The Five-Finger Mantra
KNOWLEDGE
The cure for a broken bone is complete immobilization while the body miraculously heals itself. Slowly, spring began to arrive and by the end of April 2020, the time had come to start moving again.
The Enlightenment hiking trail begins at the end of our street, next to the no parking tree. The chairlift travels straight to the summit while Enlightenment takes a more winding way to the same destination. We were happy to be chasing winter up the mountain again. There were even times when I released my broken arm and let it swing at my side.
In the shadow of the ponderosa pine trees, a long time ago, our hunter gatherer ancestors domesticated only one animal: the dog. This ancient relationship is rooted in the daily walk. Today, the air under the ponderosa pine trees was filled with the scent of damp earth growing warm again. It was the scent of a revival of life, roots, and wildflowers. It was the scent of possibility, a gift given each Spring to the citizens of Earth, even in a pandemic.
Our connection to the Earth and each other is found deep within our bodies. Every living being on Earth who has limbs, share a structural pattern. Arms, wings, legs, flippers, all are built with one big bone, two regular bones, then lots of little bones. On the daily walk, with this knowledge deep within, I become a part of something more than myself.
Deep in the shadow of the ponderosa pine trees, I excise from our more recent past- from Hinduism and Buddhism- the mudra hand gesture, and the mantra, a type of meditation rooted in repeated words. Knowledge. Courage. Balance. Gratitude. Freedom. Five mantras for five fingers. The thumb represents Knowledge and connects to the pointer finger for Courage, index for balance, ring for gratitude, and pinky for freedom.
COURAGE
The mudra concerns only the lots of little bones, but those bones were connected to my injured regular bone, and had not moved for the past six weeks. They were stiff and uncomfortable, but despite the inflammation, I was able at last to touch my thumb to pointer and made the first circle in the five-finger mantra: knowledge with courage.
The first stop along Enlightenment is the Broken Bridge. No longer used, the Broken Bridge is twisted and collapsing slowly into the water. There are spruce, pine, and aspen trees growing around a cozy grass area next to the stream. In this time of glorious rebirth, there was also horrible death. Her eye melts an expanding hole inside of me and my mind cannot imagine life without her.
Cleo was my first dog. She and I have skipped up Enlightenment surrounded by sunshine and sweet smelling grass bedazzled with wildflowers; and we have trudged up the trail in two feet of snow. Now, without her, I cannot feel the ground beneath my feet. I cannot breathe the air. I see her on the path in front of me, and then she is gone.
Life on earth has always been a struggle. During the Covid19 pandemic, normal struggles combined with pandemic struggles combined with the struggles of the past. Now, we blunder down the mountain, and deep down, everyone knows that if we continue our current path of hate and fear, overconsumption and wars, propaganda and poverty, we overlook our doom until we break.
Or we can gather our courage and seek a new trail. Surely it will be twisted with danger and sacrifice, but I see the Earth’s smoke signal and I answer her call to action. On the day my dog Cleo died, I vowed to stop eating meat. Eating meat is bad for me, bad for the environment, and in a pandemic, bad for the mostly immigrant work force who toil in the slaughter house. I have known most of my life that I did not want to eat meat, but I have only just now found the courage to act.
The thumb is the trunk, and the fingers are the roots of the mudra. It is always thumbprint to fingerprint, impossible fingerprint to fingerprint. Only the thumb can touch its print to the finger because it is an opposable thumb. This type of thumb is a trait shared among a few of Earth’s inhabitants: most primates, koalas, panda bears, armadillos, and opossums. There is even an amphibian with an opposable thumb, the waxy monkey leaf tree frog. Although her tropical forest is far from my temperate one, we are nonetheless connected.
BALANCE
Winter is cold and barren, but summer is prosperity. Life arises in the balance. Dead and alive. Thyself and others. Chaos and order. Movement and stillness.
As the mountains heated up and the afternoon thunderstorms moved in, a vast collection of flowers burst forth. Instead of just one wildflower, the Earth is home to 400,000 wildflowers and every summer, in fabulous purple slippers, the wildflowers march across the land in a grand spectacle of diversity.
