LOST AND FOUND IN THE HEARTLAND'S PEACE

A Day In This Phanerogenicist's Life

Peace Corps Mini-Odyssey

I awake just after the sunrise. It seems to me that my heart is wanting to play so I take it along with the physical shell in which it is encased. Since that encasement is substantive of me, in everyday terms, my mind pilots the entire operation with glee.

I ride my bike out into stunningly beautiful early Summer Heartland bliss. I smile to myself as I note my baseline heart rate, the pulse on the hilltop to which I ride, and the home recovery count is dropping with each expedition.

I shower and go for my 4 wheeled machine.

I receive the gift of amiable conversation with a passing neighbor. I relish describing the image on the Internet of the Dr Martin Luther King Park. It shows two parallel walls with Dr King sculpted coming out of one wall with his hand out (as for a handshake) while the other wall shows Robert Kennedy doing the same with the effect that the two are shaking hands.

Bidding adieu, I zip along on the gloriously tree lined roads, routes, avenues, arteries, lanes and boulevards to the Picnic put on by the Peace Corps group here in Indy.

In no time at all, I am lost. 

I stop and get out of my car asking directions from the closest person on the street. Their extreme politeness, softspokenness and joy exudes a great Peace.

I follow flowing forms finely bestowing grace, With the Peace I have just received and all that I have ever known, [while I still don't know where to find the picnic] the soul's path is clear, ablaze with light.

I grew up in the fabulous Chicago; adventured in exotic locales around the world for several years and have been fortunate to have visited, studied, worked, loved, prayed, played, and created in Indianapolis, Indiana on and off for more than a half-century now. As when fine tuning a microscope brings something into focus, I come to realize, basking in this June's balmy beneficence, that Indianapolis may well be the most tolerant, respectful and peaceful place on this good earth. I am wondering if, in no small part, it is because the people here are so deeply happy and dwell in a profound soulful Peace.

Yet methinks while this Joie de vivre flourishes, it does so sub-Rosa.

I am awed and inspired by people's persevering yearning for this happiness to be readily available for everyone - and thus the dynamic of being independently happy with self, while engaging fully with the world - - which I have finally translated from the Hoosier saying: "I'm trying". This also illuminates the water-color softness that cloaks the indefatigably celebratory Hoosier spirit of good, rendering it demure.

I am so grateful.

While I am pondering these wonderful things about the Hoosier Psyche, driving lost in one sense, and found in another, I snap pictures of some of the images around me confirming Indy's diversity, creativity and the state of having something for everyone - plus several light-graph-joys of the last few years.