Looking for...

What am I looking for on these cold morning walks in October's middling pages? Is it light or enlightenment? Is it the color of the leaves and the sound the wind makes as it moves through them? Is it the pleasant crunching of frosty grass underneath my feet? Is it sheer unfettered wonder, or perhaps the smallest soupcon of grace and wisdom written on a wall somewhere or glimpsed in the depths of a pool in the park? All of the above?

Every single early morning's pottering is a chilly (at this time of year) but very necessary undertaking in hope, a gesture of faith in the universe which enfolds and sustains me. It's coming back to my senses, however briefly, and renewing my connection with the sacred and the organic. It's a fine earthy reciprocity, and the search for a language in which to express it, or as David Abram wrote in The Spell of the Sensuous:

"To return to our senses is to renew our bond with wider life, to feel the soil beneath the pavement, to sense—even when indoors—the moon's gaze upon the roof."

I return home every single morning with Spencer trotting easy at my side—no newly found wisdoms, no new language and no enlightenment, however fleeting. I'm still crotchety, but bemused and strangely contented in my aching bones, pockets overflowing with acorns, pebbles and leaves, a heart that is wild and free and light.