Ascent and Descent

I am sitting at the top of Petrin Hill, amid hedges in the shadow of the tower (Petrinska Rozhledna). My legs are shaking. I have gone up, and come down. Muscles are beginning to relax. The sun is out, but there's a cool breeze, making it very difficult to commit to a sweater or not. I keep putting it on and taking it back off.

The city is mostly enveloped in a thick layer of mist, which is unrecognizeable at street level, but obvious from above. This is the Praha I remember, strangely enough. Towers seem to materialize from nothing, reaching points in the sky, as if they are emerging from the river. Bases dissolve into clouds that scud across the earth, so that everything appears to move, to breathe, to rise and fall. All is connected, yet nebulous, like a dream that I can float over and swim through. An old man has been playing violin for koruny, and his sad, sweet song hums and sings a ladder of notes, up and down and winding spirals. It's achingly familiar, but terribly impossible to identify.

It's noon. There are the bells.

From Petrin, one hears the deafening peal of the bells at Strahov Monastery, but also the echo of bells all over the city, resounding and bouncing and colliding into a cacophonous medley from which nothing is discernible.

They've stopped, I think. I can still hear something. Maybe from far off--maybe just the echo in my head.

Praha is, for me, a series of ascents and descents. Up hills and towers, then back down. Climbing nearly to heaven, then drifting back to earth.

The violinist is playing again. Must I go back down?

The woods of Petrin Hill. Did anybody hear a sound?

On my way up the hill, I found a secluded spot in the woods to practice my Tree Vignette for Interacting with the Inner Partner. The piece involves the sprouting and growing of a tree. I tell it my dreams. Then I climb to the top so I can see the world beneath me. I ask the tree to shade me with its leaves, protecting me from the elements. I ask it to grow fruit so I can sustain myself. I ask it to grow branches strong enough to hold me so I need never come down. Then I realize the tree will die one day, and the tree will keep living. I climb down to spend time with people, on earth.