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for the last few weeks as i am focusing everything on getting my vardo ready to travel i haven’t been taking my regular nature walks
usually once a day i walk somewhere that is far enough away from town that i can feel the solid stillness of nature through and through
late this afternoon instead of going back to my studio and working on my pull outs i went up to pogonip to walk
a little ways past the gate i just stopped to take in the blue sky and the small hawk that was circling and the little birds that were heckling it
i gathered in the fence shadows on the road and the sweet dry smell of the grass
i could feel my heart beating strong and my blood pounding and it felt so good to know that i was alive and getting to appreciate that place that i love
i collected some raven feathers, a few worn and weathered, others still fresh with their rich bluey-purple sheen
i sat at the top of the hill above the old clubhouse and thought about the hundreds of times i sat in that spot over the years
after omar our horse died back in 2016 a question kept coming up for me— what is it i think i don’t have time for?
i guess i often think i don’t have time for the spaces that allow for that appreciation i felt in pogonip— that special noticing in rejoining a place i hadn’t seen for awhile— when it isn’t routine or expected but purposeful and generous in a way— or the spaces in a conversation that give the tentative things you might want to say room to float up and find expression or a connection to the other person that is difficult when it’s too quick or wordy
peace pilgrim says to have a truly spiritual life our days can’t be overcrowded— right now my days feel very overcrowded but for an hour it didn’t— i could stretch out and feel spacious in releasing and reflecting
i’m interested to see how what i think i do and don’t have time for will change once i am on the road with a whole new way of life to gather in
that hawk is up there somewhere in all that blue!
