Present in a sentient world
Mary chose to develop a relationship with the pond at her workplace that she could visit frequently. Her Living Waters inquiry group organised themselves to make a synchronised visit to their respective water bodies – a fjord, a torrent river, a well, a stretch of water in Holland, the Mosel, a pond and a little brook – one Sunday afternoon. She writes:
As the time grew closer to visit my body of water, the Pond, I realised I was going to take some things with me for the little ceremony, and that I was going to read a poem that felt appropriate – ‘The Tide is High’ by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. I set out with eight little transparent shells from the Atlantic beach, a sea snail shell from the same beach, a washed-up paua shell from the Pacific Ocean and my notebook to write in.
Off the bus, walking through the garden, I gather a ‘terroir’ of little things that randomly catch my attention: a violet periwinkle, a yellow celandine, a blossom petal, a fuzzy bird feather, a laurel flower, a variegated leaf and an ivy leaf. Crawling through the fence I arrive and place all these things randomly down on the rock slab. It’s a bit cold and there are some children playing noisily nearby, clutching handfuls of disgruntled dandelion flowers; I occupy myself with taking a couple of photos until things settle down. There is a blackbird on the tree above me singing beautifully as they do at this time of year. Two small chartreuse-breasted birds fly across the weedy surface of the Pond. Other small birds flit down to the water to drink. I can see them clearly dipping their beaks into the water. I am struck by how beautiful the ‘things’ look on the rock slab and sprinkle pond water over them. Slowly the noises abate, the children go off along the path. No one else arrives. It’s snowing very sporadically, about one snow granule per square metre, and at the same time the sun is ducking in and out of the clouds, making shafts of sunlight, then shadow. A massive black cloud banks up along the horizon and occasional breezes flit across the Pond’s surface, rippling the Pond playfully in many different directions. I decide it is time to read my poem to the Pond: I read twice – the second much better than the first.
The big black cloud finally captures the sun in its stormy folds. The temperature drops. All is still wonderfully quiet. The little flies disappear in the face of the cold breezes. I sit there for ten minutes of timeless splendour; it is as if the gods – Athena, Gaia – smiled, rejoicing.
I am swept away by the light, the silence and the effects upon my imagination. This is a world barely noticed by me unless I am still enough. It is a completely different way of seeing and one that could be simply passed off as ‘brilliant sunshine streaming through the clouds for a period of time’. It is tragic to think that these poetic responses of the natural world are so overlooked and disregarded. The natural world is always reaching out to us, as with the flowers and blossoms of this astonishingly beautiful long cool spring. As soon as we want something from the natural world, we perhaps don’t see it in its wholeness, liveliness and loveliness and perhaps we miss out on the effects this seeing brings, all the nourishment and fulfilment. It’s as if there are two different worlds operating; the one that is used by us and the one that is a creature in its own right.
To experience this, it seems we have to suspend just about everything we think we know about how things are. Instead of racing through the world, we have to tip toe through, reach out, and make a lot of space and time for the signs that are around us all the time. In this reaching out, I am generating a different quality of presence by honouring the natural world. I can do this much. I can honour and pay attention and be very simple in that. But my thinking mind is not used to this. I have only glimpses of what I am talking about… ‘traces’ as they say.
Thinking about how significant it all is, the ontopoetic responses of the natural world is concept-breaking, reorienting and door opening. This is one of the first times I have gone to a place with things in hand, a ceremony of sorts, the reading of a poem honouring the Pond, the Earth’s Waters. From a certain perspective it’s all so nuanced, subtle, hard to get a grip, hard to find perspective for such events. Yet it is a mighty awe that can appear, a force, a gale, a galleon of goldenness in the shafts of brilliant sunlight. Hovering in the rational and dipping deeply into the imaginative mind there. Replenished and nourished by it all.