Nature is outside, stupid!

My encounters with Nature are too few and too infrequent because you have to actually get out of the house for the most part.  But today as I was driving back from picking up my prescriptions I saw a doe racing across a cleared corn field toward the highway.  I tapped my brakes, hoping the cars in front of me would see her and do the same.  They did, fortunately.  She got to the side of the road, freaked out for a second, then shot across the road and tried to enter the uncleared corn field.  After a few failed attempts she found a path into safety.  I wondered what had her racing for her life, as it seemed.  Tom informed me it's rutting season but there was no buck following her.  I think she didn't like being out in an open field.

I love those moments but I don't seek them out as often as I should.  I don't even need to leave my yard because I have my lovely crows, the chittering squirrels, the rat-bastard chipmunks who torment the daylights out of Professor and have had a pheasant dine at the spillage from my bird feeders before.  And there have been coyotes within a block or two.  Not to mention the doe I saw in the across-the-street neighbor's yard last winter.  And the hawk that was sitting in the tree out front.  And of course, my wonderful birds, including the cardinal family who live in the thicket between the yard and the highway.

So why don't I take advantage of it more often?  I must try harder, especially as the yard needs so much attention.  With the weather cooling off the neighbors won't be outside in the evenings so much and even when they are, it shouldn't force me into the house.  I mean...I should be able to enjoy my yard no matter if they are outside or not.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do for Samhain this year but I am doing something.  I can feel the veil thinning as I stand in front of the ancestors' altar, every time I drive by a cemetery.  In fact, I think I might take a walk through one next week.  Monday will be busy with picking up the new car and doing something with the old one so I won't have a lot of time to do anything.  And I want to visit the Mounds so Zach and I might do that tomorrow.  I guess we could swing by the cemetery in town tomorrow as well.  It's a beautiful forested cemetery with walking lanes.

But no matter what I do, it will be the right thing for me.  I'm not as concerned with following rituals as I used to be, and I am comfortable with winging it if I need to.  I'm also thinking of starting a period of study starting on Samhain, keeping a journal of my activities, my studies and my thoughts along the way.  The animal oracles were clear that I needed to formalize an "initiation" period of sorts.  It didn't specify training for anything specifically, just that I needed to do that much.  I like the idea.  I think it will be a growing experience to study and document my progress, not to mention I could use the discipline, another thing the cards were quite firm about.  It's certainly one of my weak points that I would love to make stronger.

Well, for now I'm going to bed to knit and commune with my newly re-found Goddess Brighid.  I've had a really hard time connecting with her but today it all just seemed to come together, with all the other gods, too.  I just had to stop overthinking it all.

ETA:  I forgot about the goat I saw on the side of the road on my way home from taking Tom to work.  It normally is in the enclosure with the horses but it was on the side of the road munching that "greener grass" we all hear about.  I almost stopped at the house to tell them he was out, but I'm a huge chicken.  He was back in the enclosure when I went to pick Tom up.  But he was a handsome black goat with gorgeous horns.

BB