The path ahead

In these late summer days, the hills change once again,  and the trails we travel are changing too. The bracken grows high, swallowing the paths; they are thick green jungles we push our way through...

...while the blackberry brambles clutch at my skirts and the thorns catch in Tilly's sleek fur.

Midsummer flowers now turn into late summer berries, first green, then red, than a plump, juicy black.

Tilly grazes, excited, and then disappointed; her beloved berries are not ripe and ready yet. But soon every walk will yield its wild harvest, its
sweetness, for the pup and me both. The hill will turn into her larder and she will feast on berries wherever we go, lipping them up
from the brambles, her chin covered with tiny thorn scratches and sticky with
juice.

I find a few wild rasberries, but the pup rejects this offerings. It's
blackberries she dreams of, blackberries she craves. Nevermind. There
are only a few here, and I am quite happy to eat them myself.

The pathway mirrors my life and my art right now: lush, green, and fertile, but thorny too. There's beauty, but also brambles to push through; there's sweetness ahead, but it's not ripened yet.

I just keep on walking, my good dog beside me, trusting the land, trusting my heart, trusting my feet to find the way.