Half way up the lane it drops into consciousness from a much watched movie, a fog breaking open, sun-split, revealing the hidden and obscured.  Turning onto the downs road, pressing the accelerator and shifting gear, I chant the words, over and over.  Each time they sound different and the meaning resonates like a gong, vibrations felt between muscle, in the cell’s core.

The unexpected twists and turns of life, the musings over paths taken, or lost.  The endless grey of depression, clinging like oily mist.  And then a sudden jolt, the brake stepped too firmly, a wet tile slick underfoot, the missed final step descending.  Wake up.

Having spent hours the past month buried in earth, haunting snails and woodlice with determined weeding, sinking into an awareness of nature and her patterns – the kaleidoscope of sunshine and showers, the cool of an overcast day, the pattern on a spider’s body, the silken length of her legs – having discovered a body which loves to work, the burn of limbs which have been used, the tingle of muscles overworked, I feel the wild waking.

And this truth. To live rather than reflect. To be rather than plan. To act and act again. To take the moment, a midnight-black berry, plump, ripe, and allow it to nourish, bitter sweet on the tongue.