Nature and Me
Photo by Sarah Fuhro
Theaters are not open during the pandemic, but when I step into a place of woods or meadows, I enter an ever-changing drama, which never ceases to quicken my heart. A hawk swoops over my head, and watches my dog and me as we enter her domain. We are both cast and audience in this theater. Once more I am at home, yet it is a home never the same, and each turn in the path takes me down another corridor to a room transformed.
Have you ever had a dream where you discover a whole new floor or hidden room in your house? Each journey into the woods feels this way to me. I step out of my house or my car into a place, which may be familiar, but is never the same. The rules of movement are constant flux: the other residents can never be predicted. The light, the seasonal changes, which unfold day after day, make me gasp with wonder, or sigh with nostalgia for the mushroom or flower, which was there yesterday, but flowed and transformed into another life form.
Photo by Bruce Lhuillier
When I wander in meadow or forest paths, I often experience the yearning, the pain and joy of being in love. Am I in love with the place, with someone who reminds me of this site, with this particular moment? The spirit who lives here tears my heart open and heals it at the same time. I am certain no one has loved this place, this moment as deeply or as truly as I love this path, this mound, this tree, this light. I am doomed to heartbreak with the unutterable beauty of this place.
Photo by Bruce Lhuillier
And, if I don’t have time to go into the Earth theater, if I forget to enter places of sanctuary and worship, they will come to me. They will come into my soul, because I am part of them and they are part of me. Green fingers will reach into my dreams and shake me awake. And so it will be for our tribe, the human family, if we don’t lie down on the ground soon, and acknowledge our body.
Photo by Robert Fuhro
As always,
I turn into the woods,
step into the meadow,
where,
as always,
I hear the hum,
of activity, of song.
Movement catches
my eye, flight,
turns my head.
They are there,
as always,
my guides, my compass.
Walk deeper,
a branch slaps my face.
As always,
I am stunned.
Is it possible,
I trespass?
Fired by mystery, mythology and the lure of the natural world Sarah Fuhro, practitioner of Druidry, wanders the woods, swamps and meadows of the Sudbury Valley. You can read her Moon blog at https://sarahfuhro.wordpress.com.
