We need to be still, don’t we? Else we miss out on what is in front of us, all around us. After the pulsing noise of Christmas-New Year, stillness is balm. The calm pond that resumes after the ripples have spread outward to the banks to dissolve.
Husband and self decided to seek stillness and walked along a country road this week, enjoying the cool before the expected heat of the next day. Our feet crunched the gravel, and flocks of sheep, disgruntled at our presence, huffed a desultory baaah, and moved further inland, away from the boundary fences.
We stopped and there was silence filled with soft sound. Sheep bleating, the lowing of a mob of cattle on the other side of the road, the flapping wings of birds in the trees, the seabreeze sighing through the eucalypts, the leaves tik-tak, tik-tak against each other. The creak of dry branches as the trees swayed to the sea music. Bird song – wrens, kookaburras, parrots, crows, ground birds with the sweetest trills. Listening filled us with gentle completeness. Far from the madding crowd.
We looked around. There were cobweb filaments on the fences, a thistle bloom – proudly mauve in the closing daylight, tiny daisies, seeding pasture grasses. Here, a bumblebee. There a tortoiseshell butterfly.
And oh look! A Christmas beetle! In the creek that runs under a small bridge in the road, tiny galaxeas swam under cover of reeds and the pugged-up mud along the bank was evidence of the passage of cattle that drink and then climb back up the banks to feed again. In the distance was the remarkable tint of the sea and further, the smoky-blue wooded slopes of Maria Island.
The act of seeing is no small thing. To see something is to be possessed by it. Sometimes it carries off part of you, sometimes it carries off your whole soul. Motojiro Kajii Landscapes of the Heart quoted in Days of the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa.
Further on there was the Australian bush which I’ve always thought so stark and unattractive, filled with broken branches and enormous slabs of shredded bark, with acres of green or rusted bracken fern, the odd clump of white teatree or spiky pink heath – nothing graceful. As we walked, we heard thumps amongst the tall bracken as wallabies jumped away. There was fungus on the trunk of a tree, like fairy steps to the canopy and on another tree, the more subtle shades of Australia in the bark.
We note the gold motes of bush dust in the light of a sinking sun, the silhouettes of the trees. It’s actually quite beautiful, and as the seabreeze drops out, so very still.
This afternoon, my friend, Pan, had an 80th birthday party. We were all meant to wear white and I tried the best I could from my wardrobe.
Pan has been a playmate of mine for years. A riding friend – trekking in the Australian bush, picnicking, riding in endurance events, competing in the odd show or two, swimming the horses at the beach. We’ve kayaked together up and down the Tasmanian coast from Swansea to as far south as Earlham and at Maria Island. We’ve swum daily through many summers and indeed through quite a few winters. We’ve body-surfed and body-boarded, not with any great skill but we’ve laughed ourselves silly. We’ve floated down the creek when it was in spate at her farm and then drunk champagne and eaten homemade fresh bread after. Great memories and so much life left in us yet. Every day is ‘filled with limitless possibilities’, as my late Terrier has said.
It's less than 5 days until Roxham Young Terrier joins us and I wonder if I’ll ever have time to write a post again. Perhaps we need to follow the advice of all new parents – sleeping when the baby sleeps. In this case, perhaps writing when the baby sleeps… if it ever does. I try to imagine childhood stillness, but I watch my 6 year old grandson post-dinner, when he tears around with what look like canine zoomies. Sigh…
Ah, stillness. It may only ever be a word in the lexicon from now on. I shall let you know.
Music for this week? I used this in a long-ago Substack post but there is a powerful serenity in its opening. See what you think…
Smitten with the image of you and your husband walking in quietude together. It says a lot that you both enjoy what reveals itself on a simple stroll. Isn't the Christmas beetle spectacular!? Despite your sense that the bush is ungraceful, your description of it is anything but. The thump of wallabies, the sunlit dust--to me it sounds warm and inviting.
So good to celebrate with friends, and you all looked sharp in your whites. Pan is a vibrant looking octogenarian!
I know puppy is going to bring a delightful sparkle to your days, even if you miss a bit of sleep as he gets settled in. He's a smart little guy, I'm sure, and will weave himself into the fabric of your life in short order.
That piece from Bombay: Wow! That low, constant base note is rich and grounding. I went off on a[n unsuccessful] mission to see if I could identify the instruments. Thanks for sharing that. Beautiful.
May peace walk with you this year, Prue.
How still and calming your post is! I love the music too. You did a fine job of capturing that stillness and quiet.
I sometimes miss the eucalyptus that are everywhere in the hills where I grew up in Northern California, although they are now slowly getting taken down as they are such a fire hazard. Tales are told that the seeds originally came from sailors shaking out their mattresses when they arrived in San Francisco...and the regional climate was perfect for the eucalyptus to thrive. At any rate, the smell reminds me of dry warmth that I do miss this time of year in the UK.
The few small clusters of eucalyptus still remaining up and down the northern California coast are also wintering homes for migratory monarch butterflies. At various places it is a magical treat to see the branches high up above start to flutter and turn orange as the temperature reaches just the right warmth for the butterflies to start moving around. And they do-by the hundreds and thousands! Does this happen in your woods ever?
Hope you have stored up that stillness for the delights of movement arriving soon!
xx