Beyond my screen a green haven rises in all moods of weather, throughout the seasons. It’s a wonderful arrangement. I feel grateful my window does not face a concrete wall, or a busy street. My eyes get exercised, switching from screen to the far end of ascending grounds … the Buddha Island with its peonies and phlox plants, the white rose gate, and the studio beyond. Today I won’t dwell on urgent tasks, like heaving heavy watering cans, trimming overgrowth, or dwell on the help needed.
A still morning, butterflies frolic. Golden rays trail through the boundary hedge of my neighbour’s plot. Gradually, from East to West the sun fingers on and brightens my sanctuary. By noon the old apple trees will cast swaying patterns of dappled shade.
My dainty cat guest, Shey, delicately licks her snow white paws, making sure I notice her sitting on the patio wall. A patient creature, she knows I’ll stare at some weird thing in front of me for a while, certainly until I finished my cup of black coffee.
Once I step out to the patio, I gently rub Shey’s chin and feed her a few crisps, her daily treat, all under the watchful gaze of a friendly monster, her watchful cat companion. He is grey, fluffy, and huge, like a bobcat, tolerated but held at a distant by Shey, and me.
Next I replenish a wide bowl with fresh water, and toss a small handful of rolled oats in the earth of an old flower pot, for Robins, the little messengers of joy. And I admire the proud 50 cm Zinnia flower that survived aphids, from a batch of seedlings sent by a friend.
Later, a young fox sneaks out of nowhere, sitting straight as a stick, ears perked for the slightest sound or movement. He waits for my nod. Yes I see you, but I’m not sure you get food today. Aware you have Mange, I perked you up, but recently you brought a companion, and I don’t want my garden to become a fox highway. A raw egg once a week is enough. You got the hint and visit less frequently. In any case, you look better, and scratch your legs less.
A swift peek through my inbox – huh, a reader likes not just one but several of the monthly posts on my website. My eyes flick back to the garden – fragile flowers of wild geranium patches wave, and deeply pink wild sweet peas snail up the fur hedge next to the patio.
Finally breakfast – likely Kefir with soaked chia seeds, nuts and fruit.
Facing the wide world, I open a news site and scroll down surreal headlines. A world in turmoil, which I feel duty bound to witness. Weather allowing I’ll escape into the garden, just being there.
Do you create, or have a space that feels like a sanctuary?
How to reconcile moments of pure beauty and light our restless world offers, with the heavy darkness of human ignorance? How is it the guiding spirit that is shining through everything so often escapes the unseeing eye? Is it our wounded hearts, or our anxious busy thoughts that prevent spontaneous being? Many of us like twilight, the dawn, the dusk, mist, where darkness and light do not negate but enhance each other. They mingle. As friends do, or lovers. Twilight is poetry in motion.
like tiny cherubs
When there is no other near to share such paradoxical quickening with, I may call on those who enriched my life but are no longer present. I adore the moon, the ancient chunk of earth, reflecting and making tolerable the blinding beams of the sun, granting us poetry and symbolic language.
We must see things fresh, not through tired ideas our establishments bank on, that destroy nature’s homeostasis and spill imbalances into cultures too poor to afford resistance. I say – let our children and young people decide what’s worth living for?
Course of Mirrors 