THE RIVER. THE WATERFALL. AND THE OBSEVER

      There I was again - standing on the river's shore, probably looking like a ghost, and listening to the sounds of the Nature. My eyes were observing the surroundings very calmly and I was breathing almost without any signs - maybe because my attention, that was focused on the magical surroundings, had hushed myself up completely. 

      Few hours ago I had broken one of the principles I was laughing at this week: 'to catch up with something that's still not done'. Why should someone catch up with something..And there I was in this sunny day - spending few hours to pick up herb tea that I did not manage to do last year. I had to catch up. Hahhah. Yeah..I laughed about myself..It is very often that a tiny element of the opposite breaks into my actions  - just to remind that, although things can be simple, not everything's so elementary.

     A very lazy day. So calm. Nobody wants to do anything big. And, you know what? - it is not always necessary..

     My grandma, who had finished peeling potatoes, with her eyes half-closed in the bright sunlight, was telling me another story. And I was thinking - how strange it is that people tell stories so passionately about something that has happened a very long time ago. Well, it is quite alright. But we must not forget about the current, to feel the moment, the warm sunlight and mild wind touching our skin: We. Are. Here.

- 'But how do you think, are all the people there, wandering as ghosts at the cemetary? I think that they reshape into some other form of existance..somewhere..in the Universe."

- 'Yeah, I think that's a nonsense..Those are probably the memories that are wandering there..'

Me and grandma respectively were reasoning.

     A little later in the same evening we, the three young people, were sitting on a great pile of rocks like some pigeons, and discussing the 'big things'. Hah. We were talking about dreams, subconsciousness, how mind itself is limited and that a human being is the consciousness that is conscious about all the things that are happening in his life and about all the things that mind is reasoning so reasonably or unreasonably..That the mind is just a tool, and that a human being is something greater, something much more vast..

     We finished our discussions. I took the cell phone that was dropped somewhere in the grass, and the clock was showing exactly 20:20 (I kissed the screen.. silly- right?). Then we went to enjoy this warm spring evening somehow more practically - Men went fishing. Women - playing badminton.

     Then I stood there, on the shore of the river. Again. I sat down on the half-ruined boat. I was watching the ducks rushing down from the sky into the river. The reflection of houses and trees in the water. Dogs' barking. Then I took a deeper breath after such a long period of short breaths, and then I felt the scent of spring that is so hard to describe. In front of me was that calm river that turned into a waterfall further on the right, behind the bridge. The last serious thought I thought that evening was that if I was the consciousness that is able to observe itsleft from the side, then my mind and my thoughts were like that waterfall that was falling down there, and many, many truths were falling down there, but I (the consciousness who was sitting there by the river and observing my mind - the river and the waterfall) couldn't hear all of it, just some sepparate sounds, phrases..And all that it meant, was that I needed to return into this natural observing position in order to hear more new sounds in this waterfall that maybe will be put together as a word, phrase, a sentence, a chapter, a story at some point in my life.

MORNINGS. YARDS. AND THANKS.

I woke up in the morning with bright and hot sunbeams on my face and with a little muscle pain after the yesterday's workout. Aaahh and aauuch. And 'wow!' for the vivid beauty outside my window. I feel it all so much. This means I am alive. THANKS for this day I've been given!

One of the greatest privileges during my stay at my parent's house in the countryside is the opportunity to go outside in the yard just as I roll out of my bed; if there's a colder weather, I put on someone's jacket (others' jackets - either my dad's, mom's, brothers', grandma's or friends'- are always better.. maybe this is the way we, the shy and the introvert persons, give ourselves a hug from them..or just ..just simply, without a trite explanation...), wearing some slippers or in the summer - a los pies descalzos* (barefoot), and then I take my full cup of tea/coffee and go somewhere in the yard to continue to be silent - on a rock, a log, a branch - until I'm fully aware of what I'm supposed to be aware: The Being. The Present. The Miracle.

While I'm living in the city, my balcony is my yard. And so I let the balcony to replace the function of the yard - I let it to conjure up the sweet atmosphere: a fresh air and a fleeting fragrance of the first spring flowers blossoming in the park just across the street, the sunbeams on my face and some sounds of the nature breaking through the city noise (and there's also some very nice tenor breaking through my laptop - that's Bocelli - my companion of my late-creative-evening).

