Breaking Ground
Early morning light on the banks of the Blackwood at Nannup 20 November 2022 05:00 am
Birdsong at 4:30 in the morning… the light of a glimmering some what overcast morning. Sleep evaporates in the confines of my little dome, I see nothing but suffused light filtered through the fly cover… spatters of rain punctuate the raucous mocking laughter of Kookaburras and other winged creatures… the sound of a new morning.
I am still for a while, thoughts as diffuse as the light, running in a dreamlike commentary behind my eyes. My body feels its years… I feel privileged to breath the still air and be serenaded by the birds.
I am awkward in my movements in this tiny space… arms and legs moving to unite me with clothing… then on all fours like like a cornered fox, I back out into the light… a breech birth into the new day.
Standing in the cool air… I am surrounded by sleepers… if they are conscious they choose to keep their eyes closed, and try to recapture their own dreams, at least for a little while longer… I do the things my my body demands and then prepare to be a thief and steal the souls of tree and river… and imprison them in nets of light. Colours of the Earth, all greens, yellows, the palest of blues tinged with pink of daylight, the deep darkness that is the undefinable colour of shadow on water… Yes I am privileged to breath and be immersed in all of this… and I cry silently in its overwhelming embrace. comforted by the slow song of wind on wood and water on stone.
Light on the still water from the East…
After we broke bread, we set out to break ground… One Tree Bridge, late morning, a good day to walk. A few nights before I wrote to my friend and said, “It is not how far we walk, it is what we breath, taste and feel as we receive the gifts of the earth.” So it crystallises… a soft reality, leaf littered ground, sounds of the river… an ancient tree once fell here bridging the banks of the river… now replaced by a swing bridge swaying with the weight and cadence of our walk.
We are are alone here for a time… both separately absorbed in memory creation… planting the seeds and cultivating the meat of stories and painting with light.
A view from One Tree Bridge…
“What are these?”… a type of creeper? Probably a type of Clematis…
A bright slender yellow flax has its soul captured…
There is no better curator than nature in this gallery… these are small nurturing visual meals to remind us of fragility …
It is exactly where I want to be right now with our souls embraced by the spirit of this place. With our sweat and the dust and fragrance of the Earth… surrounded by living and dying life… I see you as that tree … slowly growing, suckling on the life giving water locked in the warm Earth… home to life, cooled by the night, cleansed by rain and seared by fire… that is a real life… a life freed in the stillness of a calm unknowable and wise mind…