online: 31 march 2007
modified: 26, 31 march 2007

26 march 2007 a new path


14:40: notes in pencil:
leaves of a sycamore (from new branches at its root) are already opening ... they are shaped like half-open parasols, not yet fully extended leaves...

writing on hand held:
...at the top of the (same) tree i see no leaves, not even half-open buds...

...suddenly it's warm (in this mud or sand quarry, or digging) out of the wind... i'd guess the shade temperature is over 12C or even 14...

...i'm looking now at a large beech with about a dozen trunks and 20 to 40 exposed roots reaching over and into the steep hillside which has been worn away by gravity and rain as well as by climbing or sliding feet or the tyres of mountain bikes... it looks impossible that a tree could grow so large on such precarious ground... i suppose the surrounding forest was the main encouragement...

16:.49 outdoor cafe... blue sky, many people eating and drinking in the sun, few at the tables that are in shadow...

...i'm asking myself, today, what is so wrong with organisations?

...i receive the answer: rigidity... in that they impose fixed aims and directions that prevent us from improvising, from acting spontaneously...

...it sounds almost trite but this answer came as profound insight, a new path on which to leave industrial life for something less predictable...

...'to explore and extend life improvisedly, finding our way as we go'... that is the recipe!...



...then i walked, as improvisedly as i could, and was led into some of the wildest undergrowth, over dried mud, stepping over brambles, bending beneath low branches, crossing half-dried-up streams on logs or tree branches out of which someone has improvised bridges...

...this is indeed the way i like to walk on the heath, but seldom do, as the ground is often too muddy or the undergrowth too prickly and too thick... but at this time of year, between seasons, it is sometimes possible



18:10 the beginning of evening... our clocks moved forward this week...all is still in the sunlight ... laughter and loud voices from 6 or so young people 100m away... i've just heard a woodpecker... i'm surrounded by tall beeches and chestnuts none of which are yet in bloom... a bumble bee visits for a moment and then goes somewhere else... i can see some branches swaying only a few centimetres in the slight wind... but most of them are still...

...this is life!... (each part being a model of the other?)...




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