Unexpected Meetings with Beauty

Embrace seasonal serendipity in nature

These voiceovers are recorded ‘in the field’ with ambient sounds and occasional stumbles. My aim is to give you an evocation of place and a moment of tranquility, though this week you might just be able to hear distant shotguns: it’s pheasant season, a ‘sport’ I fail to understand.

Hello from the moss, and welcome—it’s good to have your company.

When you step outside, there is no guarantee that anything special will happen, but you can be certain that if you don’t go, you will never know what you have missed. And when you are granted a moment of magic, it will lighten whatever burden is weighing you down and put a spring in your step. FLOW: Letters from the Moss tends to be written around such moments. I rarely know ahead of time what I will share—I like to let nature be my guide.

Three serendipitous encounters have stayed with me this week—we also had Storm Ashley, who I have renamed ‘the leaf thief’. As well as sharing these moments in word and image, I have a little piece of prose written around the falling leaves.

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1. Brief Encounter

Friday. I spy them first from a distance—one, two, three deer. Their bulk suggests red. As they progress a fourth meets them; I sense as much as know that this is the stag. Later in the wood, I spot him coming straight towards me. I stand motionless; he continues, surely soon to bolt but no, he comes steadily nearer until we stand, maybe 10 metres apart. We watch each other. After a few minutes I see him move his head slightly to one side then the other, then up and down, judging my position. It’s something I’ve peviously only seen my cat do, fixing a real or imagined mouse in 3D. He’s trying to work out why there is a new purple tree in the wood; it doesn’t look like it belongs but it isn’t an immediate threat. After a few minutes, he opts for caution and begins to move to my right. Now I dare to raise camera slowly; he stops to look a few times before finally accelerating across the moss. The moment has passed but it was special.

2. After Klimt

Saturday. A calm has fallen after Friday’s wind. As the sun rises, low level mist begins to form and drift up the valley. I am already out as first rays crest the hill, and feel for the fading, failing, birch that occupy the wet ground. The mellowness of the moment holds me, slows my progress, bids me try to bottle a little of its essence as the sun kisses their branches.

On Sunday evening, I open the stopper and shared my image in the Substack app, and what do you know, it took flight. If you were there, thanks so much!

3. Coiled and Dangerous

Saturday (still). Birds sing, stags holler. I turn left, move slowly, take the soft light and warm yellow tones in. Through the fir; pause. Under the birch; pause. On to the grasses; pause. Over the ditch; look back. Stop dead. Orb webs glint and beckon. Approaching, I find a doubly deadly snare: the silk woven on a rollercoaster of old barbed wire. One spider sits centrally, but the rest wait to the side, using the twisted wire and its metal thorns as cover.

4. A Leaf

Ahead of Storm Ashley, I wrote down some thoughts about the brief life of a leaf.

lentamente

A leaf drips

drops

Its purpose

to break bud unfold absorb feed… complete 

It is let go cast adrift

and so it falls flies spins

and begins a new adventure:

It surfs traces the wind

rests on ling

catches in webs

brings colour to ground

illuminates dark water

Briefly it flares true colour

then dims

destined to become 

bedding carpet mulch humus food

It now has new purpose

its traces travel climb 

to become 

a new leaf

velocamente

A leaf drips drops Its purpose to break bud unfold absorb feed… complete It is let go cast adrift and so it falls flies spins and begins a new adventure: It surfs traces the wind rests on ling catches in webs brings colour to ground illuminates dark water Briefly it flares true colour then dims destined to become bedding carpet mulch humus food It now has new purpose its traces travel climb to become a new leaf

Autumn is both slow and sudden. A little, then seemingly all at once.

And here I must thank

Marya Hornbacher

, who writes beautifully and with rare power, for sharing John Green’s words about how falling in love happens “very slowly and then all at once”. The words stayed with me, and seem to fit the season too.

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Until next week,

Encore:

From this week last year:

Water from fields still streams and pools. New bodies cross the land and settle at the feet of trees. The morning is frosted and lined with ice. The sun rises late but is welcome. Leaves fall like rain, their attachment loosened by the night’s cold.

All words and images copyright © Michela Griffith except where otherwise noted