I cannot express this in English..but we, Latvians have this one beautiful word that inhale and exhale makes in my mind: PALDIES (meaning: Thank you) - inhale makes 'PAL' and exhale makes 'DIES'. In English it would be like this: inhale makes 'THANK' and exhale makes 'YOU'. Of course, this works if you use your imagination, and as I have no problems with that, I choose to believe that every breath I take, sounds like Thank You. This THANK goes to the very fact of being and being here as a conscious and loving person as well as for love, beauty and miracles all around me..

Therefore, every time I remember that I'm breathing, I let the inhale and exhale sound like a silent (but in it's very essence a loud and humble) "Thank You"!

Thank you all, and may your day be full of miracles.

Author (text, picture): Kristine Lejina

STILLNESS

What's the good of a silence if your thoughts are louder than a passing train or a thunder?

What's the use of escaping to another place when you cannot be in peace with yourself?

All you gonna meet there is you. Wherever you go, you meet yourself there.

Silence is good, but stillness is what matters the most.

Author (text, photo): Kristine Lejina

DROP THE NEEDLESS. LISTEN

Sometimes things and happenings are just like these sneakers here on the ladder (or sometimes in a tree or a power cable) - they are quite useless, but they sure catch your attention.

Don't strive to squeeze out the meaning of every single thing - if it's meant to reveal itself, it sure will and it will definitely lead you a step closer to where you should be. You have this power, this feeling inside that helps you to distinguish the meaningful and the meaningless -  just find a peaceful place and you will hear it more clearly and loudly. Drop the needless. Listen..The silence speaks.

Author (text/photo): Kristine Lejina

GOOD LUCK OR JUST SHARDS?

Soon, soon I will find myself in a place that I put in one word - "countryside" (the nature there is more concentrated than in city; there are no traffic lights that sometimes gives us away of how we are rushing to something extra-urgent (or are we pretending so ably?) and there is no crowd that sometimes can drag you away with its inertia while you're standing there puzzle-headed about where to put your next step), - it is an opportunity to step back to look at myself from a distance.

I woke up from a several-weeks-long moonstruck walk, rubbed the eyes of my spirit and batted my eyelashes and then I tried to figure out what had happened during this long walk and again why everything that seemed so important in the city rush suddenly evaporated like the morning fog with the first warm sunbeams? A lot had happened..I don't think I can call myself a competent translator of the happenings: I doubt, because I am still learning, and all I can understand are just little fragments of the endless story.

I had managed to rebel. That wheel of  the"Good-and-meaningful" was rusted, and it seemed to me that I could read an inscription on it saying: "Nobody nor says a word nor does a thing? Then I'll also remain still!". To kick my leg on the ground to shake it enough to make the wheel run again, I went trough a range of emotions that I once ran trough when I was preparing for a more than 10 metres high jump in the pool, when I was jumping and when I had done it: turmoil and trouble remembering to breathe normally. The ability to distinguish which of the voices crying around "Jump!", "Don't jump!" harmonize more with the voice of my heart was of great importance. And then- the jump into the unknown and awarding feelings afterwards. TO EXTEND YOUR HORIZONS, YOU NEED TO JUMP!

A lot of dishes had been smashed. Like never before. Really, is so much good luck going to occur? All that was left to do was to gather the shards so others wouldn't crush them..crush...the good luck or the shards?

I had met so many pairs of eyes - some of them too indecent ("Why on earth such an indecent and piercing look?) and some of them seemed to be telling me: "I know something that also you should know!"..And sometimes I myself was some of these pairs of eyes trying to swim into the depths of others' eyes..

I also had experienced that someone told me that I was THE BEST when I was GENUINE AND FREE.

I had oberved that someone accross the street was rushing so vigorously, appearing so busy to and rushing to deal with some urgent matters (perhaps, perhaps..), throwing a hint that we'll talk some time later (after hundred years*..)..So urgent matters that one must cross the street while the red light is still on, so that the acquaintance, seen already a while ago, doesn't come too close. Sometimes I myself was this person rushing across the street. BUSYNESS was also one of my fig leaves that I used to cover myself with. I had several more (silence, apathy, stupidity etc.), and I was wearing them depending on the situations in which some suited more than other. Sometimes I was also crossing the street while the red traffic light was still on, and I was holding in my free hand such things as "urgent", "duty" etc., so I couldn't (or was I afraid?) give my hand to the Truth that was giving her hand to me many times before promising to wake me up from the sleepwalking and to lead me through much, much better paths..

Maybe I need to drop down all the fig leaves and trashes out of my hands and to give my hand to the things that are calling me for a long time, and maybe those things are able to teach me when shattered dishes are just shards and when they mean a good luck...