RECIPROCITY IN A WORLD OF WONDERS

The moist overcastness of today was almost a shock, as were the few spatterings of rain, since we've had nothing but clear blue skies and sunshine for almost four weeks. Yikes! It is about to be autumn, in a few hours. I'm not ready!!

With the new moon, and the momentousness of both Rosh Hashana and Eid (the end-of-Ramadan celebration) this weekend, as well as the equinox, everything feels full of meaning, a turning-point and a time to be especially attentive. Because of the new moon, on Saturday night, after a crystalline day, the sky was alive with every star possible. No wonder the ancients marvelled and studied the night sky. What could be more astonishing and miraculous? We in the modern industrialised world have other distractions and so we often miss out on the essentials. They, the ancients, lived face-to-face with the vastness of the universe every clear night. And on Saturday might it was so clear up in the lovely unlitness of rural Grey County that the Milky Way wasn't a hazy band but instead a number of distinct strands oriented south west to north east, split apart in places so that they trailed off in several ribbons toward the horizon in both directions. When have I ever seen it so clearly?

I looked and looked for the moon, the sliver of the new moon, but never found it, even though it was after 9 by then, so surely it was up?!

Perhaps, you'll say, you were hallucinating? Maybe the Milky Way wasn't so marvellous, it's just that you were in an altered state? Perhaps. But I don't think so, despite the fact that the late afternoon had been quite astonishing, with a long intense sauna at Jon and Lillian's: inside in the intense dry heat, outside into the chill of early evening air and the trees all around, back in for another even deeper and more penetrating dose of heat, the air burning up into my nostrils, and so on. Finally we all dashed for the car and drove the half mile to the river. In we went, into moving rippling water that carried us along, practically singing with exhilaration, the bottom clear, the water completely transparent, the sky equally limpid above. We waded slowly out, laughing with pleasure. My bones felt warm, my whole body too, except that my skin was sharply tingling with that "I am alive!" tingle that the best and luckiest sauna can give. Steam drifted off us as we stood in the road, the sun aimed straight down it from due west, our shadows crisp and long in the golden dust.

Later, on our way back into the city under that spangled sky, Ian and I talked about the shape of things in the house, the way Dom and Tashi and Ian share cooking and cleaning and how best to communicate about it all so everyone feels equally responsible and equally appreciated. It's about reciprocity, I think, and that seems to be a good thing to think about as we who live here at 45 degrees north hit the equilibrium point in the year and start to tilt (slide? creep?) toward winter.

Reciprocity is equal connection, balance, mutuality. When we're assured of it, we relax. When it's not there we feel resentful or angry, or we withdraw. It's not about alternating who pays for coffee each time we go out (though it can be I guess), but instead it's about loosely but clearly maintaining a sense of that balance of giving and taking in a relationship.

Sometimes there is no obvious balance. Sometimes the gift that we are given is so precious, like the gift of time in the magical post-sauna river, that there is no specific equivalent to balance it. But that's not the point. In the larger and longer arc of a long friendship, it's the sharing of wonder that becomes the precious gift, and sharing is by definition reciprocal, isn't it?

FAMILIAR SKIES AND FRESH PASTURES

The full moon has risen, orange-gold and lovely, preceded by a brightly shining Jupiter.  They are themselves, as ever, timeless and yet each time wonderful, while I am seeing them in a new place with fresh eyes.  I'm in Umbria, with friends, staying in an airy hilltop house with a wonderful view east to a line of purple hills.

  

The landscape here is so different and so transporting.  There is forest, woodland on hilltops and in valleys, that punctuates the rounded sweeping contours of the earth.  The golden wheat stubble is now being ploughed under, the plough leaving rich dark lines in the gold.  The farmers began ploughing yesterday.  They plough very early, at dawn, or very late in the evening, to avoid the intense sun and heat of the day.  Other large fields in this valley, always sloping and rounded, are planted in sunflowers, ripening now, their heads all aligned together to face the sun.

Now, in the night, with the newly risen moon (full two nights ago, but still only barely off full), there are stars in the clear sky, including one of the few constellations that I can identify, that childhood familiar the Big Dipper.  The frogs are singing in a constant high-pitched staccato, and apart from that there's stillness and silence.

In a couple more nights there will be shooting stars.  I can think of nowhere I'd rather watch them than up here on this hillside in the clear air.  I just wish Dom and Tashi were here too, to enjoy the place and the good company.

This being transported to another place is a wonderful thing, and such a privilege.  I am reading books (just finished Redmond O'Hanlon's No Mercy, about his trip in the Congo, published in 1997, fantastic and engrossing and disturbing) and talking to friends and new acquaintances, without a sense of rush or schedule.  Out behind the house two days ago I picked almonds (almonds!!) and hazelnuts, three kinds of plums, and two varieties of pear, from the trees planted there.  The lavender and rosemary grow in huge bushes, inviting and aromatic, and the tomatoes are sweet with the hot sun.

But more than those pleasures, I am taking a space from my normal pattern of thought to let my mind drift.  What a luxury!  And I find myself shaping stories in my head, stories and descriptions for my next project.  I should perhaps, well, no perhaps about it in fact!, be editing and polishing the entry on "Fermentation" for the Oxford Companion to Southeast Asian Food.  It's nearly done, but somehow, here in the newfound light and landscape of Umbria, I'm having trouble being diligent about finishing it off.  hmmm!!!

Soon, soon.  And meantime good wine, good oil, good bread, and excellent company, are reminding me of the pleasures of enjoying the present wholeheartedly...