Musing

One of the gifts of living a relatively solitary life amidst acres and acres of Mother Nature is recognizing that nothing is measured in a linear fashion. Not time, not space, not life, not the end of an old year or the start of a new. Instead every aspect is circular in nature. Even the every day exchanges are circular in nature.

Land and animal and everything in between are always unfolding and evolving according to the exchanges of give and take that each individual does. No one species or individual cops out of these exchanges, and the fallout of the give and take creates exchanges for other individuals and thus every species can evolve and unfold in a manner that is conducive to the whole.

By being of circular nature every species is connected in coexistence; all creatively designed to give and take, to live and die, to evolve and unfold – and by virtue of that circular nature – to encompass all that is within.

It’s all too easy to forget that life isn’t just getting from point a to point b. It’s all too easy to forget that my choices are in flux and revolution with natures choices and decisions. It’s easy to forget that I am of a circular nature and I am also within the circle, being encompassed by the nature that is around me.

I live and measure in a linear fashion as much as the next guy, – marking time, setting dates, counting age, working a project from beginning to end, point a to point b. But the knowledge of life being circular is what I want to recall and what I want to be brave enough to go forward with.

I wish to share one more of those reflection photos before summer fades to fall.

It was a perfect evening that one, not calm, but still, so still. I knelt on the edge of the wetland for the better part of an hour, watching sheep pass behind me and not coming to drink, they also have a water trough to drink at and many will go there. My toes would sink enough to get wet and I’d readjust position. Yet it was dry enough on the pasture that dust was being kicked up by some playful lambs on a trail behind me.

Something about this girl just standing and gazing reminds me of the evening more than other photos taken at the same time.

This is how it is that I fall in love with nature time and again; that I know I am nature. It’s not lion’s and tiger’s and bear’s and saving them. It’s prairie land, it’s grazing animals, it’s birdsong and biting insects, it’s coyotes yipping. It’s me ‘wasting’ time on the edge of a wetland just being where I am.

If I could extend only one wish to humanity it would be that we be allowed to ‘waste’ more time just being where we are.