My Saturday Morning Walk

I’m not usually a morning walker. Daunted by the idea of suddenly emerging into the world, from the sanctuary of my sleep, I begin the day gently. My current routine commences with journaling - slowing down to write by hand, then some yoga and topping it off with an hour of Reiki. The last few days I’ve not been feeling like myself. Something’s been askew but I just cannot put my finger on it. 

I realize that as much as routine can be an useful anchor,  I also need to do things differently. So, after my second cup of coffee, I grabbed an umbrella, put on my trekking sandals and headed out - in my pyjamas. 

It wasn’t too early, I’d already spent the past two hours writing and morose, so it was almost 10 am. If it’s raining, it’s pleasant to walk at any hour, but the last two to three days, it’s been sporadic rain. A gushing shower that passes in five minutes with the sun shining bright thereafter and ne’er a cloud in sight. When I was in school, this kind of rainfall, with the sun also shining, was designated a sign that Jackals were getting married. Within the mountains around Shimla, it was easy enough to believe that these canids lived in and around the Himalayan forest regions, but in Goa? 

Apparently called the golden Jackal, this species are widespread. From the foothills of the Himalayas down to the Western Ghats; their distribution is deemed to be quite wide. And yesterday, while the sun and rain did this intermittent dance almost every ten minutes, I did wonder if there was a mass foxy wedding going on and joked (to myself) that every time two wolves tied the knot (mated) rain would shower blessings, wait for the next couple and do the same on and on. Needless to say, I had a good chuckle imagining such going-ons in nearby region of the Western Ghats. 

Anyway, this morning it was cloudy and I decided on a walk to quell the uneasiness. To try and just look and listen around me, get some exercise and breathe in some fresh air. As per usual, I turned left out of Sapphire. A neighbour was chasing pigs and piglets out of her land. I asked if they were Jennifer’s whom I had seen foraging in the evenings.  Apparently they belonged to Dominic, another neighbour who wasn’t around to herd those who had wandered afar. His daughter had just undergone surgery and the family was at the hospital. I knew Dominic had a good many cows that grazed in the fields on the other side of Sapphire, that account for a verdant view, but had never seen piggies around him. 

I continued my tread, in the direction of the main Anjuna-Siolim-Morjhim road, when two dogs standing alert on the boundary wall of their owner’s home, started barking. They were street dogs who’d found a home. The black one was familiar and usually quite docile, but the other brown one, seemed very ferocious. I  tried talking them down, but to no avail. A friendly, but unknown, passing neighbour - heading out on his mobike also shooed them down, but nothing worked. He then offered to drop me off on the main road. I thanked him but declined because I had to return this same route and if they were in some sort of a mood, I didn’t want to have to face them alone. As he zoomed off, I turned around to walk the other way. Emboldened by my change in decision, I bid them “shut up!”,  pointing my umbrella tip  threateningly, at them. It seemed more effective than anything else had been and they paused their canine  raucous. I didn’t hear them as I  walked in the opposite direction, leaving the dogs behind, as I head towards the Sodiem Road. 

I tend not to come this way, during the rainy season because there are too many large puddles and one is never sure how deep they are. But I made my way through the barely tarred, bleeding laterite earth, as well as I could. Sometimes wanting to jump into  the rust coloured puddles, but the road was busy with passers-by - in cars, tempos and bikes. In any case, I wasn’t quite in the mood for  such child-like playfulness, so refrained, from taking that kind of a leap and forcing a sense of abandon that I didn’t feel.

As I turned onto the main road, the green-as-green-can-be paddy fields came into view. It’s such an uplifting sight to see untrammelled verdant spanning yards and yards in front of one’s eyes. So refreshing! Green is said to symbolize the colour of nature and therefore life and renewal. It is reportedly most relaxing for the human eye to view shades of this hue, believing it to alleviate anxiety, depression, and nervousness and the Roman Emperor Nero is thought to have used an emerald to combat the sight of blood and gore during barbaric gladiator fights. I find the paddy green so soothing during the monsoons that I am always reminded of these rather curious facts learned as a student. 

A lot of men and women were working in the fields bordering the Sodiem Road. Dotted across the landscape I could spot them bent double picking the ready crop. When closer in view, I had seen a bunch of stalks in their hands growing larger and larger until the left hand could hold no more and they put the sheaf aside to pick some more from the fertile earth. In one field yonder, about half a dozen people seemed bent double in a close huddle. They were too far to note if there was something else afoot other than picking the ready paddy and it was their colourful in attire in shades of red pink, yellow and orange, contrasting the soothing green that made them stand out. Another farmer was sprinkling something onto the land. As he seemed to be walking in the midst of green, I imagined he was adding fertilizer of some sort and not sowing seeds, but I could have been wrong. Maybe he was late in sowing this year. Farming can be a tedious job and a lot of people have opted out of rice cultivation in Goa. So much so that in the midst of sown paddy swaying in the breeze are neglected plots of land populated by nothing but weeds and wild grass. It is often hard to tell, which is which, from a distance. 

