“But in the human world not everyone wakes to hear the stag outside the window. Most like to remain, fruitless, in the callow times….sometimes we long for a relationship with our wild home for without knowing we long for it, and when you taste its forgotten fruits, you are prepared for the thickets and briars. When the red deer roared in the kitchen, I gave up my occupation with cooking, and everything that went with it”
I feel the thorns scratching and pricking against my heart. So many things I’d like to say but will refrain and instead share this passage below, which I share often, admitting it may be possible to over share something to the point it loses meaning, but it most certainly belongs here with you.
If only your mother knew….
“Because the spirit, we realize, is a seed. No man by thought can add an inch to his stature, no initiate by the strength and power of his intellect can force his spirit to grow…
No man by thought can make the grain sprout or the acorn break its shell. No man by intellectual striving can make his spirit expand.
But every man can till the field, can clear weeds from about the stems of flowers.
Every man can water his own little plot, can strive to quiet down the overwrought tension of his body.
—-
Christ and his father, or as the Eleusinian mystic would have said, his mother, were one.
Christ was the grapes that hung against the sun-lit walls of that mountain garden, Nazareth. He was the white hyacinth of Sparta and the narcissus of the islands.
He was the conch shell and the purple-fish left by the lake tides. He was the body of nature, the vine, the Dionysus, as he was the soul of nature.
He was the gulls screaming at low tide and tearing the small crabs from among the knotted weeds.
Christ and his father, or as the Eleusinian mystic would have said, his mother, were one.
Christ was the grapes that hung against the sun-lit walls of that mountain garden, Nazareth. He was the white hyacinth of Sparta and the narcissus of the islands.
He was the conch shell and the purple-fish left by the lake tides. He was the body of nature, the vine, the Dionysus, as he was the soul of nature.
He was the gulls screaming at low tide and tearing the small crabs from among the knotted weeds.”
Thank you, I loved this. I feel I'm on a similar journey.
Thank you for this beautifully crafted story, which frames the deep wisdom of your autumn vision.
A timely topic as I enter the day wondering what is it I need to make it through another day! Thanks!
Just a re-thanks for the story. I couldn't ignore the bellowing anymore and had to revisit a visit of my own to slaughterhouses of the past and maybe came up with some resolution to the insanity. https://placesiam.substack.com/p/bovine-dreams-of-the-valley-of-flowers
Extraordinary writing and insights. I love how you weave the seasons of life into the story of reconnection with the wild land.
Thank you, dear Charlotte. I needed to read this today and am so glad that my foraging found the fruits of your labours.
...thankyou thankyou thankyou... your words arrive charlotte at such a timely moment on this path less travelled, yet filled with travellers
“But in the human world not everyone wakes to hear the stag outside the window. Most like to remain, fruitless, in the callow times….sometimes we long for a relationship with our wild home for without knowing we long for it, and when you taste its forgotten fruits, you are prepared for the thickets and briars. When the red deer roared in the kitchen, I gave up my occupation with cooking, and everything that went with it”
I feel the thorns scratching and pricking against my heart. So many things I’d like to say but will refrain and instead share this passage below, which I share often, admitting it may be possible to over share something to the point it loses meaning, but it most certainly belongs here with you.
If only your mother knew….
“Because the spirit, we realize, is a seed. No man by thought can add an inch to his stature, no initiate by the strength and power of his intellect can force his spirit to grow…
No man by thought can make the grain sprout or the acorn break its shell. No man by intellectual striving can make his spirit expand.
But every man can till the field, can clear weeds from about the stems of flowers.
Every man can water his own little plot, can strive to quiet down the overwrought tension of his body.
—-
Christ and his father, or as the Eleusinian mystic would have said, his mother, were one.
Christ was the grapes that hung against the sun-lit walls of that mountain garden, Nazareth. He was the white hyacinth of Sparta and the narcissus of the islands.
He was the conch shell and the purple-fish left by the lake tides. He was the body of nature, the vine, the Dionysus, as he was the soul of nature.
He was the gulls screaming at low tide and tearing the small crabs from among the knotted weeds.
Christ and his father, or as the Eleusinian mystic would have said, his mother, were one.
Christ was the grapes that hung against the sun-lit walls of that mountain garden, Nazareth. He was the white hyacinth of Sparta and the narcissus of the islands.
He was the conch shell and the purple-fish left by the lake tides. He was the body of nature, the vine, the Dionysus, as he was the soul of nature.
He was the gulls screaming at low tide and tearing the small crabs from among the knotted weeds.”
- H.D. from “Visions & Ecstasies”