Trance

The dirt was moist, sticky between my grasping and bored fingers. I picked it up in my hands, and rubbed it into my skin, not knowing why. I sat in the middle of a forest, not far from my town. I was there by myself, a girl with no particular mission but to gain wisdom through personal wanderings. Something shuffled in the tree above me, and I jumped slightly, used to the resounding silence surrounding me. I looked above me, and saw a bird of no consequence. However, on that day and in that mood, I noticed the wild white colorings that splattered across her brown chest. Her small head was darker than the rest of her body, and even below her wings I saw a splash of olive green. She jumped from branch to branch, inspecting me. Her head tilted to the side and she tried to figure out what I was, why I was there.
I nodded in her direction and gave her a small smile, lifting myself up to a standing position. I kneeled and brushed the wet dirt off of my jeans, blowing my hair from my face. I clicked my tongue softly, but not impatiently. In a rather meek and indecisive gesture I turned and continued down my own little path. Singing a song under my energetic breath, I danced as I made my way down to a lake that I hadn’t been to before.
The lake was vast, and calm waves scattered across it’s great mass. The water was a scintillating blue, winking playfully at me. The sun was high in the sky, and it’s distorted reflection swam beneath the blue waves, inviting me in.
I looked around me, the wind whipping my hair across my face. There was no one around me, just luminous shades of an array of colors. I could feel the opportunity of the moment slip by me slightly, and in fear of loosing this chance, I decided to let go of all my societal-taught norms and decided to be the animal that so naturally pulsed through my veins. I ran, arms flailing, into the smooth surface of the water, disturbing it’s perfect surface.
My laughter wasn’t loud enough to interrupt the organic sounds of the nature that engulfed my environment, but it was pleasant enough to add to the crowded and beautiful silence, reverberating across the large lake.
I had to shield my eyes, the colors around were so bright. The trees quivered beside the lake, dancing along to the music of my splashing, my inhibition, my spontaneity. The green color of the trees shimmered under the bright sun, swallowing my surroundings in the beautiful, sparkling color. The dark green color of the healthy grass was speckled with shades of purple, and yellow, and other various pastels. The lake was a pellucid blue, splashing a warped painting of the prepossessing scene in front of my swaying arms. I tried to touch the colors in the water, only to see them disperse as my pale hand grasped at their reflections. I laughed loudly, and splashed hard at the lake’s trickery.
I eventually made my way to shallow shore, wrapping my drenched clothes around me, snuggling into the rough Colorado sand. I had no company around me, no person to share this breathtaking moment with me. No people. It was just me, and the soft chirps of nearby birds, the distant pikas, the friendly splashing of fish, only signals of life, remnants of company. My vocal chords were rested though, happy from the soft use of laughter. My mind was at placid and alluring peace. I was able to rub sticks into the ground, leaving wild marks in the damp soil. I was able to be an animal, inferior the undomesticated colors around me, to the beguiling sounds of nature, even to the pikas and fish who were lazily just trying to find a meal.
Somehow, being put back into my place by nature, however passively, was what I needed. There was no pressure to behave, to be violent, to kill for no reason. I didn’t have to be a human any more, I was now simply a contemplative homosapien.
There were no rules set upon me by this nature, there was no society that had to function normally. There were just birds tending to their young, fish who leaped out of their assigned element and into the warm breeze. There was even animals hidden behind the lush vegetation, powerfully graceful and beautiful ones who kill my fellow fish and birds. They kill with such strength it’s hard for the mere human mind to fathom, but with a gentle instinct that lets the species of it’s prey live on, even if it’s just for future meals.