I know you’re tired...
but come, this is the way ― Rumi
Dearest friends, you are welcomed with a smile as always, thank you for being here. I don’t take a single one of you for granted, which makes each of you a delightful gift when you arrive, you are deeply appreciated, consider yourselves endlessly adored, hugged and loved.
It’s definitely spring! Meaning, I am primarily—uncomfortable and wildly disgruntled—permanently attached to something mechanical. Such shenanigans take time, almost all my free time. I am many years past enjoying being this busy.
I nevertheless find a few moments to walk with the dog on a quiet morning, my darling son natters beside me, frustrated at my —absolute—inability to understand factorisation and equations. I never will. I love that he keeps trying, I love that he walks with me every day. I love that he knows if I have my camera slung over my shoulder I will stop often but never complains.
So because of continued discomforts, lack of creative gaps and the speed at which everything is blooming/growing/invading I am sending more of a photo essay. I thought I might call it a meditation… but it is not—I’m not even sure I know how to meditate—nevertheless, at the end of the page I hope you feel at least a little of the tension leave your aching hearts, that you feel lighter of spirit.
Make yourself comfortable, find a soft cushion, a sunbeam, a window where you can taste the breeze, breathe the sky…
“I know you’re tired but come, this is the way.”
― Jalalu’l-din Rumi
I know, I used the same quote for my last essay. Quite simply, I love the implication in the simplicity of these words. I wish someone would say them to me…
Walk beside me a while and know this; there are places on this planet that cast shadows in our minds. They are not a darkness, they are an abiding light…
Warm air is carrying away the last residue of winter in early mist, tree silhouette cutouts against steely grey skies fade. The skyline softens. There is a southern breeze, warm, like cashmere, it grazes the soft hairs on your bare arms. Petite à petit, hesitant at first, then, with the surety of all that is cyclic, you feel everything beginning to fuzz and buzz, verdant, vibrant, lime-green. Cherry trees scattered through the forest mimic soft spring clouds, dandelion clocks do the same as if, in unison, they are celebrating light at long last. The scent of spring is shared between us, you hum into its gathering. I join you.
Birds of every imaginable variety, robins, blackbirds and blackcaps, a song thrush in the distance, nuthatches and woodpeckers, all sing as if escaped from winter cages, some are still croaky with sleep, others sing as though they have rehearsed right through the cold and the damp, the rain, sleet and snow of the cold months without a word of complaint. Their songs are as sweet as the morning is bright, they catch your heart, their wings, those of angels, dappled light in new leaves.
Come, there’s more…
The worlds we enter are numerous now; the meadow below us, swelling with spring secrets, holds the beginnings of myriad floral rhapsody, dandelions already turned, clocks tick-ticking, their wishes waiting to disperse, buttercups, white campion, wild mustard, each divided into light and colour, there is no conquest as to which will win, each has a beauty so individual, so its own there is no necessity. Forests of scented pine lay to the west, here where we will leave our footprints in dew dampened needles, whispering birch scatter their chants in every direction the breeze takes them, white poplar seeds are caught within the notes, a soft snow storm in spring.
We are now high on the south slope of the hill, the sun is creeping slowly around the headland. Birdsong has hushed to almost silence, only a cuckoo—the first of the year—calling from somewhere invisible to you or I, utters a continuous mournful song. You hear her notes only by way of the wind as it rushes through the grasses, scattering all that is light enough to be carried, bristling young leaves. Wayward buttercups are lain flat, earthbound again. Three swallows—arrived just a week ago—flash their silvery bronze undersides and coppery heads and are gone in a whirl of high pitched whistles, they join the wind and the seeds. And then, as if it is nothing at all, forgetting everything but this moment, the dawn swallows start to flit and dance, as they have since before all of time. They are hypnotic glimmers. Their bellies catch in a tangerine dream light; the sun passes the peak and dissolves us all.
You feel the change don’t you… up here the breeze is brittle, it cuts through a less giving earth where only the hardiest of the fauna and flora remain. Here you can stand on the outside of reality, solidity is not even a question, each part of you is entwined in the existence of all else. Raggedly holding onto life always on the edge of a void. Existence here means journeying in constant wind, everything living is carried. Every heart beating busy in the harsh, yet exquisite art of survival.
“Imagination is haunted by the swiftness of the creatures that live on the mountain - eagle and peregrine falcon, red deer and mountain hare. The reason for their swiftness is severely practical: food is so scarce up there that only those who can move swiftly over vast stretches of ground may hope to survive. The speed, the whorls and torrents of movement, are in plain fact the mountain's own necessity. But their grace is not necessity. Or if it is - if the swoop, the parabola, the arrow-flight of hooves and wings achieve their beauty by strict adherence to the needs of function - so much the more is the mountain's integrity vindicated. Beauty is not adventitious but essential.”
― Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain
Come, the day begins, and, since little even here holds mystery in such bright light we will whisper farewell. This is not goodbye you understand, it is too late for that. I hold in my heart—and you will too—the Mi'kmaq language1 where there is no word for goodbye. They use the term Ne'multes instead. It reflects a profound belief that all separations are transitory, like the swallows, the dandelion seeds, like us. It is not so much an expression but a feeling that extends beyond people to include the land, waters, and every living creature thereon. For the Mi'kmaq, the land is family, a living presence that connects each of us, like gossamer threads waving across time and space.
With forever love, Ne’multes,
While I still can;
All the meadows and verges are filled with wisps of dandelion wishes, I make mine for every family who has lost a loved one to war and pray there are enough…
Something I loved this week; This and everything Pipp posts, a beautiful reminder to slow own, to take notice, hum a little while you do….
Miꞌkmaq (/ˈmɪɡmɑː/ MIG-mah; Mi’kmaq: [miːɡmax]) is an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by nearly 11,000 Miꞌkmaq in Canada and the United States; the total ethnic Miꞌkmaq population is roughly 20,000. (ref: Wikipedia)
Am I the first to like -no- love this post? Dandelions! Wonderful dandelions! Little yellow flowers pop up out in front of our house and M rushes out to cut them off. I say leave them be. They make lovely flowers whose seeds we can eat. The tiny petals (is that what you call them?) float so prettily on the breeze. Oh well, between you and me, Susie, we will leave them be. Peace, my friend. xx
I can feel the cashmere breeze caressing my skin, hear the melodies that it carries and the dandelion wishes that connect us. I have always loved the wish, au revoir — until we meet again x