What tiny slice of this place fits into my frame of reference?

Today Sally and I paid the big bucks to hire a driver and an English speaking guide to take us out of the city to a place where the Great Wall goes through the mountains and then to another mountain called Panshan. Through the windows of the backseat of the shiny black 4 door sedan, we witnessed the hazy, foggy concrete and metal city of 12 million fade into blue sky, sunshine and a mountainous terrain of rock and dry vegetation. The farms of green wheat sprouting in the valleys watered my parched spirit with serenity and offered a brilliant constrast to the dusty mountains rising in all directions. Villagers dried sliced hawthorn berries and ears of corn by the bushel on drying racks on the sides of the road and on rooftops. We chit-chatted with "Susan," our 23 year old guide, about matters of culture and history, finding her English to be nearly impeccable (aside from the mysterious misuse of male and female pronouns, which seems to be a particular Chinese quirk.) Our conversations included many important topics, such as : homosexuality (accepted within the younger generation), modern day concubines (not uncommon among the elite and government officials), the one child law (they tie the woman's tubes afterwards), and the government's protection of ethnic minorities (they are allowed more than one child). Of course, Susan's perspective is but one of over a billion, but what else do we have to go on for making any sense of this nation in our little American heads, other than our first impressions?

The sunshine, mountains and fresh air gave me the psychic space to both laugh freely and to think (an ordinary, everyday task which seems to come only with strained effort amidst the respiration of this city, 12 million souls moving their way through their world, collectively inhaling and exhaling a grey, coal powered breath of smog and strangeness). My mind wandered to the phenomenon of "first impressions." When a place is entirely new and foreign, what ability does my mind have to perceive the place the eyes are seeing, the nose is smelling, the ears are hearing and, perhaps most importantly, the pulse the soul is sensing? How can my mind possibly register any part of this place other than the parts that are perceived as familiar? I go back and read my very first impressions of China, and what I wrote about was the way I felt I could relate to the movement of people through space here and to the perceived demeanor of the people. Other first impressions are most certainly comprised of a series of comparisons of my perceptions of this place to what I know of the place that is my home. My standards for comprehension are entirely based upon what I know. What tiny slice of this place fits into my frame of reference?

That led me to ponder one of my big life quests: What does it take to know a place? Maybe to know a place requires remaining in that place long enough that I merge with the place. That the pulse of the my life attunes itself to the pulse of the place- its seasons, it schedules, its music, its gods, its demons, the waxing and waning of its life forms- its very breath. And living with this pulse with continually renewed awakeness. I hope I can do that in my home. I surrender hope of doing it anywhere else.

(Jesus, I should start a seminar at Greenlife Community Center. It could be called: "The Soul's Knowing of Place: Continuous Renewal of Awakeness." It could be a sliding scale cost of $135-$480 for a half day, and maybe it could be facilitated by someone named Shanti Imari Flying Eagle Watersong...)