Today I walked to the docks at the yacht club and watched an egret eating breakfast along the shore for half an hour while listening to Bjork's "Medulla". Listening to Bjork while taking a walk is really interesting, because it's not like the upbeat get you pumped up kind of music but more the quiet observant creeping peeling back the skin of the world and wondering about its contents kind of music. I watched the egret walk through the water, climb on the jagged slippery rocks and watched it's long yellow toes balance and carefully tread through the shore. It never once looked at me in alarm, always concentrating unwavering on the task at hand, peering carefully, every once and a while grabbing a small wriggling fish, it's fins translucent in the morning sun, some brownish grey, others a pale orange, clamping down on it once and swallowing it down its long neck. I watched it, this "wild" animal, no care in the world but to feed and survive. Is that what it means to be wild? To only have survival on your mind?
On the way home I heard a crack like a rock had been thrown at me, only to find it was a raven that had dropped half of it's seed or nut shell in the road. Another time I noticed small paw prints in the sidewalk, made from a wandering cat from when the cement was still wet.
We humans have created such a comprehensive and well-functioning society, able to take care of all our physical needs, so that sometimes we forget about nature and God and the dependence and vulnerability we once had in relation to the elements. But somehow the wild still creeps into our societies, reminding us that there are still some things we cannot control.
