Living Landscapes

Sometimes when I run, I pick a piece of the landscape and imagine myself a part of it. I flow with the grass blowing in the breeze. I weave in unison with the serpentine trail. I soar with the red-tailed hawk, desperately willing my legs to keep up.

Sometimes, the trees beckon. As I run beneath them, I feel their power joining with mine. Their roots drawing from a deep well of capacity, their leaves showering it over me as I pass. I am more than I was before the encounter.

I’ve heard it said that, at a geologic scale, rock flows. Flows. Do you understand how significant that is? Living in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, my life is surrounded by rock. I thought I knew them—sturdy, resolute, fixed. But as it turns out, I don’t know the first thing about rocks.

When I run, I get a sense of the movement of rock. They blur in my vision. They begin to flow. And I with them. As I maneuver around boulders and up and down hills, I move as water. I move as rock. I flow, alive.