My Dear Friends

My dear friends,

How I wish that I could share with you the delights of the Amazon, the delights of the heart of the world. If I could take you there, I would show you.

I would bring you to overlook the turged and spinning, milky brown waters of a rain swollen river whose banks rose 30 feet last night, in which the four dimensions of watery space are illumined by the cavorting, playful spirals of forest earth that mingle with the water.

I would bring you to look out over the darkened and humming night canopy of the forest, 90ft above the ground. We would look out over the articulated skeleton-like branches of the vast carpet of trees that extends to the horizon, a filled and expansive horizon of lungs. Lungs that breathe with mine and those of the incalculable masses of other being that share the vast and shimmering night air, a synesthesia of colors in the night blackness. The backdrop? A radiant, shimmering cathedral dome of the brightest starts that you have ever seen, that you could ever imagine seeing.

And oh, how I wish that you could feel with me the soft, moonbeam caresses of moth wings as they dance across our faces, brought to these heights by the nectarous allure of the flowering forest giants. Lured by the flowers that open only on this special night, spicy with energy, like discs of quicksilver, the gentle moths dance through the air--spiraling their way to the source. Your flashlight beam would pierce the dark, and then there would be nothing, nothing but the sparkling cranium of the heavens. If only you were here, I would show you the key that opens the space between yourself and the expanse.

We would walk together before dawn, in the dewy, dripping dark heat of the in between twilight. Together we would listen to the guttural roar of the distant Jaguar, to the piercing and mournful calls of the forest falcon, to the descending notes of the Potoo, and to the pure and resonant, chiming calls of a tinamou. They echo in this time of the quite forest. For miles they calls float through the vast and open understory. We would then watch as our torchlights lost their strength in the increasing blue light of the morning, a blue and black world of shape and hues. A world of great buttressed trees, draped heavily with lianas as this your arm, that spiral like the intelligent sinews of our share genetic heritage. Together we would smell the peppery jasmine-lemon scented, musty air and wonder to ourselves about the smallness that we all are and yet also the vastness of all this that we feel in our hearts. The day would slowly dawn and the morning chorus of 240 bird species would begin, each a valence of the million faceted gem of the forest and her architecture. Sparkling.