Most days of the week during the times of the year when it's light outside at seven in the morning, I go for a walk around Stow Lake here in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. I enjoy starting my day this way, it's a good form of light exercise, and there are very few people around so early, which allows me to relax more and experience the natural world in a way that I find more difficult when there is a lot of human activity around me.
At this time of day, in this part of the city, it is generally somewhat to quite foggy, and the moisture and early morning sun highlight the plant life here in an always soothing, and sometimes remarkable way. There have been multiple times that I have been walking the one mile path around the lake that I have experienced the colors as I come around a turn as if I am seeing them under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, and well, I haven't done any of those in many years, and I'm pretty sure that I've never had a "flashback" on them, anyway. What I do believe is that the combination of being quite relaxed, and at the same time open to the colors around me allows me to experience them in the way that they actually are, unclouded by all the garbage normally tinting my vision. I know it sounds very spiritual (and that makes me kind of uncomfortable), but I do believe that is what happens.
The colors that most move me on my walks are the greens of the early morning, and the way the color is saturated by the morning dew and fog. It's a shame that the dews and fogs which usually cloud my vision aren't as beautiful to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment