The Dance

May 15.
Sun in Taurus.
I acknowledged the engine a few days ago. I can hear it.

Wake-up feel: 7.

Up at 3:25. Dozed. The birds pulled me out at 4:05 — not willpower, them.
Exercises done. Out.

The winding road between the Bodden and the reed fields to the left, the
rapeseed and the rising sun to the right. The low clouds of the last four
days have lifted. Blue sky. Cool air, no wind, still.

At the threshold where the winding road begins — the elster on the point of
the roof, calling. Kept calling. What was it telling me? I acknowledged it,
greeted it, and continued.

The birds everywhere, making themselves known. The Bodden still. No swans.
To the left, in the distance, the cuckoo. To the right, a rehbuck — or two.
The barking sharpened as I got closer. The cuckoo undisturbed by my
presence, non-stop, as if I were not there.

At the turning point — the old field where the NVA once landed, the DDR
landing zone standing empty now in the morning — the rehbucks reached a
crescendo. What had seemed like two became three, four, more. A gathering.
A dance, maybe. The cuckoo stopped.

In old tradition, a gathering of deer in an open field is a sign that the land
is at peace. The animal that moves between worlds does not gather where the
ground is troubled.

I watched. I listened. I turned around.

The cuckoo began again.

May 15: Leaf to Fruit. Moon into Aries at 05:00. Sun in Taurus. New moon
tomorrow.

The pilgrim does not end at Gut Nisdorf on June 18 — he arrives somewhere.
The destination is forming.

Day 50 — Phase 8 — Warmth — Kidney — Agate — Durga
Gut Nisdorf, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Baltic Coast
© 2025–2026 Michel Garand | A Pilgrim's Fitness Plan | CC BY-SA 4.0
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