A fence can be a way to keep a child safe or a way to keep a child out. It can be a line that demarcates your personal space or a barrier between you and where you want to go. Sometimes we don’t even know when a necessary boundary has become a barricade.
Is there some part of your life that you have fenced off? How might you open a gate?
The smallest connection with a wild creature feels like a blessing: a butterfly that lands on our sleeve, a deer who meets our gaze in the wood, the hummingbird that circles us before flying away. Just that tiny acknowledgment feels like a gift, re-binding some thread of a cord that was severed long before we were born.
What moment of connection with a wild animal do you cherish?
Have you see the YouTube video of the baby laughing uncontrollably as her dog snaps at bubbles? Go ahead. Take a moment and watch it now. You know you want to.
What never fails to lift your spirits?
Sunflowers are at their most beautiful as they turn their great gold heads toward the sun. But after their petals have withered and their leaves dropped away is when they provide food for the birds, and the basis for a new generation of sunflowers.
What in your life has borne fruit after your hopes for it had faded away?
In days of old, carriage horses used to wear blinders, eye coverings designed to keep them from spooking at things in their peripheral vision. In a world full of atrocities and dangers, it’s all too tempting to put on our own blinders, to refuse to see the realities of climate change or modern day slavery or factory farming or so many other horrors.
How do you choose to pay attention to the world in a way that keeps you responsible and connected, but without being totally overwhelmed?
