Nature’s objective is not to complete
But to re-become
Again, and again

Brianna Wiest
from Salt Water, page 44

Yes! the multi-coloured foliage of all our lives falls to earth and water, regular as clockwork. That’s the norm. We waste our energy trying to resist the passage of time and season. We renew our energies when – and if – we learn the wisdom of the soul and the seasonal. There is, indeed, a time for everything under the sun. When our personal ‘flowers’ are brought to the ground we should, perhaps, breathe a sigh of relief. Here’s a fallow period. A rest. Downtime. Like my oxalis triangularis corms – covered up in a dark cupboard for a while to regain their strength – so it is for us: we’re not to complete, but to re-become. Wow!

Chillier evenings as Autumn draws on were made, I think, for fireside and books. And rather wonderfully, after a sunshiny day, it’s a chilly evening! …

what is it in lake
ocean or river that brings
us to a standstill?

A poet is a person who “lets drop a line that gets remembered in the morning” 

E B White

And that’s what we all want – a being re-membered, re-clothed, re-plenished, re-sourced, re-born and re-cognised in the morning, and every morning … and as we grow we come to recognise with a deep cognisance that it’s absolutely OK to “drop the line” at evening, because we’re wholly confident – here and in all the vast and tiny uni-verse of our eternities – that there will be a remembering in the morning …

David Whyte speaks of ‘the intimacy of your surroundings’ in his ‘Everything is Waiting for You’ – and thereby changed the way I look at life and our world; at a robin, morning mist hung low over the Pennine Ridge at sunrise, a blade of grass, a waxy leaf, the smile of a food hall cashier, the warmth contained in a person’s expressed hopes, spent energy, graced art, delights, desires, grief or pain.

I celebrate the intimacy of my surroundings at home, in the volumes on my library shelves, in growing compost, in oceans, and the great bodies of water in English Lakeland, in who and what I am, in memories, supper, and plans for tomorrow. And I am not alone …

I’m fond of Border Terriers – chiefly because their faces are so expressive. I came across two of them with their human earlier. Each little face – without words – was quite clearly saying: ‘let’s go on adventures.’ And it occurred to me that their freedom of spirit is precisely why they always look so cheerful, and up for whatever’s coming their way. So look out. When we meet I’ll want to chat about what adventures we’ve got lined up!

Chatting with a friend over lunch today touched upon the beauty of ‘Austen-esque’ language. Full of words and modes of speech that have become rather old-fashioned to contemporary ears, Jane Austen’s classics are no less loved by me for that.

One such word, at least one that I don’t often hear, is ‘enthralled’ – which really quite describes me! On the one hand I’ve begun to believe myself a bit forgetful, and on the other I’m enjoying a kind of renaissance-return to the beguiled delights of curious childhood, before ‘education’ and ‘what you need to do now’ interrupted my reverie.

Today I find myself glad again to have time to take time – and observe that there’s a great deal to have one’s attention held by – often tiny things. Pasja1000 created this marvellous photograph of a single lawn daisy and I am, Miss Bennet, ‘enthralled’ by all that I see (and hear?) in it.

She said ‘I found a
tiny starfish there’ – the great
joys are little things

Having completed garden remodelling this year – and being inspired and delighted by it – I’ve turned my attention to some ‘indoor gardening’ with a new and growing collection of houseplants. Each of these, I’m told, are ‘air purifying.’ Sounds good …

Standard Dracaena Bicolor; Chlorophytum Comosum Bonnie; Dieffenbachia Bertina & Dracaena Marginata Bicolor

How? Just how? I heard John Rutter’s wonderful setting to ‘For the beauty of the earth’ this evening and the combination of music and poetry is always guaranteed to set my imagination aflame. Yes. Before the beauty of the earth … and this immeasurable Universe, and my extraordinary set of perfectly symmetrical snowflake photographs, I find myself hushed and stilled and – suddenly aware of an hour’s having passed – wondering deeply, and at peace.

I broke a tooth in March and – struggling with eating – my sympathy for aged aunts and uncles who endured dentures for years has hugely increased; as has my immense regard and gratitude for a wonderful trinity of dentist, dental nurse and hygienist who, between them, warmly assisted by a super receptionist and the practice manager, make a visit to their dental surgery feel like a happy day out. And a splendid temporary tooth bites into a sandwich as good as the original!

One of the things I’ve missed during the course of Lockdown UK has been proximity to the sea. I dream by day and by night of ocean’s flow and remember, more thankfully than would anyway have been the case, how fortunate I am to have been able to cross the Atlantic and sail up the Amazon River in January and February this year. I think it’s going to be a while before I’m able to sail again.

grounded art is found
when and wheresoever we
remember to look