Every morning I allow myself 20-30 minutes to just wander the garden, camera in hand, looking for good places to lie down. There are other more pressing things that need doing but currently this is by far the best use of my time I know. I do it again late afternoon and am never disappointed.
I meet whole worlds of mystery in the leafy shapes of natural elegance that I recognise but do not know. These are places where other beings dwell unseen. Layers and spaces at a different level, or perhaps even different dimension, to where my body roams, and up close I feel a pang of envy for what they have. Glowing colours with perfect subtle shading painted by a natural hand that flows through unlimited layers of detail. Their architecture is astonishing.
I cannot see much of the lives being lived out in the curls of old leaves but I can sense the stories that belong there. The cliche of a daily struggle for survival slowly melts into an understanding of life reaping the rewards for living. They scuttle and creep to their own song as my ignorance holds me aloft with my heavy boot.
Sometimes when I look at these photographs I can still hear the crackle as I shift my weight and the rustle as the breeze comes to see what I am doing. And that breeze has a different tone as it caresses the flowering grasses into their happy dance. But it is neither the grass nor their dance that is happy. It is me.
This is the brief period when the sun is still waking up. At this time it shines on us with good humour and plays games amongst the leaves. Fingering the shadows it has a careful touch. But all too soon its mood will change and we will flinch away from the harsh stabbing rays that rule the day. These are minutes not to be wasted.
For that short time I can lose myself where a dried leaf is a distant mountain and the gradual decay of life feels so right. Purposeful structures quietly torn apart by tiny benign savages and the gentle grind of weathering. Leaf litter should be called leaf magic. An elf or two wouldn't be a surprise.
But what truly amazes me down here even more than all this natural beauty is the fact that it is infinite. Maybe not the leaves themselves but the views of them, the angles, the combinations and the forever changing light. And I haven't even left our garden yet.
All pictures taken by me on my belly, all words typed by me on my backside, in Thailand.
