slow boat to Laos

On a slow boat to interior Laos. It's our second and last day on this wooden ship- it's raining and there's mist and fog on the mountain trees. I am by the front door, both a good and bad spot. It's in the hustle-bustle pulse center- people crowded around to take photos, staff climbing in from around the side to fix fly away rain flaps. I am on a pile of muddy shoes, my rear guarded by a "sweet love bear pillow", a pad bought on shore to comfort travelers. But to compensate for the mud and bustle, I am only two feet above the thick water, completely immersed in the scene. The raindrops are hitting in rapid sequines on the river blanket. There are so many hidden currents, swirling under the surface, creating whirlpools and water fault lines.

The scene along the sides of the river, if viewed in still lighting, never really changes- hills covered in lush forest of alternating dark and light greens, displaying shale-like black rock for coastline and occasional tan/grey sandbank, the whole thing dotted with villages and illegally deforested patches, burned, sad. But with a shifting of the sun, the picture changes- trees take on a bluish tint, become part of a cloud, then clear again, glowing orange, becoming ominous at night. The rocks look more severe, then softer with sunset light, almost inviting you to nap there.

It's like our moods sometimes, I think- ever present and steady is our inner being- lovely lush and lively. Then the light shifts and the scene changes, highlighting some features and masking others. Blue, green, orange- we radiate to the light. Even our quiet radiates. Does it change our world to know this? To know that under the sun and mist, we are always that forest standing, that shoreline of shale? Do the night and day then become less significant, not inflicting change but only the view?

I wonder, sometimes, if this is at the heart of things...