Toad as Teacher

Immovable heat anchors like an elephant near death. The plants and I are flattened accordingly. We are together.

Swarthy toads move from invisibility to beheld over and beyond garden borders. They are not as skittish as the creek frogs, thereby allowing for longer periods of presence and awareness. Crossing realms and worlds is in the eye of the beholder. We are only limited by our own ideas of death, life and love. Toads as teacher.

Dawn comes through as sifted light – here but filmy – instructed yet mysterious. My attention moves outdoors in nontrivial ways and yet, a sense of being hampered pushes in on the periphery. Heavy pine boughs droop towards the earth. The foliage after days of rain and sweltering heat amplifies as if taking up double the space. It's hard to breathe when swimming through the sea of violets. And every action produces sweat, stinging and blinding the eyes. Mosquitoes land and bite in under 2 seconds and with their need, it feels as if everything that is alive is screaming at me to go back to bed.

But work.

And family.

If you don't get what you want or need, do you simply change what you want or need?

Daisies, buttercups, wild phlox.

To open to peace means finally giving up, no?