The Weight of the Ocean

Gravity is a funny thing.

You would think that if it can hold down and contain something as immense and heavy as the ocean, then the force of gravity should be so powerful that we should have difficulty just lifting a foot off the ground!

How is it that we can freely run and jump, leap and vault ourselves into the air despite the constant pull and not one drop of that giant ocean escapes?

You would think that the heavier the object, the more it could resist gravity's stronghold... while feathers would have to be pried off the ground with a great deal of oomph.

I don't care for the boring scientific explanation for all of this. It's just the child in me following a brainstorm.

Reluctance

It's not ready to let go... to find its place amongst the others, strewn across well worn paths, draped over ferns and fallen logs, soggy with November rain. Not prepared to hear itself crunch and crumble underfoot. Not ready to dissolve into a million tiny pieces and become a part of the earth, even if it will enrich the soil and nourish new growth.

Not yet.

It is caught between two universes. No longer bound to the tree, not yet part of the underground. Untethered. Free.

Is it asking for a second chance at life? A different view of the world from a brand new perspective? Is it wishing for a place to catch a few beams of warmth as the sun passes low through the barren wood?
Maybe it wants to be moved by the wind just one more time... to dance into a swirly gust and finally, on its own terms... gracefully accept its fate.

Star Fish

Sometimes I don't have a whole lot to say.

Silent as a starfish.
Yet reaching out, linking arms, seeking connection.

Peacefully aware that, in this deep sea of quietness,
I am still a part of a larger constellation.

Light on Dark

It's almost as though it is trying to capture all the light it can before the day fades away into night. I can imagine, it slowly closes its petals and wraps itself around those collected sun rays, huddling into a tight bud to keep warm. Until the sun rises again.

While most living beings seek out and thrive in the light, I think there is much to be said for the darkness too...

Candlelight would lose its warmth if it wasn't swaddled by the night's heavy arms.

There would be no wishing on the afterglow of falling stars and no tracing satellites as they glide across the sky. The ooh's and ahh's of meteor showers would be silenced. Aurora Borealis would shy away, feeling as though her true colours were unnoticed.
The man in the moon would be lonely indeed.

Ghost stories around a campfire would lose their fright. And trick or treating would not be the same on a sunny summer evening. The spooky atmosphere, with moonlit bare branches and flying broomstick sightings would be lost. Jack O Lanterns would have no personality and would turn into mere carved pumpkins that even Cinderella would disapprove of.

I am no vampire, no nightcrawler, no nocturnal creature of the night...but I celebrate the darkness, for it has its mysterious charms.

Ethereal Microcosm

The sky let out a heavy cry this weekend... a much needed release.
And if it wasn't for the darkness that the clouds cast over the forest, I just might have missed the enchantment waiting for me there.

The scene was mystical... a dim forest thick with rain and fog. But little beings were glowing all around me. Tiny tiny winged creatures, a luminescent white, fluttering around me like snowflakes caught in a current, reluctant to land.

I stopped and tried very hard to get a closer look at one as it hovered alongside me, but it was so small and sporadic in its movement. Not all of them were airborne so I peered onto a fern leaf where several had landed and discovered that they were wee little moths, in the shape of perfect hearts... no bigger than a button hole.

It's no wonder that I also happened upon this little heart a few months ago in the bark of a tree in the very same forest. It wasn't a man made heart, and it only looked like a heart if you were looking at it from the right angle ...but it too was tiny. Perhaps it was carved out by some rather curious little fireflies of the rain forest?