The Train Ride

I am traveling north from NYC on the noon train and if we keep to schedule in just a little over 2 hours I will arrive in my hometown. Looking out the window there are times when it seems that just the tiniest sliver of land separates the train car from the ice laden river alongside me. It thrills me. I have prepared for this, dashing onto the train to ensure a seat on the left hand side, the window seat with the Hudson River view.

A Canadian goose, frightened into flight, flies parallel to my window slowly losing ground falling back, back and away but not before I watch it's wings gracefully beat against the winter wind.

I contemplate the river. The January ice is multicolored, patches of wavy aqua marine stretch into navy and mushy gray. I imagine walking across the ice to reach the opposite riverbank but notice places where channels have been cut by river barges. The water is choppy and a steely black.

I watch from the window as we chug past a cookie-cutter park with a jogging trail snaking along the river side. A parka-clad woman throws a frisbee into the air. Her border collie leaps capturing the spinning disk with sheer joy oblivious to wind or temperature. Their breath makes little clouds of moist air. A walker walks, heaving himself into the wind with great strides on the charcoal path of concrete slicing through the still-white snow.

I pass gingerbread houses from Victorian times with puffing chimneys and streets bathed in winter sunshine. Giant maples reach their bare branched fingertips up to touch the sky in what seems to me like praise. Or are they pleading for something? I wonder.

West Point sits on the edge of a cliff like a fortress impenetrable in sand-blasted stone holding the secrets of lost decades.

We follow the river as ancient mountain ranges rise up in their wintry majesty. The Catskills home of lore and legend and in the distance the Adirondacks soar misty blue and mysterious.

Croton on the Hudson, Garrison, towns fly by with names plucked out of a Norman Rockwell painting. We blink past Wappingers and Poughkeepsie, towns christened after the native Indian tribes who for so long held a peaceful pact with the land they roamed.

Even though I now live among palm trees and gulf breezes the Hudson River landscape resides within me. It stirs my heart with something much deeper than nostalgia. I still believe that something magic lies hidden in the foggy mist that rises from the river in early morning, that the steepled, old graying towns, the winding roads and the arching railroad trestles hold secrets yet undiscovered. It seems to me that something mysterious and altering resides there waiting for me to discover it. These visions and vistas whisper that I am not alone; that I belong, that I am a part of something ancient and holy and that it is a part of me.

As the train slides into the depot I watch a hawk soar into the slanting afternoon light. I breathe a sigh from deep within. I am home.

Nora Hooper

Transmutation

While on vacation in North Carolina my husband and I spent a morning bicycling one of our favorite routes. It takes you along a rolling valley dotted with aging barns and vegetable gardens ending just across the border in Tennessee. We stop to refuel at a fireworks store which sits on the crest of a hill and has a convenient stoop for pausing. Gulping Gatorade, we rest our Floridian legs, unaccustomed to the hilly terrain. While standing by the stoop I happened to look down at the wooden newel post and there sat the most stunning, sparkling, furry moth.  She was spectacular in color and at least 4 inches long. After admiring her golden brown and speckled beauty I began thinking about the process butterflies and moths go through in order to become the glorious animals they are. They experience a transmutation.

Webster defines transmuting: to change or alter in form, appearance, or nature and especially to a higher form.

Transmutation is change from the inside out and each of us are in this very process changing and altering in order to express a higher form of consciousness and a higher form of love. We are all moving toward becoming the expression of pure and infinite love and the process begins in the same place most of our changes do--with our thoughts.

Transmuting develops wisdom which in turn releases fear. Releasing fear can be a conscious decision. Today our minds do not fret over the monster in the closet as it may have when we were five years old. As adults we experience anxiety and trepidation through other thoughts that often spring from the same imaginative thinking. Can you remember a time in your life when you dreaded the future because you "knew" how it would unfold? Do you recall that as you focused on the fear-based thoughts you experienced their negativity viscerally? Our bodies respond to thoughts of  dread and worry physiologically supporting our minds in believing the "truth" of our fearful interpretations.

Attaching yourself to thoughts of love and devotion, understanding and patience alters you. When you think loving thoughts you simply do your body and soul good. As we become more aware of the thoughts we empower we give ourselves the glorious option to choose an alternative.  We can opt to cultivate thoughts that allow for love and confidence to emerge and peace and happiness to flourish. In doing so we are transmuting and ultimately will emanate the changes outward.

Ted Andrews describes butterfly energy in his book Animal Speak as "transmutation and the dance of joy." Next time your mind grips you with negativity and you feel yourself collapsing into fear stop for a moment. Look for a different mind map to follow, an alternative path to a new conclusion. Even better, seek no conclusion at all and stand confidently in "not knowing" allowing life to present you with dozens more brilliant options empowered by love and infused with the Divine. Let your butterfly wings unfold and  joy spring from your heart creating the world you seek from the thoughts you think, changing and altering from inside out.

Love and Light,
Nora

I consciously nurture loving thoughts.