Hammock Lessons
The backyard is tiny, no more than 30 by 30 surrounded by a 7 ft high concrete wall. In the far corner stands a twenty foot tall palm tree festooned with dozens of coconuts. He is one happy palm tree.
Unusual for this part of Mexico, a carpet of thick grass blankets the yard between the walls. To the right stands an exotic guanábana (Soursop) tree full of fruit. Across the far wall blooms an exuberant bouganvilla in orange and hot pink. Last seasons pomegranites hang on next to the palm and next to them, adjacent to the porch and my hammock, blooms the most extravagant hibiscus. Eight or nine blooms on the hibiscus, deep hot pink and red with yellow stigma. She is extraordinary.
Orange creamsicle clouds rim the horizon. There is a slight breeze rattling the palm and somewhere far off thunder rumbles. It may rain today - finally. Dog stretches, yawns, strolls around her yard, flops down under the palm to gnaw on a piece of old coconut.
The hammock is slung between two porch posts just under the tile roof. Let it rain. The patio is concrete with a twin row border of small inset rocks for decoration.
There is the noise of desultory hammering construction nearby, the intermittent sound of motors - scooters or cars - passing, dogs barking. There are always dogs barking. It is noisy outside the walls.
Within the walls peace reigns.
From the hammock, all is palm, bougainvilla, hibiscus, sunshine and clouds. Doves coo nearby, a hummingbird buzzes the bougainvilla, two mockingbirds stride atop the wall - assessing their territory. It starts to rain gentle, light, warm, hissing off the roof. Two butterflies chase each other across the yard in a flickering duet.
I doze, slide from snooze to awake. Pay rapt attention to each moment, grateful for its grace.
Everything in this yard is love and joy made real, made actual. The binding principle of the yard is simple...to be...beautiful. The hummingbirds, the flowers, the butterflies, the rain, the grass, the palm are vortices of energy expressing love, joy and hope. Why else would they - or anything - exist?
The yard (even the man in the hammock) is an improvisational fountain of conscious energy. Each individual rises from the same sacred source of love and joy and so we are hitched to the other. Each component - flower, tree, grass, insect, bird, dog, man - plays their part to improvise harmonious moments of love and joy. The yard is made of beautiful, tranquil jazz.
Time spent improvising on the hammock in the back yard is refreshing as a dive into cool deep water on a hot day. The jazz playing here is the jazz playing on the Gila River wilderness, behind a casita in Tucson, on Orcas Sound, on Mt Baker, on the Oregon Coast, in the Sonoran Desert, on the Altamaha River, in your backyard.
It is the jazz of Earth-home. All we have to do is listen.
