The Olive Saga II

 The Olive Saga Part II

So you already know I loooved picking olives together this year with friends and family and this love shared amongst each other and also Nature yielded abundantly😉🌱🌿 well we just had to do it again!!!

So Pedro started looking at his olive trees with a different reverence and he invited us to help pick his olives for the first time too😁In 3 days again, we went from 3 to 4 to 3 and then only 2 people at the very end, and picked 750 kg which yielded 100 litres of delicious Olive oil, an even better proportion than the first round here at my place ❤️and it was such a blessing to be in a quiet village lost in the vast lands of Alentejo, where the silence is coloured by the sheep herds' bells, the Church clock chiming the time every hour, the cooler air of Autumn settling in, with the crisp morning chill kissed by the shy sun and the clouds settling in on the second day to bless our harvest with the season's rain, all received with a smile, grateful to spend so much time outdoors😊

After each tree's treasures are gathered onto the net down below, sitting down to sort the leaves and small branches out from the piles of olives is solace, feeling the warm, sometimes moist ground underneath us and taking in deep breaths of fresh earthy air, recovering our strength for the next tree... All so peaceful, such simple joys💧🍃🌿

And having a special friend like Margarida Moreira to come and housesit while I am away, caring for the dog, the cat, the chickens... And then arriving home and receiving the most beautiful surprise! Lying on my bed, a painting crafted with the colours of Love ❤️thank you so much Margarida, for painting the One you see in me🙏 Life beyond technology is so richly fulfilling that I don't spend much time online, actually very little, so it takes me a while to share these special moments but here it is now, shared with endless gratitude❤️❤️❤️

 

A caminho de Ser... uma águia

Há muito se foram os dias do aconchego da mãe águia sentada sobre o que parecia ser um mero ovo que acabou por produzir-me a mim! O dia em que quebrei a superfície da casca morna que havia sido o meu lar, simplesmente porque deixara de haver espaço para mim lá dentro, foi uma descoberta incrível de "Ah! Há mais!"

Havia mais 2 como eu, mais a mamã e o papá que eram gigantescos! Invencíveis! E eu sabia que era naquilo que eu haveria de tornar-me, ainda que da minha perspetiva minúscula parecesse ser um grande feito vir a ser aquele pássaro tão grandioso, majestoso, a deslizar pelos céus infinitos. 

O nosso ninho estava empoleirado tão alto que do nosso ponto de vista, a coisa mais próxima era mesmo o céu. Era céu e mais céu e depois, lá no fundo onde o horizonte se reúne, havia terra.

Bem, sabes, um dia, enquanto a mamã e o papá estavam por fora, a fazer o que quer que fosse que eles faziam e que resultava em trazerem-nos pedaços deliciosos de coisas boas para engolirmos, um dia fiquei mais aventureiro e cheguei-me centímetro a centímetro até à beira do ninho. Estava tão, mas tão curioso que tinha mesmo que saber que raio estava por debaixo da nossa casa!

Xiiiii! Apanhei um susto enorme! Estávamos tão alto que o chão lá em baixo parecia demasiado longe sequer para vislumbrar! Foi aí que me dei conta que a única forma de sairmos do nosso ninho seria, eventualmente, a voar! Dei-me um pequeno avanço, batendo as asas com tanta força quanta conseguia para ver se acontecia alguma coisa. Não. Ainda estava firmemente fixo no interior do ninho. Tentei uma e outra vez até que fiquei tão exaurido que colapsei e adormeci, frustrado. Sonhei com asas grandes e correntes de ar e até tive uma espécie de pesadelo quando as asas no meu sonho deixaram de funcionar! Mas felizmente a mãe e o pai estavam no seu caminho de regresso a casa e agarraram-me... no meu sonho, por isso fiquei seguro. 

O meu irmão e a minha irmã não pareciam ter interesse nesta coisa de voar, pelo menos não tanto quanto eu. Para eles estava tudo bem como estava agora mesmo e não se maçavam em querer saber mais. Sabiam que as coisas seriam como teriam que ser e que o que tivesse que ocorrer ocorreria no seu próprio tempo. 

Invejava-lhes a atitude e ainda assim não conseguia largar aquela minha expetativa. Não agora, depois de ter visto o que estava lá em baixo. Talvez eles estivessem assim descansados porque não se tinham acercado da beira do ninho. Só que agora que eu sabia, não podia obrigar-me a não saber. 

Enfim. Os dias passavam e nós crescíamos. A mamã e o papá vinham e íam conforme lhes apetecia e traziam-nos delícias que recebíamos com regozijo cantado. 

A nossa penugem transformou-se em penas e o espaço no nosso anteriormente enorme ninho passou a ser confinado. 

