Every Footstep
I began my journey following a little path which took me to an old churchyard. As I opened the old wooden gate my eyes beheld the most verdant green hedgerows bursting with wildflowers, a rush of fresh country air laced with the aroma of the evening primrose saluted my nose. This place was beyond compare. I rested a while to watch the butterflies all around me. On a tall headstone humped with clouded moss and lichens a beautiful Peacock butterfly lit and flexed its wings. Basking in the warm sunshine, others were feeding on the beautiful wildflowers that grew like jewels amongst the tired gravestones. They are a symbol of freedom and beauty. Back in history the ancient Greeks believed that the human soul departed this life on the wings of a butterfly. They have the ability to guide people deep into the wondrous world of nature.
As I ambled along, I watched in wonder the vast array of life in this beautiful place. My gaze came to rest on the stonework of the little church which was now showing cracks of suffering. The church had mellowed over time and looked as much a part of the landscape as the rich and varied wildlife amidst the hedgerows.
Continuing along the path, the gaps in the hedgerow revealed tantalising glimpses of sweeping wild vistas. The meadows were rich in wildflowers, a remnant of English flora on a scale that is now so rare. As I looked across the field a calf was lowing mournfully at a gang of raucous rooks, whilst others looked on shaking away the many flies with their tremulous shuddering bodies. With their placid nature and glossy coats, they were great bundles of joy with beautiful long eyelashes.
In the distance the shaggy sheep lie in the lushness of the long grass, whilst others were grazing or bramble picking. Sheep are far more intelligent than we have ever given them credit for; they are deep thinkers and just take a little more time to assimilate information. Within their flock they will have at least fifty friends and can remember every human being they have ever encountered.
As time slips away and the evening approaches a mist gathers, moving white and silent across the land like the down of an owl’s feathers. I could see through the mist the barley swaying lazily in the gentle breeze. The countryside was beyond compare, far away from a place of choking stinks and hurtful noises. Being thinly peopled and silent, everyone moved so slowly for there was really nothing here to rush for.
In the fading light I watched as the primrose and twilight moths with their silent flickering wings alight on the evening primrose. As the sun set over the horizon, I linger a while and observe dozens of moth’s moon dancing, as darkness falls there will be many more that join this mesmerising spectacle. Making my way along the footpath once more a moth blunders into my face and as I recoil a bat suddenly snaps and the moth blunders no more. An abundance of tiny moth species are the lodgers of the large oak trees. When the leaves are soft and tender, they are consumed by the many caterpillars leaving them in lacy tatters, a sure sign that they have passed this way on their life’s journey.
A vast array of our native spring flowers are pollinated by moth’s, beetles, and flies, as being pale in colour the primrose plants show up well in the twilight hours. I became captivated by the many bats that frequent this special place, with their skilled acrobatic flight they would then retreat in a mysterious and wonderful way and elude my guesses. As I continued my journey, I could hear a fox bark softly. Nearby a young hare, a leveret, crouched low with his ears flat and with no betraying movement escapes the caverns of the foxes’ mouth to live another day.
This place is a bastion of animal happiness, a dream come true. I became filled with an ecstatic sense of being exactly where I wanted to be. Mother Nature has been a guiding force throughout my life, not just from a recovery point of view but also in a nurturing and comforting way. As a boy it was melancholy that was the dominant note of my temperament but also tempered by recurrences of faith and simple joy. Mother Nature has a strange and wonderful power. It was this very spirit that led and guided me throughout my life, and I hope that it will never leave me. I can think of no other place where I could have fallen so easily in love with or learned so much in so short a time. If I close my eyes and turn around, I could be at the door of my childhood home in no time at all.
