Out to Pasture

Out beyond ideas

of wrong doing and right doing,

there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn't make any sense.

Rumi

Fields are wonderful places. Middle and south Georgia are full of them. The piedmont that Atlanta sits on tapers off to miles and miles of gentle pasture land south of the metropolitan sprawl. Once you escape the press of development surrounding the city, the landscape drifts into large sections of pine woods and pecan orchards and crop fields. More than once in talking about this part of the state with those whose roots are found there, I have seen the same wistful look when the conversation turns to fields and pasture land.

Pastures are dreamy places. Their wide openness seems to invite wandering. The best are the old ones left to go fallow. Now there's a great word: fallow. It conjures up all sorts of resting thoughts and a bit of roaming around just doing nothing kind of being doesn't it? I bet it's cousin is the phrase 'go to seed'. Goodness, wouldn't we all like to take some time off to go to seed?! I like the wildness inherent in that phrase. The idea of not trying to make something grow, but simply backing off and waiting to see what will grow on its own.

When I think of the term common ground, I think of pasture land. Even though it may be ringed by woods or low hills, to be in a pasture has a way of centering one. You could even say it's nature's version of a round table, where no one gets to sit at the head.

In my excursions into the woods and fields over the years, I have discovered that birds and animals are very fond of the edges of things. The edge between the woods and the field, or the shore and the ocean, the creek and the bank, seem to be natural staging areas for a foray out of one into the other. It's all about moving from a hidden place to a vantage point where the wider, more exposed terrain can be seen and a decision made whether or not to venture out. We humans do the very same thing. In new situations or encounters we often hang back a bit at the edge until we can get 'the lay of the land' emotionally or physically.

I am thinking today about the field Rumi is talking about. I am thinking that for all of us, no matter how complicated some of our relationships with others may be, there is always still available, some open pasture land. It seems that we often forget it exists because we get so attached to the home grounds we have chosen for ourselves. Perhaps that is because we feel safe there. Nothing challenges our beliefs or understandings very much. Even when we get out on the edge of our lives and can see the field that awaits, it is very, very tempting to just hang around in the shallows of the creek or in the pine straw at the edge of the woods, because something in us resists the wide openness ahead. Being out there seems so exposed and vulnerable.

Maybe next time we get an invitation to meet in the middle, to step away from our preconceived notions of how to relate to each other, or who did what to who, or how much we have been wounded by someone or something in our life, maybe that might be a good time to remember how beautiful an open pasture really is. Yes, the light is very bright out there, and in the middle of August it can be scorching hot, but the grasses are lovely and filled with wildflowers. When the light fades the air there turns soft and gentle and the flowers release their modest scent. In a field, we all leave behind where we came; we cross the edge and get to see each other out of context, with fresh eyes and more open hearts. And you know, we might just decide to stay.

At the boundary, life blossoms.

James Gleick