sweet peas & prayer

I realize that there are many, many versions of prayer and I'm not a religious person. However I do speak with God. (I say God but I think that's just a convenient word to use). I speak to someone, quite regularly, often saying thank-you for the incredible peace & serenity that I experience in my life. I say thank-you for the great tasting fresh water that pours out of my tap, I say thank-you for the clear night sky filled with billions of stars, I say thank-you for the comfort & safety of my cosy bed. I do also ask God, or whoever it is that I'm talking to, from time to time, to help me. Yesterday morning was one of those conversations. Jake, Winnie and & I were walking down the grass lane on our way to the beach and I was still feeling fetched up. Fetched up about the giant tree lying prone in my back yard, the tree had become the tipped domino, the straw that breaks, the thing that had me sliding into that awful pit of self pity - having to deal with yet one more thing all by myself. Who would I call to remove the tree? maybe I could just leave it for awhile? I hated to call my neighbour Roger because I was afraid he'd feel obligated and the one person I knew to call I don't really trust, he kind of creeps me out. Anyway all this fussin' around in my brain was getting to me. So I asked God to help me just deal with it and turn the day around somehow...and maybe he/she could throw a little sign my way... just so I'd know that he/she was paying attention.

When the chatterbox in your head pretty much talks non stop it's easy to forget what you were thinking about, sometimes minutes ago. We carried on our morning walk and I soon got lost in examining the beach which had been pounded the day before by rough surf and very high tides-the landscape quite dramatically changed - and secretly hoping I'd find something (?) exciting washed up, maybe some, as yet, undocumented sea creature ... and soon forgot about my conversation with God. We climbed the cliff, so we could walk a bit through the grown over pasture, part of our daily route, it's filled with wild roses and bayberry, and in July tiny wild strawberries. I noticed something moving way off in the distance it was four deer walking and grazing in a pasture up on the hill...both dogs enjoy rolling in the tall grass in this particular field and they continued on with their daily drill making doggy crop circles, flattening the grass in big patches as they rubbed every part of their bodies with great enthusiasm. It wasn't until we were back on the grass lane heading for the car that the deer reappeared and I came out of my meditative morning state to remember that deer means "gentleness" in animal totems. I realized that the deer might be my sign, my sign from God to lighten up, be gentle with myself.

Finally after breakfast, dogs fed and settled and me at my desk aiming for great productivity I heard a soft knocking on my front door. A young man, I had never seen before, stood at my door and asked if I needed to have a tree cut up and removed ? He had been told by the village gardener/caretaker, Lee, that I had a large fallen tree that needed to be taken care of. I showed him into the back yard and after a quick conversation he gave me a very reasonable price and said he'd be back after lunch. By 4pm my backyard was back to normal, the clothesline back up, I gave him extra money because he did such a fantastic job, very neat & thorough, and once again, for the moment anyway ...I am worry free.