Waking Up

A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living
in another town.
In the dream, he doesn't remember
the town he's sleeping in his bed in. He believes
the reality of the dream town.

The world is that kind of sleep.

The dust of many crumbled cities
settles over us like a forgetful doze,
but we are older than those cities.

We began
as a mineral. We emerged into plant life
and into the animal state, and then into being human,
and always we have forgotten our former states,
except in early spring when we slightly recall
being green again.

That's how a young person turns
toward a teacher. That's how a baby leans
toward the breast, without knowing the secret
of its desire, yet turning instinctively.

Humankind is being led along an evolving course,
through this migration of intelligences,
and though we seem to be sleeping,
there is an inner wakefulness
that directs the dream.

and that will eventually startle us back
to the truth of who we are...

- Rumi











Photos were taken at Iceberg Lake in Glacier National Park. It's a hike of 9 miles round trip to get to this magical place. The hike took us through Grizzly country and we did see three different grizzlies - fortunately, they were WAY up on the mountain, far from us. At the bottom of the trail, we spoke with a ranger who was roping off a trail, due to Grizzly activity. He said that he had seen 8 of the bears that morning. The nearest we came to one (that we know of) was to see fresh scat on the trail. That was enough to get me singing in a high falsetto as a means of scaring away any four-leggeds!