Never Underestimate a Bird Brain

I had a busy morning today, I taught English and then had a photo shoot along the river. When I got home, even though I had food in my flat, I decided to go to Subway and buy a sandwich. One of my jobs is managing holiday homes, I always warn guests not to eat by the river, the kites are very brave and often steal food out of peoples hands.  Although one of my friends was scratched, usually the robberies are perfectly executed.

 

I do not have to follow my own advice, I know the ways of the birds. I go to the river everyday. I know how each bird flies and have successfully taken many bird pictures. So I took my lunch to the river.

 

I checked high in the sky, there were no kites flying in a holding pattern, like planes above Heathrow Airport. I checked the North and South nothing. I confidently took out my sandwich and started to unwrap it.  There was a swoosh and my vision was full of brown feathers. A popping sound, talons ripped through paper into the bread.  And it was gone, flying over the river, with my sandwich  hanging from its legs!

 

I do not begrudge the sandwich or the money. I have never been so close to a kite and to be out witted by it is wonderful. It just strengthens my respect for nature.

Spiritual Cleasing in a Japanese Garden

 

 It has been an amazingly busy week for me, I like to be busy, but I have not really been able to touch nature so much this week.  So I wanted today to be a spiritually enriching day in nature. So I headed for Kikoku-tei ,

 my favourite Japanese garden.

 

 

I go to the garden often, but the changes always surprise me. I was not expecting the water Lillies to be out, but they were.

They were amazingly beautiful.

The carp in the pond were very active. I sat down by the edge and watched for a while and was joined by a dragon fly. The first I have seen this summer.

 

For me the Wiccan pathway is always into nature. As ever Kikoku-tei cleansed and grounded me. 

Roses

 

 

 

 

 

Just a few pictures of roses.

 



Goddesses in Glastonbury



The Dragon God

 

 

A water spirit waits for you

Impurities to wash away

Cleansing the heart

Don't dwell on whats to come

Spend some time with Ryujin

Listening to his watery words

When it is time

 flow on

 

In Japan often dragons are seen as water deities. At most temples and shrines there are fonts to wash your hands, and often there is a statue of a dragon. I do not know the correct name for these dragons, here I have borrowed the name Ryujin, who is actually a sea god. But I really like the name, which means Dragon God, so I used it here.

 

龍神

 

 

 



Rhiannon, Lady of the Lake

Lady of the lake

Patiently earthed

A spark of intuition

Queen of the sky

Rhiannon

 

 

Over the last year or two the heron has gradually become my totem animal. I have had more of my fair share of luck in taking their pictures.  They seem to represent photography, the balance of patience and instant action. The picture above was taken a few days ago, but today I went down to the river to write, so I did not have my camera. My Japanese teacher, Naomi, has given me the mammoth task of writing the story of the Wiccan Sabbats in Japanese. I am both excited about it and somewhat overwhelmed by it.  So I thought sitting by the river would inspire and motivate me, which it did, I am halfway through a rough draft for Beltane. While I was writing I noticed I was not alone; a heron was watching me from about 30 feet away, I took this as a good omen. Every time I looked up the heron was still there. I had been writing for a fairly long time and realised both my legs had gone to sleep. So I got up and stumbled around for a while, and decided to walk the numbness off. I walked about 100 yards and found a rock to sit on and started to write again.  I looked up and found the heron had followed me up river. For a while I wrote and occasionally looked up at my friend. I got to a point where it was obvious that I needed to go home to check some details both about Beltane and Japanese. I looked up and my friend was gone, she knew it was time to go before I did. While fact checking at home I found a connection between the Welsh Goddess Rhiannon and herons, so for my companion today I wrote the above poem.

A Poem for Beltane