Tomorrow I’m heading off on retreat again. Revisiting Holy Isle in Scotland for the second year running, only the second retreat I’ve ever been on. I am not normally in the habit of slowing down, or disconnecting from devices and activities, and the retreat showed me that it was possible. To focus on one thing at a time, and more aware of the present moment.
Reading through my journal from last year, I was reminded of one particular day. A story of a walk with a blackbird, and how patience and slowing down brings rich rewards.
The blackbird
Slowing down was D’s (meditation leader) challenge to us all at the end of the day. I walked up the hill after dinner, slowly. Not as slowly as the ‘mindful walk’ we did this morning – creeping along the foreshore, feeling every stone and divot. Slow enough for the jasmine or gorse to linger long in the nostrils. Slow enough that two oystercatchers on the beach (famously nervous birds) didn’t take flight but sat whilst we filed past.
But up the hill I went. Aware the light was going, and wanting to take photos, but determined not to hurry. It was a lovely climb. Lilac clouds of bluebells under ash and bracken, bilberry green amongst the brittle heather. Soay sheep and Sanaan goats dotted about, like waymarkers. I was overtaken by two guys from the retreat and I let them pass, chattering away.
Near the top I turned and stopped to take in the view. Slower than I normally might. The fading sunset had turned the peaks of Arran a pale misty grey, and serried ranks of islands and coastlines were stacked to the horizon like a paint colour chart.
My reward for patient walking was meeting a female blackbird on the path – a baked mud trail tucked a foot deep into the heather. She had a fat slug and took her time eating. Peck and look around. Peck and look around. I felt a slight frustration build and considered walking on. I realised this was a big meal though, and she needed the energy for her eggs. I had had my dinner – who was I to deny her hers?
So I waited and let the frustration subside. Peck and peek. Peck and peek. The slug reduced in size until I noticed her swallowing one final time and wiping her bill. I walked down the trail back the way I had come, slowly, and she led the way. I expected her to fly off but no, she was there around every bend in the path. Stopping, looking and waiting, then running ahead as if to say ‘follow me!’. For several minutes this was our pattern. I walked down the path behind her with a big smile on my face, and eventually she alighted on a log to wipe her bill again, and I moved past, grateful.
The lesson
Grateful that I had taken the time to move slowly, with awareness of my place in nature. That I had noticed the blackbird, and she had noticed me. And that we had shared a space and time that had been made possible by slowing down. I realised this was a moment I would not have experienced without this awareness. It may have been there regardless, but I wouldn’t have encountered it.
