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Glenn's zen afternoon

We started our day by working hard on the yard. After lunch, Tina and our helper for the day stayed up by the house working on things while  I went to work at our creek that drains the lower portion of our property. After a while I needed to take a break, so I simply laid down on the sidewalk and rested my head on a small log.

As I laid there, quiet and still, nature begin to open up to me. The waves lightly lapping the sand. The creek babbling as it drained through the mangroves into the sea. The cool breeze softly rustling the trees and kissing my skin. 

Staying still brought another level of amazement as the small fiddler crabs started popping out of their hiding places. Normally they run away, so watching them became mesmerizing. At first a few came out waving their larger claws in the air. Them more and more until the ground was covered by hundreds of crabs ranging from a couple inches wide down to a small fraction of an inch. 

As I kept watching this dance, the human world shrank around me and the animal world opened. Things I couldn't see at first became visible. Some dragon flies flitting around a puddle and landing on grass stalks. Butterflies of various sizes and colors getting very close to me. Larger crabs coming out of their hiding holes to look around. Some birds landing in the tree branches only feet away from me. Some very tiny ants walking on trails only inches away. The sounds of work up on the hill vanishing.

I think I laid there motionless for about an hour, taking in all that nature wanted to share with me. Who would have thought that a moment of mental and physical exhaustion would turn into an hour of communing with nature and a feeling of such peace? I hope to recapture this feeling again many times over the years to come.

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