Enchanted By The Rock

A week ago Tomas and I went camping at Enchanted Rock State Natural Area with some friends. It's a favorite place of mine for opening myself to a special communion with Nature and to meet a simplified, primal connection of Earth and Sky that speaks deeply to my cells. I drove us there, partly because my Pookie-Mouse had worn himself out with some long, hard work days. Plus I enjoyed the glorious Hill Country landscapes along the way.

      We're seasoned campers and pretty good at the whole thing, yet with Tom's work burn-out and me still in the midst of intense revisions of Moontusk Book Two: Orchid of Awakening for the publisher, our preps turned out to be slightly lacking. We forgot a few important things--somehow!--only I do love our inflatable mattress with the battery-powered pump! It's a bit bouncy and by morning has always lost some air, but works many times better than wrestling hard ground through thin foam pads, as we've sometimes done.
      The good company of some special friends also helped with the Magick of breaking free from routines--always a healthy thing on all levels!
      In the morning, early on Tomas went down into the stream-bed to try out his new camera on some wildlife. In his inimitable fashion he'd done plenty of research to get just the right tool for the job and finally rewarded himself with the purchase the day before. He's doing a lot of wildlife photography for the new edition of his A Hill Country Nature Book that he's working on. He's still learning the specs on this fine little Artificial Intelligence, only he's already gotten some choice shots. That's largely due to his phenomenal talent as a photographer.
      At any rate, later around mid-morning the groups of our companions finally got sorted out and ready for the hike up the rock. For those readers unaware, Enchanted Rock is the 2nd largest exposed granite dome in the continental USA. Native Americans heard the awesome and sometimes eerie sounds of the layers of rock heating and cooling and rightly attributed a special power to the place.

      By my own brand of scientific animism the sound really IS spirits communicating. By that I don't mean anything supernatural or paranormal. My animistic tendencies are now merged with non-duality or Oneness, which feels totally right to me, indicating that Spirit is all there is, if it exists, it's like Energy, it's the basis of All Things. None of those dualities like spirit and matter, good and evil, us and them, hold up under close inspection. They're merely concepts, while the totally inclusive Oneness simply IS.
      So last Saturday I had the privilege of sitting silently for a while, hand upon the granite, listening deeply, in my heart and in my cells. I heard the rock speaking. Only I can't tell you in words what it said . . . except this is the kind of deep listening we all need to do with matter, with our bodies, with the Earth itself.
      The truth is a few things that exist: you and me, our bodies, Nature, the planet, the Sun and Moon, the stars and the Universe. And weirdly enough, all those things are One. Love, which has no opposite. Beyond that, it's all just ideas--mental fluff.
      Sorry for all this philosophizing, but there's no remedy: I'm a Sagittarius. That's why my pal Nerissa sometimes calls me "Bruce the Deep"!

    
      Enchanted Rock not only enchanted me, it grounded me and brought me back to center.
      Even a pebble in your palm is worth listening to.
      Why not give it a try?