I've spent my first days of 2013 furiously scratching away with pencil and paper. For company at my desk, I have discovered the BBC's Best of Natural History Radio, where they do cute and endearing things like compare a rotten log, teeming with larva, to a "nice plum loaf," and exclaim crikey! over some particularly happy encounter in the great outdoors. They have also taught me my favorite new word, rewilding, which I intend to apply to myself as a new year's resolution of sorts. That does not mean I will practice my barehanded trapping techniques in the thickets of the city... But I will remember all year that life just looks a whole lot less cranky if I spend a minimum of an hour huffing it over hill and dale everyday. No excuses of it being too icy or there being too much work to do.
That word rewilding calls up so many fantastic images for me... So if I am being indulgent, I'll also hope for it to mean this in 2013: feral ponies - herds of them! spotted, speckled, patched and black - will storm out of the hills and smash the pavement with their gilded hooves. Stardust and borage flowers will blow out of their manes behind them, and in their path will be left a beautiful destruction.
Happy January! I hope for something wild and new for you, too.
8 comments:
Zoe, 'rewilding' is at the core of what I do in gardening. The whole world needs to get back to a more natural state, I reckon.
It's stinking hot here in Melbourne, so I'll have to be doing all I can to help the world around me, without getting too pained about it.
You too, have a lovely January.
Oh what a wonderful new word- rewinding! I'm off to check it out. Happy New Year!
Hope you're drawing those feral ponies! I could use one or two of those on my wall in the Studio....
Happy 2013!
You are a treasure! Thank you for the feral ponies image. I do have a new cat and a wild dingo. truce. Maybe you will draw some dingos,too?
I love that word, too. Evokes many feelings and images, and makes us "remember" our ancestral roots. You might like this website (our wedding caterer's wife): http://www.womanrewilding.com/
Thank you, so much, for the new word, the imagery, and the reminder that life goes better with tramping!
This post made me think of Annie Dillard's book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Have you read it? If not, please do now.
Happy new year!
Ah, I just found your blog today via Pinterest, and I'm so glad that I did! What a treasure. And I love this word, "rewinding." Happy New Year to you!
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