Birds come to the bowl of water at the west side of the center circle. They come at fruit time, too, and I don't mind sharing a little. There's at least one hole of some small underground dweller, and since there are no bulbs in my labyrinth, that's okay. Dogs gallop through (thought not big ones anymore.) A fun way to practice leash training and teach dogs to respond immediately to your changes in direction is to walk the whole path with them. Cats like to sun themselves (and probably make other contributions as well, but we won't go there.)
The point is, we are not alone on this earth, not quite the lords of creation we used to think we were, and it's a good sign when the animals come to you.
This is one of the good things about my life, too. Animals like me, most of the time. I hope my presence is good for them; I know their presence is good for me. They remind me of important things, like play and exercise. They calm me when I need it. Once, during a serious crisis in my life, I went into some woods at a retreat center in central Ohio, with no other determination than to just sit still. That's harder than it sounds, particularly when you're in soul turmoil. But after some effort and some prayer and some calming and some re-calming. . . I succeeded.
I sat, and my breathing slowed. A Carolina wren bustled busily about in some nearby underbrush, not worried about my presence. Then I caught slight movement out of the corner of my right eye. I turned my head slowly, so as not to startle the bird (or start myself up again). A spider was using my shoulder as a hitching point for her new web! That was when I knew that not only my body, but my heart was quiet and still.
I often think, when I'm headed into the woods, of the words to the Sydney Lanier poem, "Into the Woods My Master Went." I have never yet reached the full submission of the last stanza, and honestly, I hope I won't have to. But the first part is familiar to me, and if God ever requires the last, the grace of the Christ will be sufficient.
Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him:
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.
Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When Death and Shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last:
'Twas on a tree they slew Him -- last
When out of the woods He came.
Sidney Lanier
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