Hidden

“A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves! Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.” -Meister Eckhart

I've had the lucky fortune of gaining a great running trail near my house. My first apartment had a nearby river, my first home a botanic garden; and now my third home is not far from a subtle creek. Most of my runs are a nice down and back along this creek. As this is my first summer in my Colorado home, I've noticed something new at the creek that was not there in the Fall, or Winter, or Spring. Insanely tall wild grass. Four feet high in all instances and nearly seven or eight feet high by the bank. Needless to say, I'd have a better chance finding my three-year-old in a darkened IKEA than amongst the slopes of this creek.

Some evenings, while running, I’ve seen a mouse scurry across the path, or a snake slowly slither. During the heat of the afternoon countless grasshoppers are jumping to and from the path into the thick grass, vanishing into the blades. There is a way that Winter hides, with the long periods of darkness or the layers of snow and ice burying the earth. But Summer, too, has its way of hiding. Not through a barren absence but through the enormity of its presence.

I wrote about the narratives in our lives that can, if we aren’t careful, over define who we think we are or who we think we are supposed to be. But the cascading grass this summer has invited me to ponder the ways that we also voluntarily hide in our accomplishments, in our occupations, in where we come from or what we like or don’t like. It is not just stories that keep us stuck in a way of being or a way of doing, it is also the enormity of what each day brings to our schedules and to our bodies. And it isn’t that we don’t want another way, we just have trouble finding it. But a tree has as many roots as it has branches — you too have a deep ground that’s inviting you to stop covering yourself up with the temporal grass of your current mode and listen for the hidden creek that is patiently flowing.

May you seek that which is hidden inside you. As the summer starts to fade and fall begins to enter the conversation may you harvest the overgrown grass in your life. May you not be overcome by the enormity of the world around you, but may you close your eyes and hear the immensity of your own presence. And may you, my friend, in all this harvesting, find a new path to run on.