Three Deer (A Meditation)

The sun rode low in the sky, about an hour from sunset on an unseasonably warm end-of-September day. I enjoyed it with a walk, making my way out past the farm buildings and the calf hutches, down the dirt path leading through the grove and out into the back pasture and cornfields. Every tree, every leaf, every detail was noticed and appreciated, as though hyper-aware while completely calm and centered.

Had I been walking with my awareness on my thoughts, I would have missed the three deer, a mother and her two nearly-grown fawns, standing not 100 feet from where I had stopped short. The moment I spotted them, I expected them to dart away, but they stayed. I stood motionless, even being careful not to breath too heavily for fear that they might bolt. But instead they come closer, step by step, slowly but steadily, occasionally stopping to munch on the clover and grass beneath their hooves. When they had come to within about 50 feet of me, they slowed and stopped, watching me carefully. I stared back, transfixed, unwilling to move because I knew that it would cost me this scene.

This was the essence of living in the moment. (Funny, isn’t it, that I’m talking about living in the moment by using the past tense?) All else had left my mind, so enamored was I of these three deer. Awareness of pain or discomfort in my body had gone. The calculations and concepts about healing or not healing had gone. My identity, even, had fled. The stillness was intense and healing and beautiful. I was almost breathless.

I stood there for a long time, the deer inching closer between bites. The one I took to be the mother began to step with a certain fascinating, feminine confidence: lifting high then very deliberately and firmly dropping each hoof, as if to say, ‘What you’re seeing here is mine, and that you’re seeing it is a gift, not something to be taken lightly.” Or maybe, “I’m in control here. These little ones are mine, and I will protect them.”

At one point a car passed on the road, and the mother deer made a warning noise in her throat. The white tails of all three deer rose like flags as they sprinted away down the pasture. But instead of fleeing into the fields, they stopped, and even started back toward me. I cautiously began to sit down, but the slight movement prompted them to make their exit. They disappeared into the fields, and I was left sitting in the descending dusk feeling as though an angel had just passed. I took several minutes to stand up and go back inside.

Healing comes out of that sort of stillness, that space where the mind is too much in awe to think or produce commentary. We’ve forgotten what that’s like, and it’s been to our own detriment. Being in that space of stillness and beauty -- which is to be found

anywhere, not just in the kind of magic I witnessed tonight -- is healing, cleansing, purifying. Nothing else can exist there, much less make trouble for you. But to never be in that place means that we’re trapped always in the frenetic wheel of action our minds have perpetuated, never finding any real peace until we’re drugged into sleep.

So make time for stillness. You don’t have to be ill to benefit from it. This kind of meditation on stillness doesn’t take a certain amount of time -- there’s no 30-minute minimum requirement. Time has no hold in this place, so even a minute can feel have a profound impact, and 10 minutes can feel like an infinity.

Go outside and just be: feel the trees and wind, smell the air, hear the bugs and birds (or whatever sounds exist in the season), see every color and every detail. And if you don’t have time to go outside, just take a moment to focus on the in and out of your breath. In through the nose, deeply and slowly, then gently out through the mouth. Thank your body for giving you breath and life.

You will be amazed what you may find.