Wander With Wild Things

Out all week in the canoe doing river habitat surveys, so my ability to write deeply insightful and hilarious posts (c'mon, just lie, it will make me feel better) is slightly handicapped. I just don't think I can pick up a wireless signal in mid-channel...

On the plus side, I am getting to explore paddle stroke by paddle stroke a beautiful river. Gliding under heron nests, we are surprised by a muskrat nose right next to the bow. Apparently, so was the yellow-bellied slider who shot off in the dusky water next to me! Today, a little blue heron popped out of an ancient sycamore in front of us much to the distress of a prothonotary warbler (right), who hollered his mighty protest from a neighbouring tree trunk. Musk turtles seem to plop off logs every 30 feet and great blue herons, great egrets, and ospreys escort us with measured wingflaps down the river corridor. It's impossible not to wonder how I ever got lucky enough to get paid for this. Of course, then I remember that that pay is merely a pittance and there is still the thicket of poison ivy to trudge through at the takeout!

Life is full of tradeoffs, but this is one that today I am willing to make. Spending the day in liquid silence broken only by the sigh of a canoe's bow wave and the wildlife that surrounds you...it is therapy for the soul and I prescribe it to every human being. I think it would make us all better people and at the very least, it would remind us that we only need open our eyes and ears for a moment to see the wonder around us. To hear the soft pump of wings, the hiss of waves on shore, and the breath of a breeze on summer leaves is to be reminded the rhythm of our heartbeat and in it, the core of our being.