A Small Place of Enchantment

Numerous circumstances have kept me away from this little blog space for far too long, but my recent strolls about the pond have made the words of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings come vibrantly to life, so I must briefly pop in and share.

I do not understand how any one can live without 

some small place of enchantment to turn to.

(Cross Creek)

I often marvel that I need only walk about a block and a half down the street in order to enter my own small place of enchantment.

At times the pond is alive with human activity, and at other times -- such as yesterday morning -- it is completely empty. I violated that non-human atmosphere by traipsing (reverently) throughout the wetland paths, and found in that solitude another inner land of enchantment.

To be quite alone where there are no other human beings is sharply exhilarating; 

it is as though some pressure had suddenly been lifted, 

allowing an intense awareness of one's surroundings, a sharpening of the senses, 

and an intimate recognition of the teeming sub-human life around one.

(Gavin Maxwell, Ring of Bright Water)

The "subhuman life" of late is most noticeable in the more vocal creatures. The bullfrogs chorus (in the key of F), their sonorous cello-like rasping greeting us at all hours of the day. The red-winged blackbirds call out persistently to one another, inflating their middles so that the scarlet patches on their wings grossly expand. The proud mother duck is training her ten little ducklings how to be successful ducks. There is much frantic flapping as the fleet traverses the pond.

My eye is drawn mostly now to the generous supply of lupine blanketing the landscape. The tall violet spires attract bumblebees and photographers alike, each hoping to somehow gather the sweetness of each small place of enchantment.