Erode

The eroded pathway

The stones that were part of my entry path have migrated. Recent downpours swept them up in watery torrents  and washed them away to colonise adjacent garden beds, exposing an underbelly of pipes and edgings and leaving deep runnels beside the stepping stones. Patient shovelling and plucking them one by one from amongst exposed roots of plants has restored some order but not so for the soil; that has disappeared forever down storm-water drains. It will have to be replenished along with mulch. No-one could ever say gardening isn’t challenging.

On my Saturday morning walk through the beach side Tarrabora reserve, I saw more evidence of the recent deluge on the landscape. Debris everywhere, roots lying tangled and exposed, deep channels carved from sandy banks by volumes of water rushing back to its lowest level, its source.

Erosion at Tarrabora reserve

I try to walk mindfully. Observing how Nature leaves her mark on the landscape inspires my thinking. There are so many ways to read her stories. So many ways to perceive the messages she leaves.

Erosion usually refers to landscape under the assault of natural elements.  It’s defined variously as wearing away, abrasion, scraping away, grinding down, crumbling, wear and tear, weathering, dissolving, dissolution. Sometimes with confronting and disastrous results.

Opening a door into mindfulness can be equally confronting. Sometimes introspection is not gentle. Sometimes I feel as eroded as the landscape I pass through. The ageing process, while a natural one, at times frustrates me and makes me ‘rage against the dying of the light’.

I see life writ large on human beings. Marks left by life’s elements: the emotional runnels, the wrinkles, the wear and tear. The scars visible and invisible, are carved into the human body, the human psyche.Thickened gnarly cords of experience and emerging wisdom are there for those who choose to read them.

We can deny them in pursuit of elusive youth. Maybe a nip and tuck here and there? I heard of someone recently who has resorted to these means. An eye lift anyone? While I wouldn’t sit in judgement of those who resort to cosmetic measures, I find life bewildering enough without actually looking perpetually surprised.

But who are we kidding? Hiding the evidence doesn’t erase what life has enscribed on each of us.

And frankly, I wouldn’t want it to.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas, 1914 – 1953