nature's zodiac

Come outside mommy! It’s like fall out here! It’s so fun out here!

Let me finish these dishes and then I’ll be out. A big gust of wind kicks up.

I step outside into the path of a tame and traveled hurricane Debbie. She seems like an out of town traveler, like a bank robber who is famous for her bad deeds.

Just stay away from the trees, I say, come over here in the open grass.

Why? he asks. 

Because heavy branches can fall and hurt you. 

No they won’t, he says. 

They could, i say, they probably won’t but they could and you have to be safe.

Geo’s unbridled stride has come to a stand still. His wide smile now is replaced with a look of puzzlement.

He shakes it off.

Back to running, inventing spontaneous games and shrieking with the wind uptakes.

I run with him, compete to catch the falling leaves and then–‘just not too close, stay here in the open’

I am so noticeably and necessarily divided between protecting and feeling free with him, between installing caution and partying.

He is less divided. He is closer to nature’s completeness, its rev and power. It brings to mind a line from a children’s book “if you were a bird and I were a tree, you’d call me home and I’d call you free.”

Yet lately I’ve noticed that he’s more hungry for these tips from grown ups. He files away ‘know-hows’ and has developed an appetite for methods. Grandaddy’s advice to go full circle with his arms has advanced him with swimming. Daddy’s advice to let the ball come to his hand has turned his dribble record from 8 to 100. A spirited cook at a restaurant instilled in him a focused confidence to conquer a unique pendulum swing game involving a ring and a hook with many onlookers. When he achieved it the place erupted with cheers.

These grown ups that surround his free and radiant aura, are proving to be powerful resources. Not just for staying safe, keeping to a routine and making sure that meals happen, but for jump starting a set of skills. A set of skills that he can choose.

Lately I notice a kind of stillness set in, a willingness to be in two places like I was in the hurricane. He can be both eager to win and patient to learn tips, both eager to start dribbling and patient to absorb advice. He can be both eager to finally get that dang ring on the hook with all of these people watching and patient to find the way.

The philosopher Fichte said that being free was nothing but to become free was heavenly. As we grow up, what was once a free world for a carefree child becomes a divided one for a person with a free-will that wakes up to its own agency. What was once a free unity with the free world becomes a dynamic dance of division and reunion.

The freedom is no longer given, instead it returns to you. It returns in those moments when the work pays off, when the focus unlocks multitudes of understanding, when the effort makes it known that you are the one who can make things happen. The dawning awareness that comes from such moments is more exhilarating than the winds of a hurricane.

Featured art was a suspected Banksy pop up in Winchester, England that turned out to be a work of local artist Hendog who created this peace to celebrate Mother’s Day.