The Pool

There were mixed emotions amongst the group of children about the mountain pool. 

Deep and still it lay there in the valley, inviting for some but daunting for others, especially the smaller ones. 

Especially Vincent, who had a head filled to the brim with imaginings. 

Thoughts and fears (although he is loathe to admit to them being fears) of dark creatures lurking in the fathomless waters. Creatures he has seen on youtube, with evil eyes and searching suckers. Silent fish that lie in wait to take a bite out of an unsuspecting water lover. 

Tickling tentacles of sea-urchins. 

Although this is a mountain pool, he reminds himself. 

But still. 

He consciously tries to push these dark fears away as he watches his mates enter the water one by one. 

Some slowly and tentatively, starting with a quickly withdrawn big toe, and then a body part of fuller proportion. 

Others, who have been there before, quickly choose the highest rock that calls to their daring. Some jump in ahead of the fear that they know will grab them if they wait. 

Others clown around and pretend to hold back. 

One swimmer soars into a graceful dive. 

The dark monsters win, and just as he is about to pull away from the water's edge to the solitude of a bush from where he can watch the fun, someone hooks him from behind, and before he knows it the cold punch of the water grabs his breath away. 

A good thing, that, because his head is under water, and he would drown if he tries to breathe now, his mind screams at him. In the tangle of bodies he reaches for the surface that he knows must be up there, and breaks it gasping and flaying. 

A red tide of anger washes over him, momentarily blinding him and causing him to miss his friend's laughing face as he hits out. 

Edzard, undaunted by Vincent's anger, spins him around and splashes him from behind, calling out some of the silly names they shout at each other in safer zones of togetherness. 

Suddenly, as if from far away, he finds his own voice shouting too, and he is drawn back into his own body, which he momentarily left at his surprise at himself. 

Like mist fleeing before the sun, the dark monsters ran from the communal exultation that rises from the pool, vanishing behind the cliffs and leaving behind pure joy. 

Mint fib

mint
raw mint
crush and smell
add a bit of lemon
stir it into tea and sip, sip slowly
close your eyes and become, become the smells, the garden, the brown soil
feel your consciousness blossoming, becoming, transcending, trickling, dissolving, 
the raw smell of earth 
back to nature
down to 
roots

My nature 2

Deep blue winter sky
Reflecting drops of beauty
A still stone of attentiveness

You will leave me
But I will remember your touch

My nature 1

Awake early, I slip out of the sleeping house and walk down to the water
The path turns off the road and leads between bushes and reeds,
up the sand dune and parts it in the middle

Almost like a birth canal which opens up with the view of the sea, but it is the wrong way around
An inverted birth canal, going from dry to wet.

It is a flat stretch of sand to the water's edge, to the sea, to the waves.
A stretch that we run when we are with the children.
But I come down onto it from the dune alone, and turn to my right, to the lagoon.

The dry sand between my toes turn to wet and harder sand, and my footprints appear behind me.
The lagoon stretches out in front - calm, reflecting the early morning light.
The sun sends her rays out as scouts but still hides behind the mountain, waiting for her moment of glorious appearance.

It is a windless morning, and the only ripples are from the ducks that languidly move away from me, recognising me as an intruder upon the scene. I sit down on a sandy log, and watch them slowly return to where they were. With each stroke of their webbed feet more accepting of me as a part of their space.

I breathe the salty air into my lungs and close my eyes; listen to the thundering of the waves. A distant voice to the calmness of the lagoon water. When I open them again to look at the lagoon,
I can hear her calling:
Come play
swim
be
breathe
splash
I will cover you and wash you clean and make you new
You will leave me, but remember my touch

Suddenly the ducks, startled by something outside of my awareness, rise up with a collective squack and flap of wings, shattering the lagoon's call, and reminding me that the people in my house will start waking and be wanting breakfast.

