Not been idle. This is Crabapple Jelly, fruit picked in Newcastle.

It hardly seems possible that yesterday I was sitting on a large rock on the beach at Alnmouth watching the tide go out. Listening to the sea moving back and forth on the sand. Now I sit at my desk in my room at Throssel contemplating next week when I have the opportunity for some ‘quiet time’. Not exactly ‘retreat time’, but close. A time of stopping, taking stock, allowing questions to arise and not require an answer. A time to live the unasked question. Perhaps.

SOMETIMES
by David Whyte

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,
you come to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.

There might be posts during the week but for the most part I’ll be away from an internet connection, and electricity.

Let any one try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.

William James in The Principles of Psychology Chapter 15 Perception of Time.

This past week I’ve had space, and time to read, William James has been my companion. Apart from anything else I enjoy his turn of phrase. I find it poetic.

Here is Monty the Tortoise, bless him. Here caught on camera blissfully chewing the rubber sole of my shoe!

Here below education on our ancient friends. Their shells are rather interesting, Here. if you are interested.

At some point — let’s just say around 260 million years ago — Earth got turtles. They look strange in these modern, mammalian times when lots of things are squishy and unarmored. But during the Late Permian Epoch, the early turtles were dressed in all the latest fashions: short, sturdy legs, bony plates and a stiff, splayed, crawling strut.

Here’s the thing. We do not judge a ‘creature by it’s covering’. That’s across the board, for all creatures. Merit for all those who are judged thus, do judge thus. And are suffering as a consequence. I guess that covers ‘all creatures’.

When I feed a creature
I anticipate a joyful
gallop towards the food. (or at the very least, a shuffle.)

When it rains and
it’s windy outside
I worry about shelter (for them).

When I approach with food
I do not expect them
to chew my shoe. (Weird.)

When food goes uneaten
For over 24 hours
I worry. (especially if there’s not been a sighting.)

When I check the fencing
my heart
is in my mouth. (escape is the worst-case scenario)

When I call tenderly from
a 2nd-floor window
I do not expect a response. (especially if the window is closed).

When I call gently from
beside fresh lettuce leaves
I hope for a sighting. (a rustle in the undergrowth, perhaps)

When I persistently call, whisper,
plead, long for, hope for,
anticipate a sighting. (I’m on a road to nowhere.)

What creature is this?

This post is for all creatures everywhere – contrariously orientated, hairy, not hairy, constructed to defy nature (but functional never the less), and more. And all those attributes we know, love, lose our hearts to, lose our tempers with, and more. And all that finickiness around; food, shelter, being locked in, being locked out, food, free feeding, not free feeding, grooming, bedding, social difficulty with ‘others’ – and more.

And finally here is to us. those creatures who are SLEEP DEPRIVED due to; demands for food at 3.00 am (or whenever), who respond to the demanding cry to be let out. Constantly for most of ‘sleep time’, and more. Us who lay awake at night listening to the rain and worrying ourselves awake about ‘shelter’. All this and more has us framed as hapless, hopeless. SERVANTS.

And we serve them anyway!