Hold and behold the magic to be.
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Sweet Alison, familiar to many as the somewhat old fashioned garden plant of the suburbs.
Yet here it is in its wild state and natural home, the Mediterranean maquis.
Like its polite and tamed cousin, this is a sweetly smelling plant, the strength of its perfume belying its diminutive stature.
On the mountain it is now flowering in profusion, dotting the intense green with splashes of polished ivory.
It is its fragrance though that announces its presence to the other inhabitants of the Dehesa.
Thus, all around me the air is filled with the somniferous buzz of bees and hover flies as they partake of natures bounty.
These smells, sights, and sounds are part of the participative state of humanity as we engage with and embrace all that surrounds us.
Perhaps this is what Milton rhapsodised about when he wrote of “the wildernesse of sweetes” a true and vital description of abundance and the fully expressed latency of life in the wild.
Photo: Lobularia maritima on the mountain at Saladaviciosa. Courtesy of the author.