O dia começa a raiar e a grande bola vermelha de calor começa a subir no céu mas a mamã e o papá não vão a lado nenhum. Hoje vão empurrar-nos para fora! Uhhhhhh! A mamã afasta-se a voar e depois volta, instigando-me a ficar empoleirado na berma do ninho até que a única coisa possível é perder o equilíbrio! E é o que acontece! E é aí que, conforme me vejo em queda descendente rumo ao chão recordo, "bate as asas! Bate as asas!" Fecho os olhos, respiro fundo e bato as minhas agora enormes asas. Uau! Espera aí! Afinal não se trata de fazer um esforço! Basta abrir bem as asas e deixar que a brisa as sustente. De repente mil luzes acendem-se dentro de mim e dou-me conta daquilo que sempre soube mas que não estava preparado para assumir até agora! É tão simples! Tão simples! "Estou a voar! Estou a voar!!!!!! Olhem para mim!!!! Iupiiiiii!" Nada mais importa. Agora apenas existe isto. Apenas este flutuar, este deslizar, este descobrir do que as minhas asas são capazes, descobrir como fundir-me com o céu, tornando-me Águia. Isto que sempre foi o que houvera de ser. 

Recordo-me do meu pequeno eu a tentar acelerar desesperadamente o que não estava ainda maduro, a minha ânsia e a minha frustração, o meu esforço para atingir o que eu já era mas que não tinha paciência para permitir que se desenrolasse no seu próprio tempo. A minha curiosidade foi uma bênção e um martírio ao mesmo tempo. Mas no final, tudo funcionou porque não há forma de não nos tornarmos naquilo que já somos!!!

 

Texto por T. C. Aeelah

 

Becoming...

 Becoming…

Long gone are the days when the warmth of mommy eagle sitting over what seemed to be but an egg, eventually produced me. 

That day when I broke the surface of the warm shell that had been my home because I simply could no longer fit in there, was such a joyful discovery of “oh! There is more!”

There were 2 others like me, plus mommy and daddy who were gigantic! Invincible! And I knew that that was who I was to become though from my tiny point of view it sure seemed like a hell of an achievement to ever be that grand, majestic bird gliding across the infinite sky. 

Our nest was perched up so high that from our point of view, the closest thing there was was sky, sky and more sky and then, far off on the horizon there was land.

Well you know, one day, while mommy and daddy eagle were out doing whatever they did which resulted in them bringing us yummy chunks of goodness to gulp down, one day I got a little bit adventurous and slowly inched towards the edge of the nest, cause I was so darn curious I just needed to know what on earth was under our home!

Blimey!!! I got a heck of a fright! We were perched up so high that the ground down below seemed absolutely too far away to fathom! I realized then and there that the only way to get out of our nest, eventually, was to fly! I gave myself a bit of a head start by flapping my wings as hard as I could to see if anything happened. Nope. I was still firmly riveted to the inside of our nest. I tried over and over again until I got exhausted and just collapsed into a frustrated slumber. I dreamt of big wings and air currents and I even had a bit of a nightmare when the wings in my dream stopped functioning! But fortunately mum and dad had been on their way home and had grabbed me… in my dream, so I turned out to be safe.

My brother and sister didn’t seem to be interested in this flying thing as much as I was. They were just ok with the way things were right now and couldn’t be bothered to want to know more. They knew that things would take their own course and whatever were to happen would happen in its own time.

I envied their attitude and yet I could not bring myself to let go of the expectation. Not now that I had seen what was down below. Maybe they were at ease because they had not ventured to the edge. The thing is that now I knew, I could not make myself not know.

Anyway. The days went by and we grew bigger and bigger. Mommy and daddy came and went as they pleased and brought us delicious yummies which were received with gleeful chirping delight.

Our fur morphed into feathers and the space in our previously huge nest was now quite confined.

The day starts dawning and the big red ball of warmth starts rising but today mommy and daddy are not going anywhere. Today they are pushing us out. Whoa!!!! Mommy flies out and then back and coaxes me to perch on the very outermost edge of the nest until I cannot but lose my balance! And I do! And that’s when, as I start plummeting to the ground down below, I remember “flap your wings! Flap your wings”. I close my eyes, take a deep breath and flap my now much larger wings. Lo and behold! Wait a minute!!! It’s not about making an effort! It’s about opening them wide and allowing the breeze to hold them up. All of a sudden a thousand lights switch on inside and I realise what I have always known but was not ready for it until now! It is so simple! So simple! “I’m flying! I’m flying!!!! Look at me! Yeeeeee” Nothing else matters. There is just this now. Just this gliding, this discovering what my wings can do, how to blend with the sky, becoming an Eagle. This that I was always meant to be. 

I recall my small self trying desperately to accelerate what was not yet ripe, my eagerness and my frustration, my effort to achieve that which I already was but was not patient enough to allow it to unfold in its own time. My curiosity was a gift and a curse at the same time. But all in all it worked out just fine because there is no way to not become what one already is!!!

 

Text by T. C. Aeelah