The Grasshopper's Groove

Freedom, independence, spiritual enlightenment,

Gwendoline groaned as the group ground to a halt again.
She had been listening to the dawn chorus her whole life, dreaming of the day when she too may be a strong enough musician to join the choir. Today was her first rehearsal but so far it had not gone well.
"Gadzooks' exclaimed the Heron, looking down his nose,what is that garbage?I think I shall gag."
"Your grating on my melody" sang the blackbird
"Gnawing at the base line" cawed the rooks
"The thrush says your gabbling" said the pigeon in a guileless tone
"No, I merely meant it was rather gaudy. It's grating against our Gavotte."
"Say what you mean girls, it's ghastly" glared the haughty gander. "Show her the gate girls"
Gwendoline hung her head. She had hoped for a moment of glory and now they all wished her gone.
With one great leap she vaulted the gate and the great gunnera leaves beyond, for the grass meadows of home, where she rested under a gauzy spider's web. Her friend Penelope let out a thread gliding delicately above her head asked "How did it go?"
"G g g grotesque" was all Gwendoline could manage between gargantuan sobs they said I was gaudy, grating and graceless"
"Pah! what do those birds know. Birds of a feather stick together and they are not worth your good opinions. If you have a song in your heart, you sing it, never mind what anyone else says. They're not the friends for you my gorgeous green goddess, if they can't appreciate your gift. Enjoy the day and sing your song follow your own voice not the voice of others, it will lead you true.
As the sun rose through her arc in the sky Gwendoline followed through gaps in the tall grass of the meadow sipping sweet dew and chewing on the tender shoots, climbing and jumping and finding her springing gait.
And so it was that she came to the grey gravel bed's edge as the sun dipped below the trees. She waited for the rise of the gibbous moon in the gloaming and felt the urge to beat her drum to the rhythm of nature but she stopped herself, feeling again the shame and disappointment she had felt that morning, the beginning of heartbreak she experienced thinking that she would never take part. But then the most wonderful thing happened. All around her, other grasshoppers hidden in the reeds and grasses at the water's edge began to tune up. Gwendoline's heart did a leap of joy. She had followed her voice and it had led her true. She stepped out of the shadow and struck up her rhythm joining it with the syncopated beats of her brethren. She had found her groove.

Hide and Seek

       The paths between the beds lend themselves perfectly to hide and seek and the children play oblivious to the picture beyond their game. They are absorbed by the simple pleasures of their own world. I am invited in.
    'Your turn to count Mummy". They run to hide as I look away counting aloud the first few numbers.
      I am left in peace in an enchanted secret garden of exotic ferns, red hot pokers, proteas and succulents, rhododendron and camellia, Cyprus, Eucalyptus and bottlebrush. Industrious bees drone in the bottle brush blooms sounding like the rubber of bicycle tread on rain drenched streets. Their chaos belies the governance of the hive where direction must be followed, cells filled with life giving nectar, the queen protected. A pheasant struts into view and stops, eyeing me from his red pirate-patch eyes. I get the distinct feeling that I am the one being watched, the outsider. I am not very interesting and he walks slowly away, unperturbed. Squirrels chatter as they dart unseen from branch to branch. I know from the guide that they are Red squirrels not the common greys. They were introduced here a few years ago as an experiment and seem to be flourishing thanks to the lack of natural predators. As I continue my count, one appears on the path ahead of me and sits for a moment on its haunches, tail curled up over its back in a Victorian Christmas card pose, then scampers away, corkscrewing up the trunk of a tree, undeterred by the change to a near vertical plane. For a moment I contemplate abandoning the children's game just to wonder aimlessly in this place. I could make my excuses, let them believe they were just too good at hiding. There is a tempting wooden bench, in the shade of a tall drooping tree, with lichen growing on it so thick that the bench looks as if it is cushioned. How long must it have stood undisturbed to develop this degree of decoration? I could be the Miss Haversham of this bench and wait for all to be as it should be. I would become a mysterious lichen laden lady of the glades instead of the  cobwebbed wedding breakfast's bride. Not today.
   "...forty nine, fifty, coming, ready or not." I set off in what I hope is the right direction and almost instantly catch sight of half hidden clothing behind the most enormous dandelion I have ever seen, a dandelion tree. This one is not coming out with a garden fork, maybe a fork-lift. I determinedly  look to the other side of the path  peering obviously high and low as I go, and walk on towards the sound of running water.  An amphora lays on its side pouring its elixir through daisies into a pond filled more  thickly with the leathery leaves of water lilies than with water. I trail my fingertips lazily across the surface, pressing down a lily pad and letting droplets pool on its glossy surface, the glint of the sun catching in the orbs. I day dream watching the hover and glide of a damsel fly its translucent wings seem holographic in the sun. I turn to look down the length of another path and am sure I see a flash of my son's hat through the stand of bamboo.
    "Your too good, I give up. Marco?"
    "Polo." I move forward colliding into my impatient daughters excited hug and watch as the hat disappears deeper into shadow.
    "Come on, let's find him together. Marco?"
    "Polo."
My daughter and I follow the  audible trail to its conclusion and we are all united in happy chatter. We sit at the secret heart of the garden in the lap of Gaia and know we are truly blessed to be in this place together.

Picture Postcard

         Among the dunes you become people that time forgot, away from the cares of home and everyday niggles. Breathe deep, expand your lungs. Feel the fresh air, the honeysuckle glaze, the copper of sun-crisped seaweed the cry of freedom from wheeling birds. Breathing here is beyond mechanical, it is magical.

         Agapanthus sway among the dunes, tall blue Pom-poms floating above the sea grass stalks, gilded in early sunlight. Enamelled beetles with wing cases of copper, emerald, vermillion and ochre clamber like explorers among the stems while painted butterflies probe into the depth of succulent flower hearts. 

