Presence
Yesterday, on my walk in the park, I began collecting almost as soon as I began walking on the trail. Black walnuts shells split open, exposing beautiful heart-like chambers, perfectly split. What animal here can split these shells? I collected a few in my pocket and continued on my way.
Later, as I was headed down into a ravine, I found a beautiful lattice-like seed pod from a wild cucumber, dried out, dimensional, like the most intricate weaving. I held it, marveling.
About halfway through my walk, as I was coming up to the ridge, I heard a whole family of coyotes howling, yipping, making insane un-canine sounds, celebrating a kill. I howled along with them, imagining the pack together in the dense underbrush.
As I walked on, I came to an area with sticks scattered everywhere, all about the same size. So I gathered a handful of sticks and carried them with me. Underneath the eucalyptus trees blooming bright, almost fluorescent with yellow blossoms made of strands and filaments, I gathered the hard, bright red caps that fell when the buds opened, like a shell cast off as the flower blooms.
On a whim I went through the undergrowth to a spot I don’t usually visit, with a beautiful view of the valley. It looked like the coyotes had been sleeping there, the grass was tamped down in an almost perfect circle.
I made my offering there, on the edge of the ridge overlooking the valley and the coyote circle. Each piece that had called to me knew exactly where to go. I had no preconceived idea, I just began laying out the sticks in a semicircle facing the valley, the wild cucumber heart in the middle, surrounded by a pattern of red eucalyptus caps. Tiny heart-like black walnuts flanked the heart. I found bright white chips, shards of rock and used those to highlight the design.
I heard a rustling in the grass below on the hillside, and suddenly, coyotes came through the grass. They saw me and ran back down the ravine. I wanted them to be able to come back to the circle, my offering facing the valley, overlooking this beautiful spot. Before leaving I gave thanks to the nature spirits, offering my heart, my attention, my energy, my gratitude for what comes through me. An offering to my father for his support as well, as he has recently passed to the other side, and I feel his spirit watching me, visiting occasionally in different forms.
The act of gathering, of noticing, of collecting, is a pure act of presence, of listening. I collect the things I’m called to, without preconception, without purpose. I quickly become very sensitive to that call.
It’s a returning. I’ve always naturally been able to respond and to collect, to notice, to be drawn in to the littlest things, to hear that call. I’ve always been the person to find the four-leaf clover, the arrowhead in the stream, the perfect rock, allowing my attention to be finely tuned to those things.
It feels like I’m returning to an ancestral connection. This is what I’ve always done.
We are the artists, the herbalists, the healers. We cultivate, collect, create. The voices haven’t gone, you just have to be very, very present to hear them.
