A week or so ago, I was lucky enough to get to visit a group of university students and talk about how writers use imagery to communicate ideas.  I had students focus on images related to winter and summer.

I talked mainly about how it was easy to find things in both winter and summer that were irritating (dry skin and cold toes in winter, mosquitoes and sweat-drenched clothes in summer), but also easy to find beautiful things, too.

Not only that, but were you to feel a little down, and if your eyes were down, too, whether in summer or winter, you might just find something new—new and beautiful

Which means that you could, just by presenting some images from winter and/or summer, suggest that when you’re down in the dumps you can perhaps pull yourself up and out from the dark into a brighter mental state by simply changing your perspective and shifting your focus. In that sense, a song or a poem about winter and/or summer may become a song or poem about something bigger than winter and summer. This is what makes human language so amazing. Things are sometimes easiest understood when they are not explained too directly.

Anyway, I sang to the students:  When your eyes are on the ground, there really is so much to be found.

Having sung it, I thought we Hearty Hikers should head to the mountains and see if it were true. And (drum roll), it was!

We walked from the town of Umegashima, up through the cedars, then along the Sakasa River to the Abe Pass, and then up to the top of Bara-no-dan, and all along the way there were all sorts of discoveries waiting for us down by our feet.

And focus on the ground long enough, and you might suddenly want to be down on the ground. Which is good.

The flow of energy can feel a little different down there.

As you approach the Abe Pass, it’s hard not to have your eyes on the ground. The ground is swelling up all around you.

And when your eyes have seen so much, whether on the ground, or in the trees, or in the sky, something very magical can happen.
Things begin to vie for your attention. A tree might give you a little wiggle.
Folks may wander out in front of you, maybe sixty, seventy meters off, and dare you to find them.

Really. This happens a lot. Everyone may come out from the mist, to greet you, to be seen by you—if only for a minute or two.

So yeah, when your eyes are on the ground, there really is so much to be found.