Weekend Trip To Manifest

Weekend Trip To Manifest

Heard Cemetery, view from creek

It occurred to me during this past year, while grieving the loss of a home place in Manifest, Louisiana that we would always be welcome in the graveyard and the natural spring there, so this is how I will connect with my physical and spiritual home right now.

I am more and more drawn to things in nature now, as if a new awareness is awakening inside. It’s as if I am an alien from outer space freshly landed into a new world. Every little detail causes me to catch my breath at the beauty and wonder and uniqueness of everything, and how it all works together is of such a divine, creative, and artistic design. I marvel at each thing. I am drawn to natural creek beds, moving water, mosses and fungi, trees, flowers, and any creature that flies.

My new awareness has caused me to see new things and take new paths. Yesterday, while studying the graves of our great great grandfather and mother near the back of the cemetery, I began to meditate and listen. I looked to the right and discovered that the fence had been bent down in the right back corner. And laid right before me was a path into the woods and a clearing. Before I entered, though, I listened, and could hear the joyful movement of running water. As I followed my ears, I was lead to a creek with all kinds of interesting things to view and “feel” and to exchange energy with. That is what I have realized being one with nature means. It heals us. It calms us. But it also loves us and gets so excited to see us, when we see it for what it really is.

The sounds of nature are magical, as well. The purr of the wind in pine tree branches paired with the more swishy sound of other trees. Several different bird calls all synchronizing with the buzz of bees, the trickle of the creek, and the cry of the crickets and katydids and locusts. It all works together in the masterpiece. And a masterpiece it is!

I feel as if I have begun a deeply intimate love affair with nature, and particularly those places dear to me, like Manifest. This is also occurring in my immediate neighborhood around the apartment complex where I live right now in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I am surrounded by wildlife in the middle of town–there are wild blackberry bushes, elderberry bushes, forests, creatures, bugs, birds, and little creeks, just behind the treeline that surrounds us. I am in the middle of a mini-forest right in the middle of town.

I am very intuitively aware of how bountiful the blessing and gifting of these things are to me. They have everything to do with personal spiritual evolution and the process of learning to evolve the physical body into purer energy and to become a vessel that can contain more energy than before.  All the tools have been given to us. We must only understand and learn about the value of everything we have been given in this living laboratory called Earth. We must pick up the tools and use them. We must engage in the organism. We must merge with the purpose of the creator and the earth who sustains us. They are longing for us to do so.

4 Comments on “Weekend Trip To Manifest

  1. THANKS FOR TAKING ME BACK HOME FOR A WHILE. THE BILL LAPRARIES LIVED TWO HOUSES DOWN FROM US WHEN I GREW UP IN JONESVILLE. I WALKED BAREFOOT DOWN THE SIDEWALK MANY A DAY TO “:BILL’S CAFE” FOR A HAMBURGER AS A CHILD. THEY WERE GREAT! I REMEMBER THAT JOHN LEWIS WAS ONE OF THE SONS , AND IF MY MEMORY IS CORRECT, THERE WAS ANOTHER SON AND A DAUGHTER. MY WIFE AND I STILL LIKE TO RIDE THROUGH J’VILLE WHEN TIME PERMITS. AS A STUDENT OF HISTORY AND ONE WHO HAS TAUGHT COLLEGE HISTORY, I HAVE DONE RESEARCH ON CATAHOULA PARISH IN MUCH EARLIER TIMES. IT IS SO REFRESHING TO SEE SOMEONE ELSE ALSO INTERESTED IN “A LITTLE PIECE OF GOD’S HEAVEN”. KEEP UP THE WORK!

    • Roland,
      We are thrilled to share “a little piece of God’s heaven” here. I don’t think we anticipated unearthing so many treasures in Catahoula Parish. Thank you for the encouragement. Many people have shared memories of having a hamburger at “Bill’s Cafe.” I’m planning to visit my Uncle John this summer and I’ll ask him if he remembers the recipe. Yes, John Lewis is his oldest son, the other son’s name is James, and the daughter was Nelda (my mom).
      If you have any interesting tidbits about Catahoula Parish, Jonesville, or “Bill’s Cafe”, we’d love to hear them. Feel free to contact us at grannysfrontporch@gmail.com.
      Thanks Again,
      Emily

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