A Longing For Paradise
Seeking renewal at the lake
Walking along the shore of the lake, Amanda was saddened to see the deteriorating state of the area. She had been walking the shore of this lake for most of her life and was a witness to the slow degradation of this little environment.
When she was young it seemed like a pristine paradise. There was only a handful of buildings along the shoreline. There were so many more trees and birds. Now, the gulls were still there, in fact there seemed to be more, but most of the other birds were gone.
It used to be a rare thing to see any trash by the lake in the past but now there was trash strewn everywhere. The edge of the water where it lapped up on the sand was now a multi-colored line of trash. The water used to only wash driftwood ashore but now it was mostly plastic and bottles and aluminum cans and countless cigarette butts and a strange brownish foam.
Amanda remembered hearing only the birds and the water lapping the beach but now the prominent sounds were traffic, distant boomboxes playing rap music and the hammering and grinding sounds of construction.
She wanted to go back to the lake shore of her past. It had been her refuge from the incessant grindings of human life; the place she went to relax and refresh and meditate and commune with nature and the universe.
But now all she saw was filth, degradation, decay and pollution.
Amanda stopped walking. Looking out over the lake, she took a deep breath of air. It was not the clean, fresh air that she used to breathe when she walked the lake so many years before. Now there was a musty smell to it.
She used to look out over the water and feel its cleansing power. Through the water and the fresh air and the sounds of water and birds she would clear her mind and commune with the elements. It truly seemed like a paradise back then.
And she would also communicate with the universe. The idyllic setting was like an altar upon which she spoke to the divine. She sent her prayers out over the lake and into the sky and the energies of the universe came back washing over her.
Amanda turned away from the water to look at the trash-strewn beach and then the tall buildings lining the shore, including a few that were under construction. Human noise echoed through the air, drowning out the cawing of gulls.
Turning to look back over the water, a lone tear flowed down Amanda’s cheek.
She had probably stood in that very exact spot in the past. Back then it was a paradise to her and as she communed with nature and the universe she drew that paradise inside her into her heart. Over time, that paradise in her heart had been worn down by all the challenges of her life just as the lake area had been degraded by human pollution. She came back to the lake seeking renewal, rejuvenation and cleansing.
Looking out over the lake and into the sky, Amanda asked the universe to help her bring back paradise to both her heart and the world in which she lived.
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