         At the tide line, waves unroll onto the shore revealing a bounty of freshly laundered shells, tumbled in a blend of cream and grey and earthy hues, some worked down to their mother of pearl undergarments. So many creatures live hidden from sight, hidden by the soup of sea and sand. 

        Curlews cry and come to land on the arc of wet sand. They goose-step in double time down the beach through the silver ribbons of shallow ripples, pausing to eye tell-tale sand bubbles then go to work, mining for the hidden treasure.

A fishing boat forges through the background, folds of tule mist hanging loosely over the blue that reaches to the horizon and embraces it , melds with it. There is a promise of fresh crab, lobster, sweet secrets below the waves. 

      Our hearts could be more giving if we were nurtured daily in this loving embrace.

Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation

      The gall rose in flames around Miguel's heart as he downed the whisky shots at the Fortune Pub. He constantly felt cheated by this land of promise. He had come over the border from the USA to Mexico intent on making his fortune in the gold rush. He had believed the country would be as a comely wench, oozing elemental riches from her seams, but she was not so easy to woo or willing to give up her secret depths however much he loosened her corsets of dry rock. She teased him with nickel and dime dust and no more.
       He had been panning for gold in the river bed for five years now and it had never got him further than the bar, staring at Fortune's mirror and her foxed reflection of him. The picture had changed over the last few years, steadily becoming more dusty, more haggard, more desperate as he squinted between the lines of emptying whisky bottles on the shelf trying to remember his hopes and dreams.
        He was sick of taking his chances on the roll of a dice, settling for a flash in the pan. In his inebriated state he decided to stake it all on the abilities of One Eyed Meg. Her's was the dependable sort of  wisdom he was looking for so he asked the fortune teller to read his tea leaves. With no tea to hand, the sozzled Gypsy Seer was presented with the dregs at the bottom of his beer bottle to read and the variety of truth she read there gave him a new conviction.
     'Your number came up'. She said.
      So the next day he parted with his last shilling and bought the Golden Ticket, his lottery, his last chance. And indeed good fortune at last seemed to be with him, the old woman had been right: his numbers did come up. His faith in fortunes graces were restored and he felt the blood pulse in his head in that moment knowing his troubles were over.
       That night at the Fortune Pub suddenly he was surrounded by friends all wishing to share in the joy of his good fortune and he revelled in their bonhomie buying round after round of drinks.
All the elemental forces in the sky seemed to join forces that night too and a tempest began in the air. Miguel climbed to the corrugated roof and danced his euphoric tin jig looking through the flying tumbleweed into the storm, into the eye of God and shook the golden ticket into the four winds laughing hysterically. One Eyed Meg ran into the bar and was heard to cry out,
      "Hey Miguel, you crazy dancing fool, come down from there, I mistranslated. The message in the bottle, it doesn't say your number CAME up, it says your number IS up!"
        Before the Lightning struck, the winds wailed back singing their lament.
        "Only with bitterness do you bring out the sweet taste in  life."  Miguel sank to the floor of the tin roof, scorch marks to his head and sole as his golden ticket blew away in the dust of the storm along with the last of his breath.

A Crusader's Tale

          Let me remind you of the colour in my story while we sit here in the smoky dark of our peat-roofed hide-away. I have told you before of my journey from green to gold. It was a crisp iced morning in January when the Knights arrived from the castle, urging us with prayers and promises, to go with them on their crusade, to seek a place in heaven by our deeds just as the new church spires did in their determined climb skyward.
        "Go with us to the heathen land and claim what is ours. The land of our Lord is sullied by men in Turbans wielding Satan's own curved blade. We need only go with the Lord in our hearts and we will reclaim what is rightfully ours."
         I was not highborn but I had a working brain even as a young man. Do not scoff so child! I knew this to be the fools errand. It had a lot less to do with men's hearts than it did to do with the caravans of silks and spices that traded those routes. We would be laying down our lives for the lining of gold in another mans pockets. Still, I was a young man of France and had done some wrongs that were in need of confessing to a mightier ear than Frere François. I thought I may get closer to forgiveness by this undertaking, so, I gathered my bed roll and followed the Knights on their sturdy limbed horses into folklore.
       You, who have only been to the market or to the crossroads cannot imagine what it is to make such a journey. One day maybe you will go for yourselves and you will see the truth of it. It is a timely undertaking to cross a whole country and then another. From our gathering in Lyon we were to make our way to  the heel of Italy, to cross the Mediterranean seas from Bari to Alexandria on the Spring tides and then again on foot to Jerusalem. But life is a journey and the journey became my life, I was enriched. There were so many sights to behold. Mostly we were at the mercy of strangers for our lodging and counted ourselves fortunate for a warm hearth and some bread at the end of the day but more often than not the sky's midnight cloak was our roof. I remember we rested a day outside Venice on the hospitality of a Miller, where I tasted the most delicate confectionary made with sugared almonds and eggs baked soft in the warmth of the sun. Putting it into your mouth was to experience the sweet kiss of a longed for lover.
         After many weeks of footsore toil and dusty beds beneath the stars we reached the ocean.
The ship had its own rookery of messengers that cawed to the winds and screamed their psalms to God and the ship creaked in the curl and foam of the ocean as if writhing with the Holy Spirit. I dreamed of animal spirits leaping through the dusk light, a hare chasing a fox, a badger following a raven. And through these dreams of prophesy and portent, I was brought to a shape shifting land of dunes and goat-skin-tented caravans, a land of succulent dates and warm skinned women with smiling eyes. A land of unknown promise. It was there that I met your mother.