I Am Here

“When you find a place where you are, practice begins”

~Eihei Dogen (1200-1253)

Rainbow sun dogs frame the occluded sun

on this prairie winter morning sky.

Wide open space

demarcated by a distant railroad

advocates forever,

is anything forever?

The rolling ranch lands speckled in Angus black

and stubby tubes of autumn straw

punctuate this golden vista

morphing into majestic mountains.

A sanctuary for my senses,

the proverbial breath of life,

a rhythmic cadence,

my new home.

Moving to something implies,

moving away from something else;

we run to this,

we run from that.

Life is not doing as much as being.

life is a practice in awakening;

awakening takes practice.

Physical distance is the divine illusion

that we are moving,

we are always here,

I Am Here.

Copyright © Henri Ferguson 2012

 All rights reserved.

I planned to move. I am moving. I have moved. Actually it’s all a process. I do not miss the frenetic energy of the big city, the shadow side of the boom economy, the sirens wailing endlessly, the homelessness, the graffiti that says it all. I am somewhere down that forever continuum, doing what denizens of this planet do, life in a word.

 I have moved to Canmore AB, a little mountain town that I have been smitten with from the early seventies. I marvel at my surroundings, the moonlit milky mountain tops in my back yard, the crisp air, and the bazillion stars that were there all along. This place doesn’t take my breath away, it puts my breath back. I’m just realizing that it has been missing for a very long time. I am here.

Written January 4, 2012 Canmore, Alberta