LOOK BOTH WAYS
14
Never had he seen a sky so wondrously clean. It was electric blue, with not a cloud in sight to mar its magnificent pristine beauty. He walked beneath its calming graces and continued climbing steadily upward along the mountain trail that snaked left and right frequently, as it wound its way through the sparse rainforest canopy on its well-trodden journey toward Kyoto, the old capital of Japan.
Colourful birds rested and sang gaily in the trees on both sides of his forward journey to where his real home might possibly be. Their natural music touched him and brought him home to himself as he walked, one foot after the other, always forward, and always upward.
Every now and then he would pass a traveller, also on foot, sometimes tourists of different nationalities, but mostly Japanese in dress, manner and culture. He would wish them well and smile, and they understood him, yet he spoke not their native tongue. They would return his gracious greetings and bows with their same and in their own language, and he understood them, one and all, yet he spoke not their native tongue.
Good manners are like gold, he thought, as he breathed deeply of the cool and the clean mountain air. Like honey to a hive, they will attract the good in life, and sweeten the relationships between men and women both. Males and females, he knew needed no sweetener, artificial or otherwise, for they were their own sugar coating, to be tasted of one another, then to be savoured to old age without losing the tooth that would always remain sweet between them.
He loved the countryside, the pure uncivilised countryside. He did not know why he did; only that he did.
Maybe my home is here? He wondered, as he climbed ever upward, knowing it had to be somewhere on the face of the earth.
He had been to many places, and many places he would have loved to call his home, but they were not, and had not been, and so he had moved on. It was healthy in the natural countryside, he concluded, as he walked casually and relaxed along his way.
Everything was always clean and natural, from the food that was eaten to the air that was breathed, while those that are healthy in natural feelings of right and good deed, he concluded, do not need a doctor, while those that are ill, he smiled, think too much.
Every now and then the lush green foliage would part and reveal to him the magnificence of the plains so far down below. Different shades of green and colour wild met his gaze and calmed him even more so from his efforts of climbing for such a long time since he had left the noise and smoke and ungraciousness of the city. No smoking cars moved here to give him free travel to his unknown, but hopefully not unfamiliar destination.
He was glad, for their presence would have only polluted what God had given to man at no charge.
Winding blue rivers snaked and curled, bent and furled their way through the pattern of quilted plains below, and the sight warmed him. This could be my home, he thought, well pleased. It could be. The desert from whence he had come seemed so far away now… so far away, and had never been his home. He had never truly been at home there, but he wondered all the same where that had been.
He smiled at the birds in the trees, and he laughed gaily at the unseen, but not unheard animals, as they rushed around within the natural coverings of the wondrous forest. He wondered then, as he walked, if somewhere there was a place for him that would be his home.
I am not going to prepare a place for you, his thought answered unchosen. I have come to prepare it in your living heart and human nature, while you still breathe. Go therefore, he thought then, into the entire world and teach all nations of their one true human nature. There will you find your home.
He smiled. So far he was still breathing, even if slightly harder from the effort of his gentle, but long and continuous upward climb. He looked upward at the sky once more and grinned. So far it wasn’t raining either.
All things seemed to be in his favour. Without notice then the slope crested and became level to his natural and easy gait. He could see in the near distance the scattered roofs of a country town or village and he smiled.
Maybe his home was there?
His pace quickened, but only slightly. His stride lengthened, but only a little more so. His smile widened, and naturally so for those he might soon call his neighbours.
He glanced upward again, but his smile faded only a little. The clouds at their birth were beginning to form along the top of the Japanese mountainside late afternoon, in the land named by its proud owners as, Nihon.
He wondered idly again what his name was and where his home was. Maybe here he would find them both, and maybe not? He was optimistic always for the hearts of humankind in recognising one of their own.