GOLDEN MOUNTAIN

These are the last few days of this late summer mountainside, covered with nodding heads of heavy rice growing more golden with each sunset--

Within the evening breeze I can hear - beneath the hurrying hum of summer insects - the low drone of harvesting machines and the shouts of families at work on the edge of the village down by the Lake, where the local harvesting begins-- Driving down there earlier today I saw that a couple of paddies had already been reduced to the bright gold stubble that remains after the summer wealth has been shorn and stored for winter.

Somehow-- I suppose because from up here I can I watch the rice growing throughout the summer of its lifetime-- and so throughout its mornings, days and evenings I can watch all that life accrue from seed to maturity, watch time rise into spirit as all is interwoven, the rice fields come to mean more to me in a spiritual way than if I were growing the rice myself...

One afternoon a few weeks ago the grandies and I were driving down past those lower fields when the rice stalks were pendant with their treasure - practically leaning into the car windows - I stopped beside a high paddy and we reached out to run our fingers through all that nourishing jade and gold.   

For me the summer lifetime of rice is much more affecting than the celebrated three days of cherry blossoms...