Just Magic

Woke up unusually early for a vacation, on Sheridan Lake in BC. My nose was damp and cold outside the covers. The soft light was laving through the thin single glass door window of my room. I wanted to see the lake this early in the morning. Surprised myself by how quickly my body got up and ready for an early morning walk. And there I was, standing on five feet thick cover of ice. Realizing this is the first time in my life. I felt strangely exhilarated... But really, five feet of ice covered with a fine layer of a foot deep snow, dry and crispy and screaming to step on it and walk... I could almost feel the weight of the ice below me...

Max was as happy as I was. In fact I might have been happier than him. Not quite sure why, but I loved every second of it. Purity. Absolute quiet. Not even a distant airplane engine. Clarity. Freedom. He was waiting for me to throw something for him to catch, but I couldn't get enough of this morning, of the mist, of the foggy air, of the sun light branching through the tree tops on the other side. I felt connected. As never before here.

Max was chasing invisible creatures underneath the ice. He couldn't understand why he can't dig deep enough through it. I wish I could see them below. It's been a long time since I got up so early and inhaled the dawn. But never on this thick layer of ice, in the middle of a lake, on the interior plains one thousand feet above the ocean. Where the trees whisper. I will write a song about it. In the land of the Whispering Aspens...

This is the way to live. To feel. To be. In the quiet of the Mother Nature. Far from the TVs and gadgets, and bad news. I could feel my nerves regenerating with every breath I take. How the hell we forgot about this and let the System rule? How is it that we value money and the Profit more than this? If we let this be our life, this morning, the air, the magic of the awakening day, there is no way there would be evil on the earth. This disarms you, makes you surrender to the ultimate beauty, to the goodness. You begin to crave to be good, to become the part of this peace and quiet, undisturbed, it makes you want to give. To protect. As much as you can, and then some. Unconditionally.

The day before we were flying over the ice in the snowmobiles. 90km an hour. 95km an hour. We went across and over it a few times. Two loud machines and nobody else around. Miles of solid ice, with distant trees scattered around the perimetre covered with snow. All in white. We could hear through the engine noise the ice cracking below us, sagging like a suspended bridge slab as we flew over bumps of long welds of ice. Now, only the tracks remain. As if that was somebody else there. Reminded me of the tracks behind me when my dad was pulling the wooden sleds years ago. Perhaps that's where my thrill is coming from? Or it's just pure love the Nature evokes?

It feels like all the good memories are stored in this morning, in the molecules of water beneath the ice, and it all resonates with the water within my body. I feel there is synchronicity of this moment and the good times along Belica, or even more Morava river. They say water retains information, communicates, is alive. Somewhere along my path this lake, the invisible water, and the ice it's covered with is in balance with what I brought from the Morava Valley in central Serbia. Here, at least for this morning, I belong.

The recollection of some of my most cherished moments in life are pouring in. They unfold in slow motion, in virtual 3D projections just above the snow on the ice. Glowing in content vibrations. The wooden sleds my dad built and the thin ribbon of tin running along the sled skies that kept breaking as the sleds were constantly overused. The back of the giant rubber boots stepping deep into the snow in front of me while I was gripping the sleds with my both hands covered by warm mittens my mom made out of scrap wool yarns in various colours. I was gliding! 

The Potok park in my hometown when the snow was so deep the sledders kept digging out a bobsled like track down the meandering runway between the trees. They appeared as tall as the old growth in the BC rain forests, and the walls of the runway were well above my exhilarated, mesmerized head. If Harry Potter was written back then, the scene would look and feel just like the flying game.

There was so much more snow in the 70's in Serbia. The winters were crisp and bright, sunny and cheerful, though freezing to under -20 at times. My feet were always wet, but I was nevertheless overexcited running out to walk and listen the crunching snow beneath my steps. The different shapes and sizes of the footsteps were a puzzle I could not stop resolving even when my feet were freezing and my fingers felt ready to fall off. I see the image of the chunks of dry snow splashing under the thick soles of the people  in front of me in the rhythm of their walk.

I see an open window in the recording studio where we made our first two demos. The curtains were moving with the wind in the corners, with the sound of the keyboards for "Stronger Than Anything", while the snowflakes were dancing in slow motion around the street light. To this day I can't understand why the guy was playing in a freezing room with all the windows open, but the scene outside was becoming whiter and whiter as the song was approaching its end, and the moment was growing more magical.

As the demos were done, we found ourselves outside in the world completely covered with snow. Every branch, every step, every millimeter of the power lines was white. The snow picked up every wavelength of the sound, laid it down over the Earth, and left a complete silence. At three in the morning we found ourselves stepping over the gathered up notes and unfolded violin keys. Utterly mute. Quieter than a silent movie. Just like this morning.

As the holograms of my past moved in procession over the lake a one dollar bill dropped right in front of me. Max stopped puzzled. There was another. And another. Left and right. The whole sky got covered in flickering papers. The Wall Street LED ribbons of  moving numbers and letters proceeded snaking in between the visions erasing one after the other. The money was covering every cubic inch of the air, melting at the contact with the beauty. How did we get here?

How is it that this magic we were given we planted on the foundations of the biggest gamble in the universe? Stock Market. The absurd gamble that is not even based on real monetary value! We brought money to the purity of untouched, balanced communion of human life and nature, and paradoxically killed every value it should be based on! Distorted it with the concept of property, ownership, success, career. Mine. More. Me.

And how is it that most do not understand that it all pales in front of this? Even if they do, they take for granted the way the System want us to follow, too busy and indifferent to stop, question, change. Because, at the end, this is what matters. This moment, the harmony, the ice rainbow, the peace and quiet, the contentment in simplicity of being. In resonating with each other, with the universe.