The Pairs

Day 29. Blatt. Up at 4:26 — earlier than usual, and deliberately so.

The back pain still present. The wild man at the bottom of the lagoon
can't run away. Neither can I.

Exercises done, then the winding path. I wanted to arrive before the
sun. The northwest wind unceasing, but something had shifted in the
night — coming more from the west now, and warmer. The Bodden carrying
whitecaps.

Today is a Leaf day — a water day. The Bodden was where everything was
already going.

In the reed fields, the ducks were leaving. Not all at once — one pair,
then another, then another along the way. Each pair rising from its
overnight shelter and moving toward the open water. I took note.

The duck is one of the oldest liminal animals in the mythological record
— at home on water, on land, in the air. In Celtic votive tradition,
bronze duck figures appear regularly among the offerings placed at sacred
water sites. The same tradition as the deposits along this shore — the
same instinct to mark the edge between worlds with something that lives
between them. The reed fields along the Bodden have sheltered birds long
before Ritter Johannes von Nisdorf (Johannes de Ost de Neslestorp), 1302,
gave a name to this ground. The place holds that, without effort.

Ducks form their pair bonds in autumn and hold them through the nesting
season. What was decided in autumn is being lived out now.

Tomorrow Uranus leaves Taurus — seven years of pressure on the ground —
and moves into Gemini. The sign of the pair.

On the way back, one pair decided to walk in front of me along the path.
Not hurried. Not alarmed. They walked at their pace and I followed at
mine.

I got home before the sun had risen. So I waited. And let it rise.

Day 29 — Phase 4 — Balance — Spleen / Pancreas — Leaf day
Gut Nisdorf, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern — April 2026
© 2025–2026 Michel Garand | CC BY-SA 4.0 | stewardship@ubec.network