This Side of Eden
I'm here…but why?
It's a place I come to at times…no particular pattern exists between one destination and the next, no rhyme, no order…but perhaps that is the point. It is here, in this place, that order can be escaped. It's a taste of freedom, a place to rest and recuperate from the hustle and bustle of lecture and study. A place where the only lecture is from emptiness, where the only study is that of emptying one's mind.
I spot the mountains in the distance over the marshland, their rocky forms akin to silent sentinels, as if marking the spot and luring us in to this world. Or maybe to watch over us. Before me is eternity, and I'm standing on the brink. A middle-ground between the wider world and the base camp we've set up designed to encapsulate a small part of it...as if we could tame this place. But even so, if the marsh is like the River Styx, the Elysian Fields are still on both sides.
I feel the grass as I rest upon it-a texture much different to that to the hard metal of Destiny. The trees that filter the rays of the sun. The same ball of energy that primarily drives weather… driving the wind, blowing through the trees, yet not interrupting the sound of silence. It is something that I can take solace in, and from what I've seen, others as well. Each of us is like an island in the breeze, aware of each-other's presence, but not disturbing it.
Why do I come here? What is there to learn? Maybe nothing…but it certainly allows the process of learning to be easier. A time to clear my mind, to take a break, to allow it to be filled more easily when the next load of information comes. To fill my scale of knowledge even more.
Suffice to say, being here is…fulfilling.
And that's why I come here.
A/N
This was adapted from a campus research writing task, of observing outdoor spaces and how they contribute to one's learning. Had to cut out the learning aspect, but the outdoor spaces aspect was another story.