Bluebell Blessing
Held within the strong dark lines of rain-soaked beech, like the stained-glass window of a medieval cathedral, this place of shimmering blues and lucent greens is newborn. The wood is saturated, vivid, glistening. Overnight rain has transformed it entirely from the place it was yesterday. It’s as though life itself has showered a blessing so deep that everything from the bluebell’s prayer to the blackbird’s song is cast anew. Infused with grace.
All around the wetted space arches into a muffled distance, connecting me to the valley below, where a cuckoo’s two-tone canticle peels like a bell tower, calling the faithful to worship.
The wood lies unclad, like a baby. Naked as a nymph. In the presence of this undress I feel suddenly burdened with protective layers. Not only from the coat I wear, with its seal of water-proofing, but also from all the calcified layers of attitude and belief that have built up in me over sixty years of living in a world that has always felt too fast, too coarse and too concrete.
A light mist lingers. Turning my face upwards, I allow the hood of my raincoat to fall back. The tangle of my hair glimmers with unnumbered droplets. Touched by this other-wise nature, the dusty labels I usually wear – wife, mother, daughter – fall away. Here and now, before anything else, I am guest. As long as I tread lightly, my life is of little consequence here. Still, I feel greeted with open arms, held in an unconditional embrace.
The vulnerability of the wood’s unguarded trust disarms me. I pause. Stand still. Somewhere in my own original wildness, I sense a surrender, a settling. Then, bending down, I bring my whole awareness to the presence of a single bluebell, her head bowed in private prayer. Sensing the thread of inviolate space between us, I wonder what made me pause at this point on the path, choose this particular bell tower from within the innumerable gathering?
And in this stillness, in the heart of this wood, on this particular day, at this searing moment I realise, it was not I who found this bluebell. It was she who found me.
