It’s been a fallow time. I look at our back lawn — unlike the front, which we mow, and which edges up to the county road, the back slopes down towards a small pond and seasonal stream. Often we leave it unmowed — why waste gas and time? A proper Druid view, or a rationalization for laziness? We’re letting the ferns take over in the shade, and looking at how the sun moves to consider the best plantings for other places. We have a decent mix of trees — black walnut (bad for root vegetables, but we can work around that), mountain ash, willow, Eastern pine, crab apple, sugar maple — and now a start on berries — currants, raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, blueberries.
So when I say fallow, I mean for me. The green world all about is flourishing and calling in its many voices of bullfrog, mosquito, baby jays squawking for food, mourning doves, wind in the trees, rain — always rain, these last weeks. I wait and prepare. The Hopi call their ritual pipe natwanpi — the “instrument of preparation.” For me right now, patience and watching are my natwanpi.
A Druid Way 