“What did I do today to feed my spirit or move me ahead on my…journey?” – Penny Yunuba
August 24, 2014
I often feed my spirit with an evening walk toward the far end of town to watch the sun go down behind the prairie, for Paraguayan sunsets are consistently spectacular night after night. Last night as I started for my walk something told me to turn back and bring my camera. Glad I did:
These evening walks are a beautiful and calming way to end the day and never fail to impress me. Come share tonight’s walk with me…
As we edge from late winter into nearly spring, nature provides a veritable orgasm of scents, sights, and sounds spilling forth in preparation for a future bounty. Every step, every inbreath is a new cocktail that tantalizes my nostrils, rests on my skin, and makes me feel alive, brimming with gratitude.
Imagine walking into a room heavy with nature’s fragrance and visual artistry. Bombarding and awakening my senses: splashes of red and yellow roadside flowers that catch the eye before it’s drawn further to the lilac-colored petals of the lapacho (tajy) trees on the forest’s edge; wafting on the breeze is a constantly changing flourish of perfumes from flowers of limes, oranges, mangos, guavas, jasmine and more. My curiosity is bursting to know every plant making its invisible way to my brain, seducing my senses, halting me in my tracks so I can fill my lungs to overflowing with the sweetness, so I yearn impossibly that this wrinkle in time should never end. I want to bottle this perfect moment, these scents, the paradisiacal temperature, the buttery soft breeze and carry them with me forever. However, after this instant I cannot possibly remember this intoxicating, exotic bouquet that is floral, balmy, sweet, spicy, and tangy all in one. This present moment is all I have and it is demanding, and receiving, every ounce of my attention.
My walk is meditative, each step mindful and purposeful. I imagine my feet kissing the earth, feeling the give beneath my sandals of soft, beach-like sand in places followed in others by the hardness of parched soil packed by hooves and tires. Around the corner I’m surprised as I step into a pocket of warmer air, which feels like crossing into a different dimension for two meters complete with its own dose of more swirling, heady loveliness.
The night is almost warm enough to sweat simply standing still. Humid, balmy, close, exquisite.
On my return, where light lingers just enough to play tricks on my vision, I witness two kyryrys (toads) singing to each other in the road. One hops away as I approach and stroll past. It seems with each passing moment the symphony of sounds grows– screeches from long-tailed parrots that raid the farmer’s corn, a kingdom of frogs and toads serenading one another, a cacophony of insects’ shrill hissing and whirring, buzzing bees finishing their work in the guava blossoms and returning home to the hive for the night.
Thank you, Mother Nature, for feeding my spirit tonight. I am full of delight and contentment.
Somewhere in Paraguay 