It had drizzled a bit before I made it to the Sodiem Road, but was dry at this point. I took this opportunity to stand on the side of the road and just look. To let time still and not count steps, nor minutes of exercise. There were a few different species of birds in the land ahead – it clearly wasn’t a cultivated field. The white Cow Egret was easily discerned but the others I couldn’t recognise. They seemed slightly larger than the Lesser and Greater Sand Plovers one sees on the beach, but something was different too. I hadn’t brought my phone so I couldn’t take a shot at trying to photograph the image. Not that I could have got any detail from where I was and the birds were about half a kilometre deep into the water-steeped paddy fields. When, I came home and flipped through my book of birds in Goa, I realised that they could have been pond Herons too.

Close to them,  was one very curious looking bird that grabbed most of my attention. I had never seen anything like it. Such a long neck it had. A small face and the body was mid-sized. It’s long neck stuck out high above the grass. It was like a snake ready to snipe. A reddish-pink line went down its slender form. Like a spine would, it curved. The feathers were an unusual shade of brown, but the neck was whitish with this distinguishing line. I thought it was a bird. But it stood so absolutely still, not a whisper of movement, not a twitch of that uncomfortably long neck, that I thought I could have been mistaken. Imagining a piece of plastic or something one of the farmers had put out as a scarecrow, that had dismantled in the wind, I chided myself for thinking it was a bird. That even this didn’t flutter in the wind, escaped me then, but I stood as still as the bird-apparition, despite noisy trucks behind me, and watched intently.

After a couple of unbelievably long moments, I sensed movement. Yes, it’s neck had changed position - it turned in my direction. Could the creature have felt my intense gaze on it from this far? They’re more sensitive to such things than we humans are, so probably had noted. And it was clearly discomfited by it, for within another second, it opened its wings, stuffed its unwieldly neck into its body and flew away. It was a young Purple Heron! I had never seen one before, not in these parts at any rate.

Did the barking dogs know that the paddy fields would soothe and the birds fascinate me and quell my uneasy mind, however momentarily? Whether they did or not, whatever the reason for fending me off from going further down that end of the Village Road, listening to them, to my apprehension because of the second unfamiliar dog, had paid off. As had being silent and still while gazing at the birds. It was an enchanted moment of pausing after a hectic few weeks of hard work, but I wasn’t satisfied with just seeing this unusual bird in my everyday environment. The stress in body and mind had not alleviated. 

Something was missing. But what? And then as I put my lunch dishes into the sink, it struck me that I need to attribute meaning to things, that has always more satisfying. Of late, in a bid to be more efficient so that I could get more done, I have been derisive of this tendency because why does one need meaning? What is it worth except the significance you attribute to it, I mean everyone could discern a hundred different ideas from a moment in life, so why do it, when it doesn’t denote anything much to anyone except me. But I conceded today, that I like doing this whether it is beneficial to others or not, it gives me food for thought. So I went online and searched for symbolism of the Purple Heron I had spotted and was astonished to read what I found. It was as if the bird had been speaking to me.

“Heron symbolism and meaning calls you to reflect on stillness, patience and deep meditation.... calling on your ability to embrace stillness and to have faith in the process playing out without your intervention.” It was uncanny and also reassuring to know that the bird’s stillness had instinctively called into being my own. That yesterday spent in meditation was as appropriate as not jumping in the puddles when the time didn’t feel right. 

I’d just finished conducting a ten-day WhatsApp workshop. It was intense. And stepping back wasn’t coming easy because I have to prepare for a webinar presentation. I’m normally rather reclusive and the last month has been more social and interactive than I’m used to. I’ve so much inside my head that I don’t know where to put it, or how to offload. I want to be clearheaded to write my presentation, but the inner chaos isn’t easing up fast enough. 

Being uncomfortable when ones balance is skewed, is difficult to bear and with so much to do, it’s hard not to try and push the pace to retrieve this. And that’s what my fundamental unease does stem from. Sighting the heron hasn’t quietened the mind entirely, but nature’s reassurance did help. That I needed to give myself time to unwind, something I had been denying myself because of the workload, was as clear a message as I could possibly get from any friend I may have spoken to. That a bird would suggest this, was delightful as much as it was spooky, but it also affirmed the connections that energy makes, when we look and listen.