Sitting in nature one becomes aware of the multi-level verbal and non-verbal language of the wild, that weaves a dense three dimensional web around us and within us.
This is the conversation of nature, reacting to and acting upon countless tiny cues from the environment.
The animals are not and can never be aloof and separate from this web, the ‘passive observers’ of life.
Being so would render them lifeless and utterly vulnerable to predators as well as missing out on countless opportunities for food, shelter and procreation.
We too, should not sit passively within our sapience, looking in on this ‘action’ from some perceived state of being outside of it.
Rather, let us become the awake mystery that we are, feeling the animate spark of life that lives breathing within us.
In this way we can start to become and feel our true humanity, inhabiting our bodies, becoming fully and deeply alive within the animate landscape of which we are an integral part.
In this state of awareness we can begin to see and feel the ripples of information that pass along the natural highways of information.
All around us are the sounds of the birds; songs, companion notes and calls.
Then at the far edge of our perception the birds go silent, and like a wave, this silence progresses towards us, a ripple in the natural energy field.
The birds one by one begin to make shapes in the landscape moving either up or down along the breaking edge of this wave of awareness.
A predator is approaching!
If it is the hawk or the eagle the birds will fly down into the scrub, on the other hand if it is the fox or weasel they will fly up to just above head height.
Each action is a carefully measured response to the threat, or of course to the opportunity.
There is always a background steady state that is present when no predators or other disturbances are around.
This is when the birds in particular are in a relaxed yet poised awareness. The other animals know this so they relax too, you see they are also tuned into the language of the birds.
Are you listening?
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Photo courtesy of the author.