April 23, 2008

Today I find myself on the highest available point in Jacksonville; the twelveth floor of the University Library.How did I get here? It all started with my first step outdoors today. I got up later than expected.It was past one by the time I got around to eating lunch. After lunch, I decided to go on a walk because it is such a beautiful day, it would be a shame to waste it indoors. I walked through the Quad, admiring it's antique beauty. All the different trees, including the ancient and mighty oaks, the rural beauty of the distant mountains, the red brick buildings that look as if they were taken from the ninteenth century, the lush color of the gardens and lawns surrounding Bibb-Graves; all of it is awe inspiring to a mind such as mine. It made me long for an old friend of mine: My Inspiration. She and I parted ways long ago now it seems, and after my walk around campus All I can think of is finding Inspiration once more. So now I find myself on the study floor of the Library, scratching out these words as I gaze out over the breath taking beauty before me. The mountains can be seen rippling off into the horizon from here. All manners of blues and greens fill the picture. Before me stands the majestic Appalachian foothills, clothed in a dark summer green. parts of it are a darker coloration than other parts as the nomadic clouds pass over them nostalgically. More of the mountains can be seen in the distance, fading from green to blue as they run to meet the horizon. The sky as well can be seen where it is not covered by the hulking forms of the behemoths that swim through its pale blue fathoms. Sky blue as Morning Glories melts into cyan tinted milky white as it reaches down to its mate at the horizon. Sky and Land together in Holy Matrimony:That is what the Horizon is after all. Nature's symbol of God's divine rite for humanity. Sky and Mountain, though two separate entities, shall always be bound together until the end of days by that uniting band we call Horizon. But I digress. I suppose that meditating is all about bringing such thoughts about, so I do not mind going off on tangents. That is just how my mind works. The clouds up here are much more personal than they are when one looks up at them from the ground. I can see much more much more of them, and I can better see their lumbering, yet graceful movements.It is quite awesome to look upon them this way. They remind me of great beasts that can be quite dangerous when stirred to wrath, but are otherwise gentle and passive. I watch them graze docilely upon the trade winds as they live out their lives going wherever the winds take them. It makes me wish I were a cloud, so that I could live out my days free as a breeze, gazing down with a mixture of sadness and mirth at the land and its inhabitants who go about their daily lives, never taking time to look up at me anymore. But I suppose it wouldn't make sense for me to be a cloud. After all, who would write about them if I was one of them?

I met a new friend today while sitting in the peace and relative quiet of the Library. I don't know how he got up here, but before me sits the largest brown grass hopper I think I have ever seen. I have been watching him as I write and I notice that he and I are akin in our thoughts and desires. For the past half hour he has been jumping at the window of the observation deck, trying with all his might, but in vain to return to the freedom of the outside world. From time to time I look up and see him pressed against the windowpane, clawing desparately and pitifully at the glass in desparate longing. It breaks my heart to see one that I can so deeply relate to suffering as he does. I want to help him, but there is nothing I can do. Even if I were able to take him out on the observation deck, the jump from here would surely kill him, though I am sure that that would be a far more glorious and most likely prefered demise than the one he is now doomed to endure: Trapped behind a wall of glass, able to see the outside world where all his bretheren are chirruping happily, yet he cannot sing, for he can only sit and claw in dispair at the invisible wall keeping him from his freedom. This is the lament for the Grass Hopper, for his life is wasted as he sits there, gazing hopelessly out the window, as so many of my fellow dreamers so often do. They spend their lives gazing out of the window at all of Nature's beauty but never even make many fruitful efforts to submerge themselves in the glory of God's Creation. It is amazing really. I came up here to contemplate on where I should start to look in order to find my inspiration again only to realize now that I've been staring into her eyes for the past hour. This world of ours is truly amazing. When I view Nature in all of her splendor, I can completely understand why the early Romantic writers wished to envelope themselves in her embrace. This too will be my new sanctuary, and I will embrace it now. It feels as if I have been up here for fifteen minutes, but in actuality, it has been over an hour. If I continue to sit here, I will become as my dear and bemourned friend, the Grass Hopper. Seeing how I've almost filled two pages of paper front and back with my thoughts I think it is time to move on, especially since the Study room is filling with students who are studying last minute for their finals.