Walking Meditation

Late May this year is giving us warm days with that soft moderating touch of Marine air. Sitting inside to meditate makes less sense than going to the Springwater Trail to walk and clear my mind.

The small shortcut trail is becoming obscured by wild clematis and blackberry vines trying to reach in even after I performed some snipping a month or more ago. 

The sides of the ravine explode in blackberry and clematis, not the pretty garden kind. I let me mind release judgement about that condition as my first practice. Then I begin noticing. 
I see a mile post sullied by graffiti stickers. I bend closer to determine that I can remove them with my fingernail. Yes! I am able to remove 2, leaving the marker looking again as it should. I decide this is part of my practice.

Then as if In reward I see a group of school kids, about 5th grade, down at the creek with little nets. They are studying bugs. Another group is removing shiny geranium invasive weed. I have pulled that weed here myself. It is very satisfying to see the difference. I am so happy these kids got out of the classroom today.

The springs bloom out of the hillside here and there. One of them was my grandmother's which we revered immensely as children. How absolutely rich to have one's own fresh water spring, cold and clear bubbling magically from the earth. 

Further along the trail I walk behind 2 young girls and one young adult woman accompanying them to the restrooms. One girl has dark curly hair and dark skin, the other has red hair and fair skin. The woman is yet another hue, not white. This makes me happy. They are having an easy conversation, a carefree saunter on a warm morning. I talk a bit to them at the restroom. The woman is a college student at PSU majoring in environmental studies. She is there volunteering to help with this elementary school field trip. 

One little girl asks her if people live here, where the picnic tables surround the restrooms. The woman says no. The girl points to a cart with blankets and a pillow stowed under a table. Explaining the homeless  situation to children is very weird. It reminds me of a walk downtown one day with my 4 year old grand daughter. She saw a tent set up in the middle of the sidewalk on a main street right there in our beloved "Downtown" which were we refer to from the Petula Clark song. Kaitlyn asks what it is, and I tell her it is a tent. I brace myself for the next question, but thankfully she hasn't gotten to that point yet. I wonder what I will say. 

I reach the busy intersection, where a bridge crosses Johnson Creek.  Right below the bridge still lies the big, clunky and now obsolete computer modem dumped there a few days ago. I use my practice to try not to be angry. Thankfully, there are hundreds of volunteers who show up for the Johnson Creek Watershed Clean-up every summer. I attended last year and found it astoundingly informative, as well as gratifying.

There is a huge peach colored rose bush visible on the edge of smaller Errol Creek around the corner. I wish I had a clippers, I would love a few of those blooms. Bushes left from the gardens of the homes which have been removed to restore the wetland.

I make a loop and begin the return home. Along the way I am able to remove 3 more stickers from signs on the trail. One said "There's no government like no government." Seemingly placed there by someone who certainly takes advantage of a beautiful trail which exists because of our government. It is stuck on too hard for my fingernails to do much, but I manage to remove the word like. Now it reads , "There's no government, no government."
I am pleased with the irony.