4. The Season of the Soul
“I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chatted all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow;
And ne’er a word said she;
But, oh! The things I learned from her,
When Sorrow walked with me.”
Robert Browning Hamilton
The chill in the air has caused the birds to leave,
the lizards to spend their time sleeping in the weak sun
on a rock that barely warms their sluggish blood.
The kangaroos quietly pick at the grass,
and the koalas are more sleepy than normal right now.
I warm my hands on my coffee cup and sip,
then drag on a cigarette. Even as I just sit here,
steam marks my morning breath.
I am withdrawn from the hurley burley
of the Season of the Sun, my body first still,
then my spirit, welcoming the Season of the Moon,
the season of death, the season of the deep wisdom.
The trees are still and silent, the leaves that will not fall
seem a little grey under the glassy Winter sky.
This is the season I wear my dirty white hoody
and my track pants and feel the inevitability
of the time of sleeping, even dying.
I don’t await the rebirth but die,
retire in the Season of the Soul
and feel the Ancestors of Place, more present now,
whispering their stories and songs as ancient
as the Earth herself. Occasionally a slight breeze
sings in the morning and the trees wave
their leaves and sing their humming song in response.
I feel the presence of my Ancestors of Blood,
my blood that sings with their immanence,
sees the reality that, in the Season of the Soul,
they join me, as I will one day join them.
The Ancestors of my Spirit whisper their truths
again, as they could not during the rushing seasons
of the Sun. We celebrate together in this place
our unity of blood and spirit, and I withdraw
from the hurley burley to contemplate again
the great wisdom of who we will be
in the Season of Rebirth.
Peter Cartwright
June 2019
