Asclepias syriaca

I had in mind today that I would sit down during my hour in the wild, so I brought with me into the pasture a folding chair. I never did open that chair today, instead I awkwardly carried it in the crotch of my arm as I frantically meandered throughout the grasses. Sometimes my body is not as contemplative as my mind want its to be. Today I felt fidgety. I entered the wilderness in hopes to find something thought provoking and soul stimulating, in the same manner that I would enter the grocery store to pick up milk or bread when running out of them.

Despite my ill motives and selfish intentions, nature gave me exactly what I needed today. It was not anything that I found, or that I stumbled across, as I might find something that I need wandering through the aisles of the grocery store, but it was everything that the patient inhabitants shouted at me despite my selfishness, that gave me what I needed today.

The Golden Rod has now turned to an awful brownish hue. The bright yellow that had once brought with it a sort of playful spirit, is now gone, and a mattress of decomposing stems and leaves replace it. The bold white spread of the Queen Anne's Lace has now retreated to a bud of rotting material interspersed with the once Golden Rod. Yet even in the midst of all this death there is new life. The Purple Aster must have a higher tolerance for the cold nights, as it stands firmly among its dieing brothers and sisters as if to honor their life, perhaps giving an eulogy of sorts.

Other life in the prairie is dieing, or perhaps dead, yet it seems to be glowing with life in its own way. The Milk Weed, for instance has long since made food, from the sun this year. The Chlorophyll has been gone from it for many weeks now, yet with the departure of this life-giving liquid comes colors that not even an artist could mix up on her palette.

As the fruit trees begin to shed their leafs of death, there seems to be still some hope in the air. The seed of these trees are encased in appetizing fruit. The promise of their offspring is as sweet as the fruit that they it is presented in. As I walk by an apple tree I can not help myself, so I climb the base of the tree finding the perfect apple that has not been too eaten by insects, and i partake in the sacramental feast prepared.

Creator God, bitterness has disguised itself as sweet, and death has some how appeared as life.

May the taste of life you give to my soul, be as real as the cool meat of the apple is to the pallet of my mouth.