Meet Edna

The animals we share the farm with are such a big part of our lives.I cannot imagine life here devoid of them. They are family and friends. We wake to the birds - the tui's and the bellbirds singing. And of course my favourite the Warbler. It has a lovely sing song chip that is almost a taunt to get out of bed and face the day! 

We thought it was time to meet the rest of the clan that share our home here in Mystic Hills. Each is special . This time we are delighted for you to meet Edna. 

Edna is one of our delightful laying hens. She is not the ordinary chicken with her buffont 1960's retro hairdo  piled  high on her head and feathery cuffs. She is a wonderfully gentle little chicken who is happy to cluck her way around the farm - some days independent of the brood - very much the liberated female - other days closely following Elvis and the Girls.Soft speckled gray Edna starts her day -strolling about our yard.Doing close inspection to make sure all is right. She is in many ways like everyone's favourite Aunt -lovely  but definately dotty! Edna would love to hear from you - so feel free to send her mail and say a Cluck!Cluck! to her!

Spring Green

Aah... 'tis that time of year. Spring has touched down. Tentatively, but it is here. The grass on the farm has turned that vibrant green that imparts a new energy into everything and everyone that gazes upon it. The ewes are set out on the hills for lambing(background) and the Bulls have been opened up onto a fast round to keep control of the rapidly growing grass. All are blooming, animals and plants. There is an air of expectation. The work of the new season is about to burst upon us. Optimism reigns supreme, at least while the sun shines! Mind you it snowed on the hill tops last Thursday and we are in the grip of a series of late frosts that threaten the newly planted grass in the deer paddocks and vegetables in our garden. But, spring it is and here is a picture of a few of the bulls after a hard winter now surging ahead into a period of rapid growth on lush pasture.

Full Moon

The Moon has just passed its fullness, an event in the calander that I always enjoy. Maybe enjoy is not the word, more like absorb. Yes absorb, I absorb the full moon as she passes yet again. There is no other event like it. On the night she rises full, early in the evening there is still light from the day playing on the hill tops and with the setting sun splashing gold and pink on the western horizon and a full bright moon rising statley over the eastern horizon this evening is like no other. It is the time when the soveriegn of the day and the queen of the night pause for a few moments at the passing of the baton as if chatting over a cuppa as they check in with each other on the health and wellbeing of their respective realms.
A clear sky on the full moon is a splendid thing to behold. Silvered light brings a new perspective to well known landscapes. It is indeed a night to wander or to ride as I once did absorbing the peace and wisdom of the shadowed world. The moon is a special friend to me and not many nights pass that I don't acknowledge her presence with a few words of tenderness and she mine. I sleep with the curtains open to allow her to caress me in my sleep and to let her light regulate my body's sleep patterns.
To lie on the ground under a full moon is to experience oneness on a new level. As it is to wake before dawn and watch her slow desent to the western hills, like a late night dancer giving her last performance, suddenly lit afresh with the first rays of the rising sun. A flirtatious blush of pink at the door and then the day, cool and stabilising.

One cannot ever be alone, no-matter where you are, when the moon is your friend.

MOONSHINE

Moonshine rides with me
When all is dark and quiet and mortals sleep
Her soft radiance chases me
As through the trees we gallop and leap
Shrouded oft’ in dark clouds
Or waned
I wait!
For I know, a firm belief
That she will rise
Full, radiant in joyful expression
Over the horizon of her dreams
To conquer darkness and give light
To those who shelter
In forgotten corners of gloom
For moonshines beams of light
Are reflections only of the son
Her fullness dependent upon
Her face being turned to him
We are free of the restraints of day
And strengthened for the trials we face
When we gallop carefree through
The silvered shadows that are
Moonshine and me

Copyright: PG Wilson


Awaken

Pink blushes of early dawn
Grace the mists drifting over the smile of my lover
Serene above the snow draped mountain
Suddenly, in full wakefullness, I rouse
To the lingering touch of her perfume.

Copyright: PG Wilson.

This is the view over the top of my PC screen as I write this. The sun is beginning to cast its shadows in the folds of the land and as the moon rises in a few hours time the shadows will fall in the other direction with a softer mellower light.

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Goodbye Atty

Today I find it hard to write, so much of what I want to say feels so unimportant in the light of the sadness and grief I feel. I have lost a friend. She died on the weekend- slipping away after being ill in the morning. I lost Atty . A tiny little black and white goat that came to me traveling the the tool box of Greg's bike. Small , shivering and alone- this little creature came into our lives and blessed it in a way that is hard to explain. If you only believe that friendship needs to take human form than much of what I write and share from my heart will elude you. It will be put down to impractical sillness . I am silly then and happy to be so. For I have found a wonderful friendship in a little bundle. A comfort that I am grieving for. I never minded the need to mix up bottles of milk for her or going out in the rain to feed her several times a day. I rejoiced in watching her grow, poke an inch of her little horns to the surface. Or how wonderful she felt in my arms - soft and furry with little sighs of contentment. Or the sheer joy she took in life .The need to skip everywhere . To jump and race. Or the uncontained joy she showed when she saw or heard me. My last memories of Atty would be the little tail wagging - inspite of how ill she must have been. How she made an effort to call out to me when she heard my voice, even then. Both Greg and I have lost some of the joy that used to fill Mystic Hills. There is a presence missing. Absent . And my soul grieves so much for her. Atty would share mornings with me. Watch sunsets while skipping and dancing around my feet. She would take long walks with us in the evening as we put our day to rest. She was my friend , my companion , my confidante.

