Young couple standing on the sun-lit beach, their hands together with arms held straight up, lips touching in a soft kiss, the ocean caressing their ankles - a perfect moment.

The jungle is a jumble of vines - some high above the path stretching across to grasp something on the other side - the perfect highway for white-faced monkeys. Other vines wrap around towering, gnarled trunks adorned in ivy-esque attire so thick in places that the trunk hides within it. Others hang down, waiting for Tarzan to make his way into the deep jungle.

Then there is the cacophony of twisting, darting, branches - or are they trunks of slim trees - bending impossibly in so many directions that they form a fun house, ripe for the imagination of children to create mystic forests, life on other planets, home to fairies, elves, and creatures of the dark, or perhaps simply a secret meeting place for a newly formed adventure club. 

Green is everywhere - the dark green of the ivy, the startling green of the ferns that is so bright in the sunlight that it almost hurts the eyes, the mottled green of leaves designed for camouflage, some greens only dreamed of by Van Gogh. In the midst of all that verdancy there are bursts of purple and red - some right there where you can sniff them and others high up in the trees.

Somewhere in those trees are Howler Monkeys.  Though unseen in this moment, their indescribable barks, screams, and, well, howls are clearly heard, filling the jungle with primordial life essence.

What is that scent, or is it a combination of scents? It is the essence of the jungle distilled to be absorbed into your body. It is Nature reminding us of what Life smells like. It is an invitation to leave behind the drive to separate, identify, and label. Simply enjoy the wholeness, experience what you inherently know is part of your own Truth.

Is it really a crab, bailing sand out of it’s den, a butterfly flitting from place to place, effortlessly distributing life as she flies, a family of raccoons quietly making their way from jungle to beach in search of any food people may have left behind, a mother sloth and her baby climbing through the trees ever so deliberately, eating leaves as they go, a spider weaving a web so exquisitely perfect that engineers marvel? Or is it really just one thing - Life expressing itself - having such fun morphing itself into all of these delightful forms and so many more.

How good it is to simply be still - even for a few precious moments - and feel myself as part of this amazing design.