A return home

Of course, it would have been better had, miraculously, Bobbit, or Tengu, been here. Alas, no. Indeed. most people were keeping themselves out of sight. I did see this little chap.

And an occasional visitor marched back and forth over the neighbours' conservatory.

The squirrels were out and about.

My little bonsai trees are shooting up. In fact, the whole garden is an expression of viriditas. This is a concept recognised by Hildegard of Bingen. I came across it in Fire Weather. John Vaillant writes that it is...

the mysterious vitality that compels things to grow. Hildegard didn’t call it “the life force.” Instead, she used a term more specific to what she saw in her native Rhine Valley: viriditas. In Latin, Hildegard’s written language, viriditas means “greenness,” but in the context of Hildegard’s writing, it implies something closer to “greening energy,” the innate impulse in all living things to be healthy, whole, and regenerative. Oxygen, carbon dioxide, and photosynthesis would have been unknown to her, but Hildegard’s intuition was strong. She understood that, as far as humans are concerned, “greening energy” is what makes life not only possible, but also wonderful, holy, and renewable. Viriditas, as Hildegard understood it, is Earth’s standard operating procedure; it is also our planet’s response to catastrophe.

The wet summer has certainly given the cleavers a boost. The lilac trees look wonderful. There are tracks through the long grass where, I guess, the fox walks and one place where I think he may have curled up and slept.

It's enlivening to think of all the life in this tiny patch of land.