It grieves me so much to know that I was not here when Atty died. I cannot forgive myself for that. For not letting her know I was with her and that we cared for her. I ache to think she died alone. In my utter foolishness I was miles away trying to extend a hand in friendship to some who had no intention of ever seeing me or returning my love. I wasted moments. Moments that I could have shared with my friend as she died. Why do we do it? Ignore the love and beauty we already have in the pursuit of what does not matter. I lost much this weekend - my dear little friend and part of my self - discounted for sale for people who do not matter.

My little sweetness lies buried under a tree - in a grave ringed with stones , strewn with flowers and a little angel. How huge a hole such a small creature can leave in one's heart.And what powerful a lesson to impart. My little Atty - you have my love and a piece of my heart. Always.


"Gone Too Soon"

Like A Comet
Blazing 'Cross The Evening Sky
Gone Too Soon

Like A Rainbow
Fading In The Twinkling Of An Eye
Gone Too Soon

Shiny And Sparkly
And Splendidly Bright
Here One Day
Gone One Night

Like The Loss Of Sunlight
On A Cloudy Afternoon
Gone Too Soon

Like A Castle
Built Upon A Sandy Beach
Gone Too Soon

Like A Perfect Flower
That Is Just Beyond Your Reach
Gone Too Soon

Born To Amuse, To Inspire, To Delight
Here One Day
Gone One Night

Like A Sunset
Dying With The Rising Of The Moon
Gone Too Soon

Gone Too Soon

Gilded Pathways

Last weekend we travelled back to the region of my youth. A place I have always called home. The occasion, the fiftieth birthday of a friend and hunting buddy. We stopped at a beachside campground that had been a part of many fun times as a young man. The evening was spectacular as is often the case in that part of the world and while meandering along below the beach cliffs we watched the sun desend toward the horizon over the sea. At one point, as the light peeked through the clouds, a golden pathway was laid on the surface of the ocean. It began at the horizon and grew toward us as the sun moved. Truly, it was awe inspiring to watch this shimmering pathway extend to our very feet. I felt the invitation to walk out upon it, to accept the challenge to leave the shore and believing in the impossible discover the unknown.

Instead, I continued on to a party with old friends in a hall I had helped renovate in the community of my childhood and early adulthood. Many neighbours and friends and family were there and I anticipated a great time. It was not to be. Yes I was welcomed by old friends, but I bcame aware of a strange phenomonen. While I was with people I knew and had known for 20-40 yrs I was no longer a part of their world. At some time in my life I have swum out of the rock pool type environment of that community and begun swimming in the ocean. I confess to it being an erie feeling, present yet not engaged.

The pathway in the sea began to have greater meaning. What is behind is behind, no matter how good or bad, meaningfull or meaningless. There is always a pathway ahead that remains unknown to us until it is revealed by each step we take and looking back for meaning or security obscures our vision forward. I accepted the invitation of the gilded pathway this week. It will mean walking ever further away from that which is behind me. The very act of moving forward dictates that what is before me today is behind me tommorow. Now is the time I have, to enjoy and decide how I will act and to what I will give my love and energy.

I only get today. I am challenged by a golden pathway in the sea to spend today with those who are with me today. To love those who recieve my love. To be friends with those who are friends. I cannot force tomorrow and yesterday cannot be changed.

Two paths extend

One before and one behind

Which I shall look down

Is a choice, solely mine

The gilded path of sun on sea

Reaches its golden hand to me

But would I turn and face the dim

Look longingly to past old friends

Good was there and many days of joy

That I could wish to again enjoy, but

I no longer live there, though the faces be familiar

The hugs sincere

Those days are gone, not to be despised

Treasured surely if I am wise, yet

Now I stand without, looking in

An ocean fish peering into the rock pools of youth.

For me the width of eternity

Beckoned by light beyond the horizon

A path of gold in a setting sun

Bidding me walk forward into the land of dreams

Leave the shores of certainty

Eroding after their fashion

Trusting to the ever shifting waters of freedom

Each step changing the path from now to then

From before to behind

Breathing only what is now

Dare I?

copyright: PG Wilson.

Talking to trees

Standing silently in the magnificent beech forest of the Kaimanawa Forest I am instilled with a lifeforce that rejuvenates me as nothing else does. Although I am alone as far as human company is concerned I do not feel at all alone. I am surrounded by many friends, tall mossy and quietly supportive of my feeble attempts to understand the workings of the world in which we dwell together. They of course have watched generations of men before me sit under their boughs and ponder or seek to control or change the landscapes. Often in the immediate this appears to have been successful, but sitting silently with an ear to listen I hear the gentle patience of a forest that has seen much destruction but still continues to live and replenish itself with a robust assurance of its own worth and continuity. It is this that I seek to hold within myself. This assurance, this peace that allows all the change and movement and rage around me to pass without disturbing my inner center. This is what I seek when I enter the domain of the forested mountains that surround me.

Many poets of old have acknowledged talking to trees and have been ridiculed or dismissed as crazy and I confess to thinking likewise in the past. But something in me has always sought to understand or communicate with the rest of created matter. There has always been a deep knowing that somehow it is possible to talk to trees and hear responses. I have discovered that silence, silence and stillness with an openness to receive that which your mind denies gives us an insight beyond any academic framework. This is the realm of poetry and art and only those of us willing to surrender to the creativity within us find such mystical worlds. Literature over millennium bears witness to this phenomenon. Where else do Tolkien, Emerson, Moses, Beowulf and Gibrain, to name but a few find, the almost universal images of other worlds if not in nature itself and the ability to immerse ourselves in it without judgement or limitation?

I go bush to hunt, to be refreshed and to listen to the stable wisdom of ages. It is the very essence of life to me.