Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Two songbirds & Stone-Three Awakenings

Just a sharing from a beginning-minded fella picking away at the keyboard.
Summer Flowers (aka Stef) and I went out Sunday around 3:30 PM to gather sacred soil.

I landed in the central garden and continued on out to the north pasture. Alone, I worried "Nuts, it's dead quiet out here. I shoulda come out earlier. I'm never gonna get a sign now". I offered sacred tobacco. Within a very quick time I heard a bird singing.

"Well, that's a brand new sound here at the farm, but too puny to be a sign -- too this and that. It's a solar eclipse in Cancer, I'm a triple Cancer, and I was expecting a bobcat or at least a moose. Still, that's a new sound -- a sweet sound at that. Quiet down Mr. Inner Critic-Judgeaholic -- it's a sign -- gather your soil."

Soil in hand, I walked back towards Stephanie who was standing very still, very focused. A similar bird song was coming from South of her. Not wanting to disrupt her very still state, I crept past her and headed up to the house. At the house, a bullfrog was singing away. I carefully crept past him also and went into the house to research Frog in Ted Andrews' Animals book.

While I was in a reverie around frog, I remembered Stef did not have her hearing aid in, so she probably didn't hear the songbird. I approached her and asked if she was waiting for a sign. Steph shook her head yes. "Do you hear that bird singing in the pine trees?" "No--you know I can't hear birds singing without my hearing aid." We had a good laugh at the absurdity and joy of life, and Stef gathered her soil.
The next morning, Steph bounded out the door with a bucket of vegetable seeds, heading to the new garden in the North Pasture where I had dug trenches and applied composted manure for her to follow me and do her gardening/planting.

"Please Steph, it's way too humid -- just an hour out there. After at least 5 hours she bounded back into the house. "Steph, I've been on the phone with the horsedriver roughneck crowd and they are all sitting this heatwave out!".

Ignoring this, she said "Marc, it's a white-throated sparrow -- it sat eight feet away from me while I gardened, unafraid of me, and I could hear her sweet song without my hearing aid -- she was that close to me!".

On a farm there's always SOMETHING -- and many somethings are gold moments if you are open to them.