of geese and the sound
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