The very nature of this world is change. Seasons change and the year moves through its natural cycles. When the very nature of humankind shifts us from one cycle into another of violence and death, starvation, homelessness and fear all for the need of control and political gain, life, aka nature, simply keeps going.
Her cycles change and adapt but she doesn’t need us… so yes, she moves from spring into summer, into autumn and winter, seamlessly. A tree falls… other organisms thrive on the remains and nothing is wasted. Flowers bloom, fade, become berries or apples and are devoured by whatever predator gets there first and we are one of them… we are predators, our instincts to survive pushing us to live, to breath, to have, to create and to destroy and all is mirrored in nature except… we want it all and if not freely given, we take and take and take to build our little empires that too will eventually fall into obsolescence.
We may be broken
in our bones …in our heart
but life moves through us
(flexible) if fragmented
still we are not separate
…never apart
Life drifts through all things
mending broken wings
Her call
is heard in the night
through shadows and light
She will catch us if we fall
…in Her song
Just as leaves fall and seeds are blown on the wind, (or perhaps, make a journey through the alimentary canal of bird or beast) we shed skin follicles, hair, droplets of fluid from sweat, tears, spittle… not to mention other bodily functions, solids and fluids. These particles that bear our ‘Siegel’, our unique signature of who we are, are constantly and eternally drifting out into the universe to share themselves (which, explains themselves) to anything else they come into contact with. I am sure you’ve all heard the phrase ‘we are made of the stuff of the stars,’ …well of course we are!
A tree in the forest communicates with everything around it in the same manner, in order for creatures to understand its signature as ‘eat me’ or ‘eat me at your peril.’ It’s only humans who are stupid enough to forget the signatures of the forests; the signatures of the elements in weather patterns through bird and animal behaviour.
The communication of that same tree is no different to our siegel of skin, hair, spittle etc., it loses leaves, seed pods and seeds go into the ground. Dust from its bark and the bark itself, falls to become particles that fly off to join with others to create something else entirely. Eventually the whole tree will rot and fall… does it question that? It’s really only us that say, ‘oh no you can’t dispose of my body like that. You can’t let it rot where it is like all the other creatures of the forest, including trees and all plant/animal life!
Yes, naturally, ceremony for our dead is important, honouring our ancestors too but how the body disperses into those particles in the Dance of Life is probably the moot point and the mystery. It is our ‘reaction versus response’ that has made us the way we are towards life and death itself. We are, I feel, even more sensitive right now to these rituals of honouring due to the way we see the world shaping up; descending into war, famine and fear. Random, tragic events are also more evident every day through the news and social media; our own community rocked by what appears to be a completely freak accident that took five souls away from their families, including two children’s lives.
We mourn, we grieve but nature simply moves on… cycles change, seasons change and it is there… right there in nature, we come to terms with mortality, fragility, fear and pain by its mirror of ourselves but completely without judgement. She teaches us to feel it all, to surrender to it all and find the peace of simply being…
I heard an old song, sung
Black is Black
about loss and gain
harvest and lack
when our heart bleeds ink
onto paper thin
can the poem wrought
soak into our skin
leaving trails of silvery
tears in the dark
in circles round
a luminescent track
in an ark
…of pain
we are told is gain
yet
black is black
in soft, velvet folds of night
and without the dark
we cannot see
…the light
Walk softly, tread gently, surrender…
Penny 💚🙏💚
Photography, art and words, copyright ©️ Penny Reilly all rights reserved.
Penny Reilly Artist Beyond the Gate 