Cushioned by the moss that covers a rather large and clearly masonic memorial stone I feel that most unusual state – liminal. Like I’m between two distinctively different entities. The scents of the natural world swirl around me, like a chill wind might penetrate the warmest of winter coats to be felt in our bones.

Although, this isn’t an unpleasant sensation it has the opposite feeling, one of comfort. I’m like a tree in its third year, soil borne bacteria and the roots of mushrooms – mycelium – fuse with tree by that stage and welcome their roots to the soil, connecting them to the world beneath the surface. Here I feel the same, the natural process of the cemetery are starting to welcome me in. The natural and unnatural noises lap around me like the lazy lolloping waves of undisturbed rivers; the hum of the road, whispers of wind in the remaining leaves, the chatter of a lonely parent of young children, the whirring of volunteer swung strimmer all held by the hands of the woods until a crisp dry leaf falls from the sycamore and smacks against my plastic shopping bag and breaks my dreamlike trance.      

I’m watched by the tilting head of the robin we make some sort of eye contact, a sharing our curiosity of other species. He’s look perhaps for the prospect of food, mine for the prospect of knowledge. Our moment together broken by the noise of pigeon wings thunderously flapping high above, making an expert path through the maze that is the canopy above.

Avian alarm calls start to sound all around me, another human is coming. I realise they were silent when I took my seat. I realise too that the robin is coming close and closer with each of my visits. I take these signs as an acceptance by forest that is the cemetery to my presence. Although I feel sure that the robins have long been tamed and that the birds are only alarmed by leadless dogs.

Indeed, a leadless dog wanders past and it stops and states at me unsure if I’m moss or human. I’m stock still and out of the corner of my eye I notice a ladybird is hunting the greenfly that have been visiting my trouser leg. A few gentle drops of rain drop down from a leafless ash and onto my nose. The dog, still staring sniffs the air around me. I move slightly to wipe the rain and the dog barks and runs back towards his smiling owner.

Andy Hamilton – Author. Forager. Nice chap

Author & Forager
The Other Andy Hamilton

NEW BOOK – NEW WILD ORDER, how answering the call of the wild might just save your life
The First Time Forager (NT /Harper Collins), Booze for Free, Eden Project, The Perfect Pint, Fermenting Everything.

My Substack – Fortnightly musings, poems, videos
Proud member of the Association of Foragers