strawberry meditations

The walk to the bus stop has become a home to me, these last several weeks. About an hour long, my road goes behind the village, past fields and vineyards at its outskirts, and up into a forested hill. There it turns and continues back downwards, into a flowering hamlet with patches of gardens and limestone caves that make one think of hobbits. The last leg goes by a pasture of horses and donkeys, a field of onions, and a group of houses in various states of repair and disrepair.

It is incredibly rare that I come across any human being, in the two-thirds of the path that is in the woods and fields. On the other hand, I am making the acquaintance of new sights, sounds, and sensations. As one who tastes wine frequently and attentively experiences a deepened capacity to taste the subtleties of the substance, I am discovering new details I never imagined I could notice—details that burst and fade and are ever changing.

Just in the last two weeks, I have perceived a change from late-spring to full summer. The large clusters of elderflowers have faded, as the berries begin to form. Angelica flowers have opened their great white umbrellas to adorn the ditches and sides of roadways. Filling all of this in are zillions of varieties of grasses catching the light on their heavy heads. The wild blackberry bushes are in flower and have all the insect world in a busy tizzy.

While the bees and their colleagues frequent their generous table, I have found my own sweet spots at which to taste of this abundance. Wild cherries along my path have come into full color; I can manage to harvest a small handful, but the rest hang like tempting baubles on unreachable branches. They are more than worth the several minutes it costs me to stop—at once warm, tender, and puckeringly tart even at their peak of ripeness.

And yet the real delicacy is the woodland strawberries. As of yet, there are not many; I may gather ten in a trip. No wider than a fingernail, they form mostly hidden under dark-green foliage at the forest floor. They reward those who seek to find them: just one in the mouth is like the opening of a universe. Eating these wild berries is an act of meditation.

In learning the French driving code, I’ve been reminded that the faster you drive, the smaller your frame of vision becomes. When driving slowly, you can take in the countryside, letting your eyes roam back and forth. Moving fast prevents the details from sinking in. It gets dangerous, because some of them are too precious to miss.

I miss going fast, honestly. But, Psalm 19 says,

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.” (vs. 1-4)

And I want to be one who listens to and can understand what they are saying. My paying attention, my going  slow, the tasting and watching, are this prayer:

“May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
    be pleasing in your sight,
    Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” (v. 14)