GRATEFUL LIVING & GRACEFUL DEPARTURE

The evening of Sunday, 15th of May 2022 brought a crashing thunderous storm to my hilltop home near the south coast of Dorset, England. I love storms. The patio was flooded temporarily and the trees were washed sparkling clean of dust.
Monday heralded the arrival of a large flock of excited and noisy starlings who benefitted from the fresh water and disturbed insect life.

A neighbour’s young cat tried to harass a pigeon but the local blackbirds teamed up with the starlings to terrorise the cat into a hasty retreat. The grateful pigeon waddled off unharmed to continue foraging among the dandelions, buttercups and daisies.

I sit as still as I can when I am observing the wildlife in the early mornings, but they keep their beady eyes on me, just in case I turn predatorial. I respect their caution which has been learned over many thousands of generations. They do not know how much I love them….

A neighbour’s dog spots me and races over, dragging his human appendage to say hello. The human apologises unnecessarily while I exchange love signals with his wiser companion. I wish, for the thousandth time, that I could have a dog friend again.

A wonderful flood of memories take milliseconds to flash before my consciousness, the colourful prisms gleaming from shiny black fur, the flash of pure white teeth in a broad loving smile, the lean muscles inherited from powerful ancestor wolves and the thrash of an enthusiastic bushy tail. All this elicits an involuntary sob from my soul. A decade has passed since I buried him, but it can sometimes feel like yesterday that we were sharing the best adventures of my life.

Dogs don’t live long enough, do they?

IMAGE: Rasta, a Groenendahl Belgian Shepherd dog, and I in 2003, before we set off to live on the road in our hi-top Leyland truck. We explored UK, France and Spain until we found and settled upon our off-grid Avalon organic fruit farm in the Sierra de Gredos.

Now, as another blue-sky day begins, I calculate how many days I have lived.
25,600 days have inevitably ticked up.
It is not a huge number, is it?
They flew by in a blur and my memory has only stored a few moments from them. Some good and some bad. Some wild and reckless, some calm and precious.
Some that make me wince with shame. Some that still surprise me with their moments of sheer bravery. Some that changed my life’s direction and led me away from drudgery. Some that taught me more than can ever be written with words.

I am supremely grateful for every one of those 25,600 days and every soul I shared them with.

Humans don’t live long enough either, do they?

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"When the signs of age begin to mark my body (and still more when they touch my mind); When the ill that is to diminish me or carry me off strikes from without or is born within me; When the painful moment comes in which I suddenly awaken to the fact that I am ill or growing old; And above all at that last moment when I feel I’m loosing hold of myself and am absolutely passive within the hands of the great unknown forces that have formed me; In all those dark moments, O God, grant that I may understand that it is you ( provided only my faith is strong enough) who are painfully parting the fibers of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within yourself." ~ By Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his book The Divine Milieu.