Present

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Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better

Albert Einstein

Twenty-five years ago, around 7.30am, in Brittany, on a footpath close to Sainte-Avoyé, I was awestruck and absolutely present. Hundreds of little worlds were reflected, shimmering, in cobweb-suspended dewdrops. The morning air was soil and river-scented. I was surprised by the long stride of an oystercatcher who appeared not at all surprised by me. So often going somewhere, this morning I wanted to stay, here. Present.

As though physically rooted to the spot, emotions raw and aware, spiritually awake, fed, happy, rested, warm, the little worlds in morning cobwebs and (from a coffee-table photo book planted among the recesses of my memories) the symmetry in snowflakes, filled my heart and mind. And the thing I understood better was that there is, always and everywhere, so much more I may come to understand better. Twenty-five years ago – as vivid this morning as then. And thus prepared, I open sight and senses to the wonders of a new day …

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Voyaging (still)

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Strange how one thing leads to another, isn’t it? The exquisitely written ‘The Offing’ I’m currently reading by Benjamin Myers has ‘the occasional horse too, tethered in lacklustre paddocks, ribs showing like the hulls of beached old boats’ … and my mind immediately flew to Brittany:

Voyaging – first posted on 5th October 2016

Le cimetière de bâteaux du Bono

For years we’ve
come remembering
your voyaging here
long before us and
we hear the gulls
laughing and admire
the industry of
oystercatchers and
the youth of shiny
new acorns as we
note that the comings
and goings of the
tides across your
venerable oak boughs
are quietly returning
you to the ground of
your origins just as
year by year they are
returning us too and
the serenity here
though poignant
holds us in peace

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Orchard dwelling

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Let me tell of a scented French apple orchard
set before a house of stone still warmed and
painted gold by setting sun

Better perhaps to tell of it in French? –
but then again right now the language of the
telling really does not matter

For already the picture’s painted clear in you
behind your eyes and in your heart and you
sense without a further word

that you are here

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