Below the spring that supplies my village, there is a permanent green oasis that sits within the great drylands.
–––
Here, summers heat has not reached down her scorching hand and there is the feel of a perpetual Spring.
The air around me is resonant with the business of insects and the smell of warm damp earth.
Flowers that faded elsewhere many months ago are still blooming within the verdant sward.
Snaking in from every direction are innumerable animal tracks converging on this place. Martens, Genets, Wild Boar,, and Red Deer are drawn here to feast upon the bounty and to slake their raging thirst.
It may even be, that the rarest of the worlds big cats, the Iberian Lynx gazes down from the tangle of boulders above, as she waits on the unwary. Maybe she glides down to take her prey and then melts away into the shadows in the manner of that near mythic beast.
Punctuating the verdance are the soft pastels of the Pennyroyal, blushing pink against the brown dancing pools.
This plant is one of natures great herbals and a powerful plant of the feminine. It is tonic to many of the discomforts of the moon cycle of women.
Its sweet mint fragrance adds a top note to the musicality of this green flush on the mountain.
Here is where the inhabitants of this ecology like to linger after the long hot summer, it is a soft and welcoming place.
Photo: Pennyroyal at el Chorrito. Courtesy of the author.