Eden Wild Goose Nature
Nature notes from the Focus Magazine August 2020
EWGN 2020 08a Focus pix
Living in the shadow
The deer watches unseen
As if she is not there,
Hidden from eyes too busy.
Secretly present
Deep in the woods
Living fully her life
Perfect in her deerness
Created to live
the life that is hers alone.
Giving back all she was made to be,
A life fulfilled
In alert, gentle, invisible presence.
 
The other day I noticed a beautiful roe deer, burnished red, emanating ethereal otherness even on that dull rainy morning. She was utterly unaware of me for a while though always alert.  She moved across the field, sometimes stopping to graze a little, then taking a few steps, lifting one elegant leg after the other with the grace of a well-trained dancer.
 
I looked again and suddenly there were two for now. I saw she was being followed by a smaller one, by the looks of things a half-grown fawn. Drawn by their sheer beauty and wildness, I was able to get quite close and now they cottoned on to my presence but didn’t seem unduly worried.  Still, after minute or two the doe thought it might be time to move on.  They headed towards the woods but to get there they had to navigate a barbed wire fence. The doe had no problem, simply stepping through with ease, before disappearing like mist among the trees. The younger one, less confident, took longer to find a suitable spot and then he too was gone. I was left looking at an apparently empty field in the rain.  But my eyes had been opened and my morning enriched.
 
This summer has been marked for me by several such encounters with deer, hares, hedgehogs, otters, owls and others and it has felt as if I am being reminded about how we are asked to share this beautiful precious planet, and that we are just one species amongst so many others. We are creatures who live among other creatures, and maybe our main difference is our ability to understand, at least in part, the consequences of our actions and choices. We know now that we need to tread lightly and gently on this earth, treating it respectfully and lovingly.
 
This is something we can think about and learn to do as part of Eden Wild Goose, as one way of contributing to building and bettering our community, and even   the hard stuff can be more enjoyable together.
 
Philippa Skinner