Unravelling the wild

Threads of grass quiver in the soothing onshore breeze that cools the linen on my back. After a week’s madness of party and postparty me-hem, all is quiet. My feet that danced until 3am have stopped tingling. Just smiles remain and they’re for keeps. We danced and let everything out to the beat in twists and swirls. Sixty years young, the dance moves defied our age, as shirt tails and summer skirts swished upwards towards the stars.

A cricket ticks away timelessly. In the distance I can hear cicadas enjoying the heat, the occasional bird song. In the shadow of this hill just minutes remain before the sun roasts everything it can. It’s walk, swim and hide on repeat for weeks ahead.

A black, shiny, silent ant crosses the dusty path toward me. and I pretend it isn’t there. As I make myself sit and listen to the wild, I hear a leaf roll over on the stones. I hear the flicker of its toasted cells skitter on the dusty earth. I tell myself it is still cool, and by comparison to midday for sure it is, but the light reflects off my skin. The sky-blue dusting of sweat glistening on my toes reveals the truth. A blackbird sings a faint tune, but achieves only half a song and stops. I hear the hollow bark of a dog in the distance and a plane rumbling above, circling the earth fades to nothing.

As the young leaves of the Carob tree shudder in dappled light, cyclists in the woods call each other above the sound of tyres scratching stones. Bee-eaters answer back, singing as they fly diagonally across the pines. A bird with large wings flutters clumsily and lands on branches above, a collared dove maybe. An ambulance siren sounds below in the town, a reminder of how near I am to tourist town. Maybe another visitor with sunstroke.

The birds are quiet, in hiding from the heat. I am hiding less from the heat and more from ‘busy’. Always busy.

I am here to wind down.

To listen.

And I do.

And then I am.

Yes, I remember, I AM.

I breathe the air the grass breathes. I stare at the sky the birds fly. I listen to the chatter of cicadas the birds hear. I am as much in control of life as the bees.

And this is.

And we are.

One.

Earth.

I sigh at the thought of me being me.

Nothing more and nothing less.

The sun has reached my cooled toes. A cicada, louder than a tractor bursts into gear, screeching in the tree in front of me. So it really is getting hot and it is time to retreat. And as I do, I remember to stay slow. I smile at the achievement of changing gear. Even if it doesn’t last long.

This looks like a prayer to me. Photo by Pipp.

From Mary Oliver whose words sail on the breeze:

I don’t know what a prayer is

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

…

…listen and love.

On Substack , (that curiously, still does not have a Nature category), this week…

from Kendall

‘I think I will bake a rhubarb pie today and swim in a lake and look for horses and cougars and kittens and airplanes in the passing clouds. Perhaps this is how we move forward— we bow to the close calls, and we stand up straight and spread our arms towards the sky and we live’..

A Hundred Horses

And from Chloe,

‘I wonder, at times, whether Death is a shell. Whether dying may be akin to hatching, to breaking through some impossible thing in order that we might spread our wings. If, indeed, it is, how gracious of life to offer before us so many chances to practice.’

some impossible thing

And from Rebecca

‘…this morning there is hardly a current in the bay. The tide is falling like a meditative breath—a long, slow exhale—and we swim out into the lung of it.

I, magpie

And from Bill…

‘Three decades of living behind that glass kept me at a distance. But the birds created a small opening, and the morning light came through. I felt the warmth in my chest. I began to notice new and different details. The glint in a bird’s eye. The way they turn their heads. How they look at me, how they look at each other. How attuned they are to everything around them…’

Exposed and Asking

And from Susie,

‘love is a kestrel learning to fly’..

between earth and sky