Journeys

My dogs used to stand around my fridge staring at it, waiting for it to deliver frozen chicken and bones. Since I have discovered the new walk my dogs stand around staring at my car... waiting.

After looking around furtively we slip through the barb wire fence with the no-entry sign, run across the Gautrain clearing area, climb over the mount of earth which flattened the fence separating us from paradise and then our roads divide.

I stand staring at the green pasture containing islands of purple grasses while the wolves chase a flock of guinea fowl into the trees. I wonder. Should we wander down to the river or should we head into the field of tall grasses beyond the meadow and explore new territory.

Today, new territory.

The dogs disappear into grass which reach up to my waist. The smell of earth on which rain has danced all night rise up, encircle my waist, slip into my nose and disappear into my heart.

I find a magic clearing where tiny grasshoppers shimmer through tightly packed purple and green grasses. Here I rest for a while. A dead tree rise up in front of me. I can see only grasses, tree and sky.

The sky is turquoise closer to the horizon and a grey blue covered in swirling clouds towards its center. My eyes follow the journey of what they believe to be a dove. It turns out to be a small hawk settling on a branch stretched out, following the curve of a wispy cloud.

A bigger hawk is already settled in the highest spot. Together they observe the grass, the river, the small enclosure where I rest and the wolves bounding through the grass their breaths racing with joy.

The wolves runs over and across me until I get up and follow a flying crow towards the smell of river. We step across a tar road and disappear into a cool wooded area. A airplane circles through the air breaking the silence.

It is time to return.

Placing my feet carefully between grasses reaching up to my waist and falling down in clearings covered in shorter grasses I roll around to the smells of wet earth and wild grasses.

So delighted am I, I almost feel like meeting a snake would be the perfect way to die.

We don't want to leave.

Sitting here typing the wolves stare at me, their breaths are still racing and their heartbeats sing about being wild things in a wild place.

"Contact with nature can be a transformative experience, whether in the form of native eco-systems or simply the tree outside ones window. In sum, ecological restoration of degraded urban landscapes creates benefits for both people and the land.

As one urban watershed volunteer stated eloquently, 'Volunteering has filled a part of that place we all have that isn't selfish, and needs to do the right thing. It has made me more aware, and both happier and sadder for my new knowledge of the environment and its condition.'

Urban restoration projects across the country have cleaned streams, resored native forests, planted prairies, and created new backyard habitats."
Urban volunteers and the environment - Robert Ryan & Robert Grese.

Knowing that my place of wilderness may soon be covered with townhouses fills me with a deep sadness. Ecological volunteer programs might slowly turn around the journey leading us further and further away from our wild places.

Do you have a story to tell about a volunteering journey? About taking a turn towards preserving something you treasure, be it education, shelter, health or happiness? About returning the wilderness to places, animals or people?

It can be about a long journey to far away places or it can be about a short journey to that sacred space in your back garden.

Smiling at ten strangers and respectfully acknowledging their uniqueness every day for a week or pulling a few weeds out of a community garden can be as great an act of volunteering as spending 3 hours a day feeding the hungry or clearing a neighbourhood stream.

Read more about volunteering and the just posts here.