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Sunday 19 July 2009

Woodland Evening

Against the oak tree I sit, my mind cluttered with flirtaceous thoughts: things dipping in and out of my thinking, teasing and all competing for my attention. The day, past, has devoured my energy and so I have stepped out on a small journey to find settlement and calm from all that clusters around me and space that sits outside my immediate needs.

In this place I am amongst my 'other' friends. The greenery around me seems so distant from the busyness of my work, family, and various preparations for creative experiences. I ask for a touch of the other; the language of the landscape and the poetry of the breeze in the trees around me. Here, with only a slight breath that moves the leaves of bramble and oak I absorb the cool stillness. Stillness like the presence of the silent trees whose sense of time seems to belong in another perspective - their slowness of being shames our competitive spirit.

And the song of the birds carries through the dimming light - not songs of high energy like in the early morning, but songs of passing, patience and subtlety.

How small I am in this place, where tallness draws from the undisturbed earth and which is reflected in my new expressions of artwork. How weak is my ability to exist here unaided. How much I have lost though my ancestors and the desire of the world to take nature away from existence.

One day I will return.

I leave, settled.

I give thanks to this place of blessing.

* * * * *

I see four hares as I leave the wood.

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