The feeling I have in mind is the joy of exchanging and exploring ideas with a certain person I met on another forum whose only name I know as "Guest". That person also is part of Zaadz. The elusive word I'd love to discover is his or her real name. Do you read me, friend?

                Today I walked to Pitts Park in my south eastern American hometown and sat on the sandy, wooded banks of the Soque River, at the spot that conjoins and flows past the far end of the park.; in my quest to reconnect with Nature, I’ve visited this spot many times before. Each time I’ve paid a visit, I've seen and noticed something different, and I’ve come away feeling better. But, today, the rewards of reconnecting with the Earth greatly exceeded my expectations….

                As I walked to the park about 2 p.m., the sun was shining brightly, and the sandy river banks, as usual, were overgrown with trees and shrubs that shade the River. Only patches of light could be seen here and there in the water and through the trees. On arrival, I sat in my usual spot on the bank, all the while looking to and fro very slowly, taking in a few deep breaths, and studying the rich assortment of greens and browns lying shamelessly visible in the stream. Without particularly noticing it, time slipped by rather quickly and seemed to disappear altogether.  After perhaps 10 or 15 minutes, I looked southward to the bend in the river with its steep tree-lined banks, and to the right of midpoint in the bend, on the same side that I was sitting on, I noticed a relatively narrow break in the line of trees. Where the line was broken, a slender but solid shaft of light traveled diagonally both leftward and downward, from the top of the bank to the bottom of the bank, straight to the edge of the river. Had I walked to the spot where the shaft of light was projected, I might have concluded that it was one to two feet in width and three to four feet in length; it, of course, looked quite a bit narrower and shorter from where I sat.) I then noticed that where the water met the bank, the shaft of light was faithfully and steadily reflected on the water, which ambled slowly and silently onward as if carefully keeping the reflection intact.

                Immediately I  found the shaft of illumination and its reflection in the water mesmerizing. As I continued to study it, I could see that its edges on both the bank of earth and on the water were very straight and that the light itself was solidly bright. Gazing ever more steadily into it, I alternated between allowing all surrounding landscape to disappear from awareness, and framing the scene with my hands, so as to evaluate the best angle to capture a photograph....I was indeed ecstatically aware of what a glorious photograph this would be, if I only had my camera with me….I continued to watch the shaft of light until the sun traversed the afternoon sky and took away all traces of illumination from that spot. While I had indeed been completely entranced with this sight, the best was yet to come – several hours after I left the park.

                The full gift of “The Shaft of Light”  was very nearly lost on me, since its full significance didn’t dawn on me several hours after I left the park.   It wasn’t until then that I suddenly realized that the shaft of light, combined with its watery reflection, perfectly resembled the “less than” (<) sign used in mathematics. Not only that , just as suddenly I  realized that Nature herself had spoken directly to me. Her message seemed multi-faceted: It both involuntarily drew me in (with its almost blinding white mathematical sign) AND invited me in (on the strength of the beauty of the location alone!); moreover, it simultaneously “pointed” to my connection (literally, with the less than sign) – not only to that spot (the entire scene at the River’s edge), but to all of nature. In addition, Nature seemed to be telling me that there was much more going on at that moment than what I was actually seeing (another reason I was seeing a “less than” sign instead of a “greater than” sign – although it probably wouldn’t have mattered which direction the “sign” was pointed in, it might have meant the same thing!), that I was only seeing appearrances; that much was in fact going on “behind the scenes”. That I was being invited to explore my connections with Nature ever so much more deeply.