The Gift

The Gift

I look up from where I sit under the maple tree and close my eyes to the glint of sunshine that temporarily blinds me. I haven’t seen or felt the sun for a few days now, and I welcome it back. The soggy days of November – the sky so close to the earth – grey like the water. Even my brain was becoming soggy. But now the sun has returned – at least for a few hours.

I go exploring through the woods. The smell of damp leaves. They squish under my feet. Red and yellow – layer upon layer of wet colour. As I wander along the cliff, a bird hovers over me – a raven – throatily chatting with me. It flies on and I follow it. It flies back and forth, as if drawing me towards something. Then it laughs and flies off. I laugh too – thinking how gullible I am to believe that the raven would actually call me and have something for me.

The cliff is high here, off the ocean. I follow the animal trail that winds among the arbutus trees with their red bark curling back to reveal the force of green expanding from within. The trail moves in and around rocky outcrops and then drops down to a pebbly beach. The tide is low now and bits of seaweed shrink around the pebbles as the sun warms and dries it. I take off my shoes and feel the cold stones beneath my feet. I walk towards the lapping water and gasp as a stronger wave pushes over my feet.

This is it. This is where I am. Here. Just now. There is no other time or place. Nothing else is strong enough to creep into my brain. Into my body. I am just here with the water, the stones, the seaweed, the sun, the sky. As I breathe out, I push that bubble out further, encompassing more of the sensations around me and pushing the rest of the world back. Each breath fills the bubble until it is so full, it feels like it might burst. I sit then on a driftwood log and wait. Like the Great Blue Heron standing still in the water. Not moving. Just waiting. I am the heron now. Still. Waiting. What will I catch with my waiting? What is it I want. What do I feed on? What nourishes me? Will I find it here, in this bubble. On this log?

I am nourished by nature. By its quiet persistent way of feeding itself. By the connectedness of all of it – in the way that each organism feeds another in its simple act of feeding itself. Am I part of that? As I nourish myself, is anything else nourished? Am I connected and if so, to what and whom and how? Can you take this morsel and use it for yourself. And in doing so, what do you nourish in turn?

I want to be connected. You are, just by being alive. But I want to FEEL connected. Then breathe into the bubble.

I breathe. Deeply. And know that it is in breathing that I receive and in breathing I give. There is nothing more that is asked of me. There is nothing more that I have to offer. It is nature’s gift to me and this is my gift to you. Breathe it in and then pass it on as you breathe out.