I walked home from Takoma Park this evening. It's 2.8 miles, according to Google Maps. Mostly north, and just a little bit west. I walked across the grass near the Metro station. Robins and starlings, foraging in the wet lawn, flew ahead of me, landed, and then flew again as I approached. Eventually they all figured to fly away from my path, not further along it.
I was two-thirds of the way home before I woke up to how perfect the evening felt. Seventy-nine degrees, but low, or at least moderate, humidity - a thoroughly pleasant temperature to walk in shorts and a sleeveless top - my yoga teaching attire.
The moon was rising behind me, the sun setting ahead and off in the west. In one yard, three rabbits chased each other around. Young ones, from this year, I think. A tall conifer in the yard had branches clear down to the ground, which seemed to be their safe-haven. Around the corner and down the hill a bit, and another young rabbit nibbled on a streetside planting. Off in the distance, a balloon, escaped from a party perhaps, floated in the pale evening sky.
Birds sang some songs for the end of the day - less boisterous than the morning songs - and then some insects started up their night songs. As I passed the Rose of Sharon bushes in the neighbor's yard, I saw that all the blooms were rolled up for the night. They'll unfurl again in the early morning light.
My facebook feed tonight had this quote - attributed to "Native Americans:"
"When the blood in your veins returns to the sea, and the earth in your bones returns to the ground, perhaps then you will remember that this land does not belong to you, it is you who belongs to this land."
Whether or not the thought is actually Native American in origin, it captures how I often feel - that I'm just a part of the world - connected to the broad world of life, matter and energy around me, and connected back through time to the very beginning of it all.
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