Undeterred by the Lockdown's external imposition,
we knew an urge from our internal source,
to go and connect with our Wild Source.
That, that is known clearly when in the wild.
The untouched, untamed nature places
We climbed the mountain behind our house, leaving with one drink bottle and a mobile phone. We walked over the weedy terrain on the lower slopes and then into the thicker forest cover where the weeds can't penetrate the Wild stronghold.
Following Wallaby paths,
faintly etched in the mountain side,
responding to instinctive directional nudges,
puffing up steep ridges,
finding footholds in fallen logs,
tripping on hidden burrows
covered in thick loose leaf carpet;
Until the only sounds are
our puffing breaths and
the call of the flighted ones.
We enter a portal where no humans reside,
where only wildness belongs,
belonging with sovereign sweetness.
There are slopes where the leaves of a community of grass trees are caressed by the breeze and dance in tender trance.
There are gullies of fern tree families whose tendrils unfurl in curls of creation to marry the upright truck that reaches to the heights for the light.
Between the slopes and the gullies are remnants of logged and unlogged forest ancestors.
Guardians of the old ways. immune to our existential crisis of human dilemma. They tower, they tremble ,they creak and hold the slope strong.
We notice an area where an animal has dug many holes in the softer earth. Perhaps an echidna is our speculation.
We play in the forest, pretending to be warrior man and woman with a long grass tree spear. I decide to take it home as a trophy of the day, the straight majestic symbol of verticality.
Returning home I pin point landmarks to anchor the wild maps within, slopes of ferns, crystal rocks, exquisite patterns of bark and a jumping ant nest. When we arrived home after I had triumphantly dragged the spear all the way home, I asked 'Who has the phone?' And neither of us did!
Too tired to return immediately, we ate and rested and then later retraced our steps. Following the drag line of the grass spear , the clue line of ferns, crystals and jumping ant nests.
Search Mission One - No phone!
Search Mission Two - No phone!
We prank called the phone 79 times in the next two days while we hoped there would be battery left.
Listening deeply we heard only breezes and bird calls. I began to wonder if echidnas took possession of phones in their burrows?
In the following days I wondered what was going on, how did a magical walk end in such mayhem?
I got the sense that Wildness Herself was prank calling me.
I let go and got on with a few days of less scrolling.
I embarked on one more mission to find the phone out of respect for the family budget. On the slopes of the mountains I surprisingly encountered another human and dog by the jumping ant nest. The man from the next valley over who owns the land. Here I was in lockdown and yet meeting for the first time a neighbour in the wild places. I marveled at this gorgeous synchronicity. We chatted and then I searched one more time.
Mission Number Three - No phone!
I had given up but my 14 year old son Riley had not; he was sure he could find it. We took sticks and poked and pulled back weedy grasses, giving it one last go.
We came to the jumping ant nest and I told Riley this is where I met our neighbour, He looked a few metres to the south on a side trail and there she was - my phone - my now wild initiated phone who had quested five days and nights alone in the bush.
Pondering on losing my phone, I began to hear Wildness Herself whispering to me that this was a
Pattern Disruption.
I began to know these deeper truths
By pattern I mean -
'A series of impulses embedded in my psyche, nervous system, thoughts and emotions that sit below my daily radar yet are the fuel that fires my daily responses'
By disruption I mean -
'Break in the chain of links that switch the direction from knots to knowing in the currents of human interactions.'
So... this is how losing my Phone and Lockdown all become an Initiation into the Beauty of Pattern Disruption!