Breaking Trails

Theme for February: Resilience

Saturday, February 20, 2021

On our one-hour sunrise walk today in the Denison Pequotsepos Peace Sanctuary, we often ‘broke trail’ over soft, newly-fallen snow, and, as we slowly stepped our way forward, I started thinking about other trails that are constantly being ‘broken’. Isn’t each new moment actually a brand new trail to take – a trail that literally never existed before? If I think untouched inches of new snow in a forest offers us a chance to start a fresh trail, what about present moments, each of which is like a pristine, unruffled layer of snow set down just for us? This morning, we stepped softly on the snow to start new trails, but we break new trails thousands of times each day as each unspoiled, flawless present moment spreads out before us .

Here are some scenes from this morning’s sunrise adventure …

And here's a poem from a few years ago 
about some other trails ... 

WALKING WITH DELYCIA IN DORSET, UK
 
We climbed steep trails,
or maybe something
took us up the trails, 
something like our own lightheartedness,
or the fulsome light that seemed
to inspire the hills and the sea and ourselves,
or perhaps the universe itself took us up the trail,
because it's always spreading out and rising,
and because it's never finished,

and neither are we.