The Church of Nature in the World of an Allotment
The Church of Nature in the World of an Allotment
He sat on top of the post, his head turned with his eye to the ground as he watched and waited. He looked like a bird with a mission. I had rested my spade in the soil with the handle standing boldly erect as I wandered to my bench to watch him. He watched as I sat down and seeing that I was well out of reach he took his chance and flew to perch on the handle of my spade before hopping to the ground and grabbing a mouth full of insects. A blackbird dared to try his luck but was swiftly seen off. This was the robin’s territory and he was not going to share it with anything if he had any choice in the matter. Behind me I could hear the familiar ‘chk’ ‘chk’ of a thrush tapping a snail’s shell on a nearby rock.
It was that time of the year again when even the timid gained courage in a desperate bid to secure food for their offspring. Ladybirds were crawling out of their winter hiding places and spreading their black spotted cloaks in some sort of feline stretch.
I could see the cars speeding along the road in the distance where they disappeared behind the trees on the edge of Sherwood Forest. Their polluting noise was wrapped up tightly and taken with them. The voices of children in the local school drifted on the wind carrying the sound of that innocent joy of long ago childhood days.
In my reverie I fleetingly touched the power of something far greater than I, but also an integral part of what I was and why I was here. In a trice, before I could hold it in my grasp, it was gone and I was left with a sense of awe and wonder. I sat beneath this great cathedral sky in my old jeans and sweater. Dirt smudged my face and soil pressed intimately into the spaces between the tips of my fingers and my nails. Boots caked in mud, mingled with what the polite society of today, would prefer to call ‘organic fertiliser’. My choir sat in the trees and hedgerows and my hymns were the songs of the birds. My Eucharist was a communion with the earth and its creator and I felt blessed beyond belief.
Sheila Norton 21 February 2007
He sat on top of the post, his head turned with his eye to the ground as he watched and waited. He looked like a bird with a mission. I had rested my spade in the soil with the handle standing boldly erect as I wandered to my bench to watch him. He watched as I sat down and seeing that I was well out of reach he took his chance and flew to perch on the handle of my spade before hopping to the ground and grabbing a mouth full of insects. A blackbird dared to try his luck but was swiftly seen off. This was the robin’s territory and he was not going to share it with anything if he had any choice in the matter. Behind me I could hear the familiar ‘chk’ ‘chk’ of a thrush tapping a snail’s shell on a nearby rock.
It was that time of the year again when even the timid gained courage in a desperate bid to secure food for their offspring. Ladybirds were crawling out of their winter hiding places and spreading their black spotted cloaks in some sort of feline stretch.
I could see the cars speeding along the road in the distance where they disappeared behind the trees on the edge of Sherwood Forest. Their polluting noise was wrapped up tightly and taken with them. The voices of children in the local school drifted on the wind carrying the sound of that innocent joy of long ago childhood days.
In my reverie I fleetingly touched the power of something far greater than I, but also an integral part of what I was and why I was here. In a trice, before I could hold it in my grasp, it was gone and I was left with a sense of awe and wonder. I sat beneath this great cathedral sky in my old jeans and sweater. Dirt smudged my face and soil pressed intimately into the spaces between the tips of my fingers and my nails. Boots caked in mud, mingled with what the polite society of today, would prefer to call ‘organic fertiliser’. My choir sat in the trees and hedgerows and my hymns were the songs of the birds. My Eucharist was a communion with the earth and its creator and I felt blessed beyond belief.
Sheila Norton 21 February 2007
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