the world is softly wet

soft shoosh sounds  tinkling dripping plunking and plinking

water on metal water on earth,

water softly fielding its heavy grey skirt over our garden and forest.

 

the skinks are napping today,

subdued

not a day to play chasing,  not a day to bite our toes.

Greg is convinced that they are getting more aggressive , he swears he was eyed off the other day.

ever since he saw a planet earth show of the komodo dragons wearing down a water buffalo on some island in Indonesia he has had a ‘thing’.

actually, it was rather gruesome

the dragons  attack as a mob isolating a water buffalo and harassing  it until one of them manages to get close enough to  bite .

then follows a three-week period of hell  in which the poor animal  is inexorably poisoned becoming weaker and weaker until in the final days the dragons are circling hovering licking their chops  watching and waiting .

and then they feast.

it gave us the heebie jeebies at the time especially the watching and waiting and so when Greg says he felt eyed off…..

and who is say in what  direction the evolution of our skinks is going  ???

they take advantage of us particularly at morning tea time on the verandah, not just eating crumbs but also having a nibble on a toe .

we get a fright let out a squeal, it runs off and pretends to do something else. is it dead skin that is so appealing, the flavours of walking or a prelude to something else?

I walked on one in the kitchen yesterday,

they blend into the colour of the floor lurking in the shadows at our feet.

I looked down and observed  the tail section wriggling and twisting around with the upper part of the body missing, probably bolted off under a cupboard to lick its wounds.

I got sick of watching the jiggling around and went in and complained to John,

there are some things a girl shouldn’t have to face.

they are all over the plates waiting to be washed up  sometimes even  needing a hand up out of the sink

shinnying up metal surfaces is not one of their skills.

they havent discovered the kitchen table or the bench yet but lets face it, is only a matter of time.

 

 

I went to The Crossing  for a deep ecology weekend with Skye and John Seed

meeting a bunch of strangers and a few good friends.

love flowed freely and generously served up in large helpings with the food  honked out by the geese and teased out of exercises designed ‘to deepen our connection with nature ‘

how deep can we go??

already here we live on the margins of existence while the wallabies, oh they are so cute eat rhubarb leaves and snip our marigolds

the possums oh they are so noisy thundering along our roof

the rats oh they are eating the tomatoes

the black snakes oh they are making out again

the wombats oh they are on further construction

the rabbits oh they have found the berries

the wrens oh they live in Johns room all the time now

the flies the mossies oh just plain annoying

and  wasps that build their nests in our pumps chain saws  pipes mufflers  the pram the recorder.

the daddy-long-legs  take over our windows and the huntsman always grabbing a lift to town with me.

is this deep enough??

I am in the web of their existence while still trying bravely to eke out our food supply.

how envious I get when I see urban backyards with  banana trees and rhubarb and a thousand and one veges and  fruit trees with peaches and apples and plums.

we had an orchard once, it  still exists down to the west of the house where we no longer venture hidden and hemmed in by  the tall strong black wattles and the falling down chook yard.

sometimes  the trees even flower ,sometimes they set fruit, sometime you catch sight of a loquat or a peach but then before you blink it is gone.

the grapes so lush this year, big bunches of them but  before the ripening could advance  it became possum central with their squabbling and yowling and feasting night after night outside our  bedroom .

some nights I  would wander out  trying to look menacing with my witches broom and say get along you, go, only to be  stared at  by  big luminous and dare I say it, righteous eyes.

eyes claws teeth and fur lay claim to these fruits and I had better get used to it.

so here we are, the faerie embassy ,a place where we can all live in harmony, where we listen to the voices of the wild where the wild have a voice

and  their voice is loud and clear.

I want I want and ruthlessly with no thought of sharing  they take  and leave  me the squashed skins to sweep off the verandah  the next day .

I know it is up to me to find a path of communion thru this

if only I can learn to go deeper ,deeper into the connection maybe then I  can  forge a link of sharing in which I too eat the fruits but really we are too soft and we did offer up this place as a sanctuary .

the reality outside of this forest, outside of this  haven  is war , war  upon all things wild.

they are refugees .

there is naught else we can do but love them in their wildness and honour them for their magnificence in Being.