thirteen steps

Thirteen Steps

My house sits atop a little hill, with a long stretch of forest leading down to a little stream. To get down to the bottom, one must wander down a little twisting path through redwoods and bracken. For the first time in three years, I walked down that little path yesterday and revisited scenes of the past.
Today I decide to repeat the experience.
To walk where I walk, one must carefully descend thirteen shallow steps of wood and gravel, holding carefully to a hand rail for balance. To the left, still blooming here and there, is a thicket of rambling roses, carefully tended by my husband. I stop to pull out a long strand of periwinkle which has entwined
itself into the bushes, and remember when we planted them so many years ago. We had no idea that they would grow so densely and so tall. To my right is another rose garden, and several rose trees still blooming.
But I have now reached the end of the steps, and I stand on a little flat area carpeted with dichondra and bordered by tall hydrangeas. Once upon a time we used it for a circular meditation walk, and I now circle it a couple of times, murmuring “Hari Om, Hari Om” softly to myself. But I still have a way to go.
The path turns to the right here, and becomes steeper and harder to traverse. Blackberry bushes have grown across the path and I have to be careful not to trip over them. Strands of spider webs brush across my face, and mosquitoes have discovered my presence. Over my head a squirrel chatters and blue jays squawk and hop from limb to limb of the redwood trees. I reach the wooden bench at the side of the path and decide to rest there and go the rest of the way another day.
As I sit there in the sun, I feel calm and rested. The air is warm and a little breeze stirs the branches of the trees. Myriads of insects are buzzing around and if I listen I can hear the barking of a dog in the distance and the answering bark of another off in the hills across the stream.
We had a dog once. She was a little Samoyed and we dearly loved her. She is buried in the pet graveyard just behind the bench where I am sitting, along with a couple of cats, a little canary and two pheasants. The pheasants were not pets. But they have a little plot in the graveyard nevertheless. I suppose there are more pets there, but I have forgotten now.
Just below the bench is the filled-in entrance to a mine shaft, rumored to be an old cinnabar mine. We were told that it was filled in to prevent children from crawling in and being injured or trapped by falling boulders. The story may or may not be true. It makes for a good tale, and I suppose we will never know the true story.
I sit so quietly that I begin to daydream. I am almost in a meditation mode, and my mind goes back to the old days when I used to attend the meditation seminars and study under Swami Chinmayananda at summer camps. Perhaps I fall asleep there in the sun, because I feel his presence beside me on the bench. “Swamiji,” someone asked him once. “Will you come back after you have passed on?” He laughed for a moment, slapping his thigh with his hand and jiggling his bare foot. “How should I know? Ask me that after I am dead.”
Was this his answer? Had he come back to me now after all of these years? I am struggling for an answer when a call from above rouses me from my reverie. “Lunch is on the table.” I struggle back up the path, leaving behind the ghostly presence of my long-ago guru.