AUGUST – The Mute Season
It is now early August, the lanes and the woods are silent, without the pellucid sound of birds singing. Only the yellowhammers in the hedgerows are with song. In the skies above the cries of the buzzards can be heard. This is the time when birds begin their summer moult to replace their suit of feathers ready for the harshness of winter. This is a challenging time for them, with breeding time over they have no need to sing aloud. Birds may lose their body condition until the moulting season is complete, usually by late September. Our young hard bills (seed eaters) such as linnets and goldfinches will now devour the many thistle heads and the milky soft seed of the knapweed, thus enabling the greenfinches to devour the exposed kernels. This allows the gut of the young birds to fully develop throughout autumn until the rains come to soak the precious seeds, before winter arrives to fully harden them. They now need to build up their reserves to sustain them through the long winter months. We too can help them along by keeping feeding stations topped up with varied tempting delights and enjoy their visits to the garden.
August is the season for developing fruits, berries and nuts, a precious food supply for our soft bills (blackbirds, thrushes etc.,) brambles too will flourish after heavy rain and much sun, a sweet and rich bounty for all. Different wildflowers such as hemp agrimony and the wild arum, locally known as cuckoo pint, also known as lords and ladies due to the black spot on each berry, resembling the black beauty spot worn by men and women in times gone by. Many varied fruiting bodies of toadstools are now putting themselves on display. Everything in nature it would seem has arrived earlier than usual this year.
As Maverick and I amble along taking in the morning air with notebook in hand, suddenly out of the shadowed wilds a stranger wearing camouflage clothing startles me, un-nerving Maverick who growls incessantly at the man. He carries a shotgun over his shoulder, a bearded man in his fifties wearing a gold earring in his left ear. He is keen to talk, but I have never known a man who notched himself to credits, with every faculty he owned, to the animals he has killed. He pulls at the bloodstained bag across his chest, “I’ll have a good tea tonight” he brags. I tell him he obviously has issues, to let mercy become his teacher and I wish him the best of luck. He seems to adopt an unearned sense of superiority. His conduct of life I believe being remote from nature.
In the distance however, I could see the quiet mystery man with his dog Oghma, and quickly take my distance away from the shootist. Maverick swiftly runs towards him in excitement, and after they greet one another, the pair gamble about together in play. I eagerly approach him. “I haven’t seen you for a while,” he comments. He kept talking gradually working his way to “What was your name again?” “Bob,” I reply, “and I am Sean.” Looking down at my notebook, he asks about my note taking, I tell him that they are my precious journals, my receipts for my ability to write from my heart.
He then begins to tell me about his sorrows, so I listen carefully wearing a thoughtful expression. It was a great wrong done to him, something that had caused him to withdraw emotionally from this world. He never went into any detail, but I could see the hurt in his eyes. I tell him that I have faith in a better world, but I have also walked in the darker corners of this one and began my own exploration into the nebulous subject of happiness. However, there are far too many frequent ways of jolting us and making us stumble. What spills out I believe, is what we have filled ourselves up with. Will it be sadness and bitterness or sunshine and happiness? For myself I seldom think about my own sorrows. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times, but it is vague like a breeze among the flowers. Beautiful days don’t always come easily to us, sometimes you must walk towards them. I believe our heaven is within us. “I want to thank you for washing my face with happiness Bob, you are a lodestar.” His reply stills me, but I value the richness of his comments, I truly believe that this meeting may have narrowed the distance between us.
I hope that telling my story will help to heal his sorrows, for I believe story telling speaks to our emotions, they are the heart of an effective message, they resonate and can move us. I give thanks that we chanced upon each other’s day, and I wish him well.
