How many hours a day are my feet in contact with a natural, earthen surface? How many hours are my eyes, my body, my mind, exposed to artificial light?
What must it have been like for our primitive ancestors, for whom food was the only real physical necessity, and shelter and fire the greatest of conveniences?
O, the things we take for granted, the things we want, the things we think we need! O, the things we lose when we have them! Strangers in our own surroundings, strangers to the stars, strangers to the very cosmos.
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Remember, if you really want to live forever, you must do so now.
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This morning we went back to the walnut grove at Mission Lake, where we saw a large red-tailed hawk, flying under the canopy low to the ground, which then swooped up to land on the bare branch of a dead tree. From his sunny perch, he watched us watching him before we continued on. Later, on our way back, he was still there.
At water’s edge, we saw a great blue heron. We heard the high, thin croaking of a small frog.
Somewhere along the path, we happened on a crab apple tree, which was really more of a bush, loaded with pale, cherry-sized fruit. We brought home two “for further study.”
Read the forty-sixth chapter of Middlemarch.
October 5, 2023.
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[ 1888 ]
Categories: If It Had A Name
Tags: Bare Feet, Be Here Now, Cosmos, Crab Apples, Eyes, Fire, Frogs, George Eliot, Gratitude, Hawks, Herons, Journals, Light, Middlemarch, Mind and Body, Mission Lake, Reading, Stars, The Earth, Walking, Walnuts, Wants and Needs
William Michaelian 