A long journey

What if when you journeyed, the road only appeared after you? I guess that's the case for explorers--they create paths behind them. So, snails and slugs are explorers.

... Also, when you see a slug's silvery path, you expect some amazingly lovely creature must have made it.

"And you'd be right," says a self-confident slug, maybe blushing a little that you should reach such a flattering conclusion.

shining trail


almost across the Great Hard Waste

This morning

This morning it's a planet full of atmospheres. Birds are rising and falling in the long grass and others are declaiming from high up in the trees, and some are swimming in the gauzy sky.

another walk

On the way to the supermarket and back I saw three creatures.

First was a northern leopard frog, sitting at the edge of the sidewalk, in meditative contemplation, staring at the grass.

Here is a photo of a northern leopard frog from the Internet (source). Like my leopard frog, he is staring to the left.



He looked like Bodhidharma, who meditated so deeply he lost his arms and legs.

Bodhidharma (source)



Only, my frog's arms and legs were still intact, and the fingers of his hands were pointing inward, like he was getting ready to make a sitting bow.

I kept walking and later I heard a noise like a cat hissing or like a red-tailed hawk screaming--but very quietly (khhhhhaaaaaa!), and there was a rustling in the grass. I looked, and a garter snake slithered away. I hadn't known they could make such a noise!

On the way back, the snake was long gone, but the frog was still there, still doing zazen. I didn't have a camera, so I crouched down to sketch him, but I only managed his hands before he decided he'd had enough and took one big leap into the green.

A little farther on, I ran into a rabbit--who also took a leap into the green, flashing its tail as it went. What a lot of wildlife for a very short walk.