Island Drive

Here we are on this lovely island. The sun is just beginning to set and it's the perfect time to go for a drive. It's a particularly pleasant night and a light warm breeze flows through the car window and you have the road to yourself, no place to go, no place to be, so you can just take your time and drink in all the details of your surroundings, the beautiful hillside views and the sound of the ocean washing up to the shore are an invitation to drift along with the current of island life. This sense of gliding effortlessly through a landscape that seems particularly sympathetic to human happiness is enhanced by the car's steady pace as it carries you forward. Before we set out, I always like to do a little wind down exercise. Tonight's exercise is a really simple breathing exercise. So when you're ready, let's begin. So first get yourself comfortable. Now just bringing the attention to the breath. Just noticing where you feel it, in the nose, the throat, the chest, the diaphragm. You're nice and relaxed. We're going to be taking a deep breath in for four, holding it for four and then breathing out for six. So are you ready? Let's begin. In for four, two, three, four. Hold it for four, two, three, four. Now breathing out for six, two, three, four, five, six. In for four, two, three, four. Holding for four, two, three, four. Out for six, two, three, four, five, six. In for four, two, three, four. Holding for four, two, three, four. Out for six, two, three, four, five, six. In for four, two, three, four. Holding for four, two, three, four. Out for six, two, three, four, five, six. Great, now returning the breath to normal. You have reached the knees of the mountains. Every blue is present here, the blue of a cockatoo and the bats' swinging sleep. The blue of what is behind you and the blue of rock risen millennia ago from the ocean floor, and you, a heart passing through its shade. Its peak is hidden by thick clouds but even with the cloak of jungle, you can see its sinews, the pure movement it once was. When the lava cooled, it preserved for eternity this act of rebellion against gravity, against submersion. Beneath your feet, a knot of rich black earth expands out and down, sculpted by human hands into vast patty terraces that sweep over the valley like an extravagant quilt. Men and women are harvesting the fields, metal glinting like stars in their hands. The breeze bends to the sound of their hope and labor. You breathe into the road inside you. It is a line, but it also loops like echoes, like the motion of searching or the earth leaping and then returning to itself. Overhead, from an outcropping of granite, a sea eagle stretches its russet wings. It swoops like weather across the valley, stitching its...