The Happiest of All

It was a well-kept secret, even among all the happiest places—where the happiest place on Earth is. Each happy place on all the different continents on Earth felt surely they must be the happiest of all. Of course, they all knew that the man-made attempts at creating happy places were just fabricated to make a buck and that making an unnatural creation out of what is natural had nothing to do with happiness. The best you could squeeze out of all that theater of the unreal, unnatural was some pleasure out of all the profit the creators of it made. Everyone just went along for the ride of fantasy. But men and the imaginations of men had nothing to do with the really happy places of Earth. Not that men had never been to a truly happy place, it is true they only got there by accident and didn't know what they were experiencing when they were there. They just didn't recognize what true happiness is really like—being so used to pleasure and propping up their ego-I's as happiness. So, not really recognizing real happiness, they weren't able to recognize a truly happy place. This was a good thing because as man's egos are truly of a magnificent size, it never occurred to them to exploit these beautiful, very rich places of the Heart. And as few people know, exploiting someone or someplace could never amount to a pile of happiness, not even an anthill of it. It was ironic that the happiest places on Earth were never recognized by men for what they truly are: happy!, when all men are in pursuit of it (they think) their entire lives.

This story is about the happy places on Earth being so happy and perhaps a little proud of being so happy that they wanted to share their place of happiness with the other places of happiness around the world. They wanted to spread the happiness around and show the Mother Earth, its great benefactor, how loved it is. And to determine once and for all what place is the favorite of Mother's—what place is the happiest of all. Word got out that the contest was on. This word-of-mouth got started by the animals that lived on or near or visited these happy places. During the great wildebeest migration in Africa, these wandering beasts spread the word at each waterhole or river crossing. "Did you hear? There is a contest to find out what place is the happiest place of all." Of course, the wildebeests had their favorite waterhole, and a good long drink of water always made them happy by satisfying their thirst, so they all were certain that their best waterhole was the happiest place of all.

As the lizards and rattlers scampered and slithered on the rocks and through the sandy washes of the Southwest deserts, they too could talk of nothing else but the contest. They felt that the sunny boulders that they loved to lounge on for the warming of their hides had to be the happiest place or boulder of all. Everywhere, on all lands, the animals were abuzz with the news. There were some truly awesome happy places under the sea, so the fishes were in their school talking about nothing else but what place would win. It surely had to be the great coral reef, as the beauty of life it contained was full of the pulse of life.

The birds on their great migration flights linked all the happy places together with the information they needed to get on with the contest and to decide what place of happiness is the happiest. Some of the happy places were also places of beauty that many people visited and mistook the power of beauty for happiness. Some places appeared as just part of the landscape with no separate apparent feature that could be defined as "that's interesting." Some places were high up, some were low down, some were deep inside, some were under. They were all made up of good earth material—all were part of the mother. All were imbibed with happiness and vibrated happiness as surely as birds call out their mating calls in spring to begin the joys of bringing their new life here. All these happy places, from spectacular to apparently everyday mundane-looking, wanted the secret of the happy places and the happiest place of all to be known because happiness should never be secret, especially a best-kept secret. It should be known and shared. That was the inspiration behind the contest.

Each happy place had its own kind or version of happiness. The big, happy boulder in the high plateau desert surrounded by Joshua Trees vibrated with a tingle that caused itself to shake like a hiccup. Often a sleeping lizard found itself sliding over its edges, awakening abruptly before it hit the desert floor, laughing at the absurdity of its situation. The chief tree in the range of the giant forest giggled each time its pinecone dropped to the forest floor. Whenever a squirrel scampered across its branches, the chief felt the pulse of its life and the life of all the animals and birds that visited it, and this gave the mighty tree a sense of pleasure in its huge presence.

The high peaks of the pinnacles that were created by ancient lava flows felt a buzz with the heat of life. The post piles of parallel basalt logs shifted into song when the wind of winter, of snow and ice, pushed and pushed them. There were also places of happy hilarity, places where the laughter was absorbed deep into the earth, giving the Earth Mother another kind of hiccup or burp. Other places sighed and moved and vibrated with contentment, knowing life is enough and beautiful with its appearance and disappearance. There were places like a sheer cliff that gave the happiness of excitement and danger, the thrill of the extreme. There were places of mystery that were doorways beyond the physical, always wondering with the thrill of the unknown. Happiness was being lived and loved by all these places.