The journeywork of the stars

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars…and the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, and the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn machinery..And I could come every afternoon of my life [to watch the sun push out the clouds]” –Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

I needed this trip to the farm. From the very instant we rattled down Oma and Opa’s dirt driveway I could tell I was going to lose myself in thigh high wild grass and the hum of distant tractors turning up the field.

Upon arrival the G and his buddy Xave immediately disappeared.
“Hello” they called from between the lemon curtains of the cozy little Bavarian playhouse. Ignoring the cobwebs and dust of winter that left this little place lonely and desolate, the two boys went straight to work pouring tea and stirring up imaginary concoctions.
I needed this therapy ,a hammock and a good friend, arms behind our heads staring into the vast blue sky as the music of our children buzzed between us.
Here I could forget my own little earthquake in exchange for this… the present moment.

The philosopher Nietzche, in a rare moment of deep stillness wrote, “For happiness, how little suffices for happiness!...the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a wink, an eye glance-little maketh up the best happiness. Be Still.”

In the henhouse the G is feeding a cluster of banty chickens in patterns that only a designer could dream up, wild stripes and ovals in shapes like smoke rings. Inspired I think I might go home and make myself a skirt ala banty chicken.

We walk the long walk to the neighbor’s farm, following a dried up river bed, waving to the tractor man as he plows the field, making swords out of sticks, staring at our reflections in rain filled puddles.
And then to the barn, that smell of sweet hay and hard work and goat breath. Xave and the G are squealing as they feed the crew of goats that butts and pushes themselves through the fence slats. Again. Again. Lets feed them again the G demands. Xave shows him where to find the barrel that brims with goat feed. No G no more, the goats are full buddy.
Ahhh the Three year old melt down that luckily in this outdoor air is very short lived as soon as we slip through the fence and break free…

After dinner and a lively talk with Oma and Opa about yoga and the saving grace of meditation, thoughts and attachment, ego and awareness, we stumble to the car high on hay needles and the peace that comes from life at this slow pace.

Opa has given me a book on meditation a gift to take home. “I buy a lot of copies of this book just so I can give them out. Read it and pass it on.”

I cradle it in my arms on the drive home along with the idea that the beauty and simple kindness of this day is not to be pinned down. “It is the cloudless sky. It has no form. It is space; it is stillness, the sweetness of being and infinitely more than these words.”