When I See A Deer
I’m running through the woods close to my Mother’s house, just as I do on most days when visiting home.
I know the pace I’m after - approximately 60-70% of my maximum heart rate. A smooth, swift, graceful action, arms and legs in unison, torso upright with a slight forwards lean. My hands and feet soft and supple as I dodge, step and leap over branches, puddles, hard roots protruding from the ground. I hike the ups and fall (like water) down the downs. This way the harmony is maintained throughout and I protect my heart, my ankles and knees.
I continue deeper into the trees, where the bikers don’t come and the dogwalkers never reach. Squirrels dart and flurry up the occasional trunk, watch me a while, then keep jumping. I acknowledge them quickly, returning my eyes to the next obstacle, the next turn, the next precise step.
The trail rounds and undulates, up and over the dryer, sandier sections of the woods. I let the angles and falls take me, surrendering to the route.
35 minutes in. Another effortless ride. Continuous motion. Uninterrupted practice. The beauty of the human body and it’s moving limbs. The wonder of the heart and the majesty of the lungs.
And then the noise occurs...
A loud rustle in the bushes to my right.
My heart stops.
I see her face - the adult deer, gazing motionlessly my way.
Here ears are up, deciding what to do.
I stand in front, a gentle smile across my face.
There’s nothing to do but wait. To acknowledge the moment.
There is no time. My internal watch has stopped. The run is over for now. It doesn’t matter. I’m in the presence of true magic.
Eventually... she turns, peacefully, and bounds off into the trees.
I watch her leave as the rest of the world returns.
I walk a few steps forward and the run, again, begins.
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There is a great Buddhist wisdom often told that: ‘when one points at a full, silver moon, the other shouldn’t watch the finger... just the moon’
As with all such miracles that arise in daily life, the natural (and, indeed, recommended) thing to do is to absorb them fully, to witness and feel all that they are.
Certain practices and efforts - in my case, running - might point us in the right direction, and may even feel ecstatic themselves at times, but almost always they seem to be in service of that something else...
The unexpected treasure; a glimpse at God or whatever other higher power that’s at work; a Japanese moon; a deer.
When I run long distances in remote places, it’s the overcoming of (at times) extreme thirst, hunger, fatigue, the fear of getting lost in the clouds, of steep cliff edges, of thin air on high mountains, of wild animals, of my own voice inside my head, of my knees that might buckle and break over one of a million rocks and branches.
These emotions, sensations, realities provide the transcendence - that I am more than I think I am, than I believe I am. I have a spirit, a potential, that no MRI scan can measure, no painter can paint, no scientist can study.
And yet, still, this ‘overcoming’ of myself is not quite the miracle, the ‘moon’ that this article is about. It’s close. Pretty damn close. But not quite. For there is still the ‘Self’ that’s involved in such (I like to think) rather noble pursuits. It’s still about Me, with a capital M.
There’s another holiness, however, that trumps it. It makes this thing of ‘I’ feel so pointless, so ordinary and so vulnerable that a whole other internal instrument is played.
Yes... when I see that deer... it’s not me alone on stage, shredding a guitar solo... it’s me in the audience, back row... my eyes barely blinking... a couple of tears falling down my cheeks, without me knowing it...
And it’s the animal, simply being herself, no less and no more, that plays the orchestra.
“Never work with children or animals, for they’ll always upstage you”
(H.G. Fields)
Running into a deer is not the same as Running...
*Written for and published in ReMo Magazine Issue 6…
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