Community at the Park

I've begun a journey to reconnect with the wights and denizens of my local park.

I have been spending about an hour each weekday morning sitting in meditation.

There's a swirling dizziness that takes me as I do this work. It's as if once I stop moving and pay attention everything begins to coalesce.

Daily I clean a little bit more of the rubbish. And restack fallen wall cobblestones. These things are small acts of my communion with the Spirits of the place.

But in the moment of surrender to the meditation the feeling of being washed into another space has begun to grow stronger. I am adrift in a warm presence and tossed about in the eddies of the life force.

I photography each morning sky and light and land trying to capture for others the beauty of our home.

This week I've begun to record 2 minutes of video that I call: 2 minute meditations and post them to my private page. This too is a small act of connection to place.

But today instead of my usual ground and center I did an eyes open meditation.

The silent observation of the community around me is a joy.

The Jay family seems to have accepted my presence.  As today all 7 danced from oak to oak chatting and hustling the squirrels for acorns.

Robins, cardinals and chickadees got bolder with me not ceasing their song as I wandered beneath them on the way to my meditation spot.

Got the first time this season I spotted one of the shy Warren-folk as she slipped out from undercover of the mock orange patch; a silver ghost daintily nibbling clover. Her ears soft not rigidly alert, the tiny rabbit loped unconcerned by my presence,  though truthfully I am a good 80 feet from her, from patch of sunlight to shadow.

Delightfully upon the two sacred oaks, both dually struck by lighting and tornado by the same storm front, a pair of squirrels went about their day. One tawny the bigger and bolder of the two and one soft grey, they foraged and battled around the trunks. Tawny flitted around the grass to find the best fallen treasures only to zip up another oak and daredevil at its uppermost branches shaking up a few unhappy mourning doves.

Smoke the smaller, and seemingly gentler of the two squirrels cautiously explored the sycamore ring then disappeared from view when the jays sick of Tawny's acrobatics mimicked the cries of a red tail hawk.

The vocabulary of the blue jay is extensive.  And this morning my crew are having a good old fashioned jawing.

As the last of my offering smoke drifts upward like spider silk I am reluctant to leave my roost.

So much hustle and bustle on an overcast morning as Tawny exacts a small measure of revenge as he chases a juvenile Jay up the smallest of the oaks. His squawking seems gleeful.