August 01, 2023 – A

We lived on the edge of the 22-acre woods in Indian Land, South Carolina (But, it is all Indian land, you know, and, before them, it was just land. I wonder how long it will be before the land returns to its original pristineness and is glad to "just be" again at last), for ten years or so. 

We cleared out the underbrush on HOA property and claimed it for our own, planting ferns and "rescuing" from eventual development Wild Ginger, Sumac, Woods Sorrel and accent stones from the woods, and setting up what I called "The Zen Glen," with a hammock, bird feeders and a bird bath, and waited for things to happen. 

The hammock was a blind of sorts in that I was blind to the birds and creatures of the woods when I was in the hammock and parallel to the ground. I did not mean anything to them there.

One spring when a family of Carolina Wrens were out with the new hatch just learning to fly and going everywhere, looking at everything, one new Wren flitted up and perched on the toe of my shoe for about five seconds, looked me over and flitted on. I was neither a threat nor interesting. 

I took advantage of that by taking pictures of citizens of the woods for as long as my knees allowed the trek back and forth from the house, and miss those times of lying back in the scene, waiting for something to come along. 

"The halcyon days of yore," I think of them, glad to have had them, and glad to have held them close and let them go-- which is the catchy title of a book about raising/rearing children, "Hold them close and let them go," that I don't recommend beyond its title. 

The hammock was also good for silence, stillness and emptiness, which together constitute the bedrock of spiritually/connection with the invisible world of more than can be said/told/explained, and can only be experienced/known as the moved can only hope to know the mover. 

I don't know what serves as a hammock for you, but I know you have to go there often and stay there long enough each time to develop the knack of just being with yourself and reflecting on the experience that enables/allows to the point of new realizations, and see where it goes.