We could hear an occasional rumble of thunder, but we went on a walk anyway. Had Cleo still been with us, we never would have gone. The snow was long melted, and the walk now stretched beyond the Broken Bridge, across the First Bridge and up through the Northside Mossy Forest, which leads to the Racetrack. At the Racetrack, the trail ascends steeply in a series of short switchbacks. Over my labored breath and pounding heart, I heard the wind approaching through the leaves. By the time we reached the top of the Racetrack, big drops of rain began to crash down, so we decided against entering the scrub oaks as usual, and instead returned to the shelter of the ponderosa pine trees.
The roar grew louder as the hail slowly, then quickly began. We sought shelter under a large bush encircled by spruce trees, although the hail still crashed through. With our only dog Jackson trembling between us, Justin and I huddled together and waited for the storm to pass. It was terrifying and liberating. As the hail stones crashed against my body, over and over again, the distance between us all grew long and quiet despite the storm’s deafening roar. It was an unmooring from one reality and entrance granted into another.
One hail stone at a time, the storm began to recede. We were soaked and covered with twigs, dirt, pieces of broken leaves, and puffed-up patches of skin. The rain still pounded down as we began our descent. The trail was a muddy waterway, and as we descended, it moved with us. I ran downwards, and for the first time since breaking my wrist, I was unafraid of falling. Fearless, I leapt over rocks and roots and as I twisted and slide around the switchbacks, I was truly free.
GRATITUDE
The pandemic summer of 2020 has ended, and good fucking riddance! The wildflowers have turned to seed, and the aspen leaves are changing. The dread for the upcoming winter still without a Covid19 vaccine, sat upon the horror of a policeman’s face as he killed a man. This summer, hope and enlightenment had been thrown into an unmarked van by unidentified “security” personnel. …
Yet, when I sit in the grass at the Broken Bridge and watch the sunrise beyond the trees, hope returns. I warm my hands with a mug of hot coffee and think without saying the words, “There is no place I would rather be than right here, right now.”
Things are seldom as we would like them to be, so the gratitude Mantra stops time, like a photograph, and examines an exact moment. Autumn Sunrise At The Broken Bridge is a slice of time. (1/250th of a second to be precise.) And in that time, the past and the future are of no consequence. Amazingly, no matter the despair that surrounds us: death, inequality, sickness- at any one moment, we can find peace.
As the fleeting days of winter were settling in, scientists delivered a Covid19 vaccine. 2020 had not yet ended and healthcare workers were getting vaccinated. It would seem appropriate for each jab to come with its own fireworks display: a glitter flower of victory in an otherwise dark time.
The snowbanks grew larger as frontline workers, nurses and doctors, teachers and the elderly were given the vaccine. Then, late one night with the wind howling outside, I woke with a dreadful headache and was certain the virus was lurking within me. A decongestant later, and all was well again. At least, for me. By January 2021, there were more people dying per day from Covid19 than had died on September 11, 2001, what had been the single worst day in modern American history.
FREEDOM
It was Spring again when Justin and I received our first dose of the vaccine. For the vaccinated, the pandemic was over, but getting the world vaccinated seemed a distant dream. Getting the world vaccinated would require great kindness, generosity, and the ability to overcome the superstitions of our age.
In any case, we were empowered by our vaccinated status. By June, we were fully vaccinated and standing at the top of the Great Sand Dunes of North America. The clouds flowed overhead, and Madura’s icy cold water surged between the dunes and the Rocky Mountains.
By now, the deep broken bone pain was long gone, and my thumb easily pressed into my pinky, the freedom finger and final circle of the Five-Finger Mantra.
When knowledge, courage, balance, and gratitude are cultivated, freedom is the logical outcome. When I am backpacking with a twenty pound pack and the trail has turned into broken bottles, with miles still to go, I contemplate freedom. I imagine glimmering wings, not arms growing out of my shoulder blades and despite not existing, these wings help carry me to the summit, to freedom.