I stand, indecisive, between domestic and wild.
Then pull my shirt over my head to follow the water's call

Forgive Me

Forgive Me
                                                                        Mary Oliver



Angels are wonderful but they are so, well, aloof.
It's what I see in the mud and the roots of the
trees, or the well, or the barn, or the rock with
its citron map of lichen that halts my feet and
makes my eyes flare, feeling the presence of some
spirit, some small god, who abides there.
If I were a perfect person, I would be bowing continuously.
I'm not, though I pause whenever I feel this holiness, which is why I'm often
so late coming back from wherever I went.
Forgive me.

The Patience of Ordinary Things

The Patience of Ordinary Things                                                                                  Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes Or toes. How soles of feet know Where they’re supposed to be. I’ve been thinking about the patience Of ordinary things, how clothes Wait respectfully in closets And soap dries quietly in the dish, And towels drink the wet From the skin of the back. And the lovely repetition of stairs. And what is more generous than a window?

Connecting...

Connecting with each other, and with nature. 

                                 
                                                  Not happy with this intruding Juan

                                                  Net Vincent en Mieke - baie beter!

                                                Al drie saam werk darm ook..soms

                                                 
                                                          Die beste slaap is buite
                                       

                 
                                                                   Comics

Reflection

Still waters, deep,

surface like glass reflecting green above;

and below are trees, sky,

shadows, leaves, sunlight,

moving and motionless.

Here silent images shimmer now,

and - air breathing suddenly - break.

Unbidden feelings confuse

reality and fantasy.

Which is which?

Fantasy and reality confuse;

feelings unbidden break, suddenly breathing air;

and now shimmer images,

silent here, motionless

and moving....

(sunlight leaves shadows).

Sky, trees are

below - and above -

green, reflecting, glass-like surface.

Deep waters, still.

THE MUSHROOM HUNTERS
Neil Gaiman


Science, as you know, my little one, is the study

of the nature and behaviour of the universe.

It’s based on observation, on experiment, and measurement,

and the formulation of laws to describe the facts revealed.


In the old times, they say, the men came already fitted with brains

designed to follow flesh-beasts at a run,

to hurdle blindly into the unknown,

and then to find their way back home when lost

with a slain antelope to carry between them.

Or, on bad hunting days, nothing.


The women, who did not need to run down prey,

had brains that spotted landmarks and made paths between them

left at the thorn bush and across the scree

and look down in the bole of the half-fallen tree,

because sometimes there are mushrooms.


Before the flint club, or flint butcher’s tools,

The first tool of all was a sling for the baby

to keep our hands free

and something to put the berries and the mushrooms in,

the roots and the good leaves, the seeds and the crawlers.

Then a flint pestle to smash, to crush, to grind or break.


And sometimes men chased the beasts

into the deep woods,

and never came back.


Some mushrooms will kill you,

while some will show you gods

and some will feed the hunger in our bellies. Identify.

Others will kill us if we eat them raw,

and kill us again if we cook them once,

but if we boil them up in spring water, and pour the water away,

and then boil them once more, and pour the water away,

only then can we eat them safely. Observe.


Observe childbirth, measure the swell of bellies and the shape of breasts,

and through experience discover how to bring babies safely into the world.


Observe everything.


And the mushroom hunters walk the ways they walk

and watch the world, and see what they observe.

And some of them would thrive and lick their lips,

While others clutched their stomachs and expired.

So laws are made and handed down on what is safe. Formulate.


The tools we make to build our lives:

our clothes, our food, our path home…

all these things we base on observation,

on experiment, on measurement, on truth.


And science, you remember, is the study

of the nature and behaviour of the universe,

based on observation, experiment, and measurement,

and the formulation of laws to describe these facts.


The race continues. An early scientist

drew beasts upon the walls of caves

to show her children, now all fat on mushrooms

and on berries, what would be safe to hunt.


The men go running on after beasts.


The scientists walk more slowly, over to the brow of the hill

and down to the water’s edge and past the place where the red clay runs.

They are carrying their babies in the slings they made,

freeing their hands to pick the mushrooms.