The moon over Brasso Mountain

I had moved slowly into that setting, via the Asa Wright Nature Centre, where I had attended two days of meetings with board members, local and overseas, people whose lives are committed to the preservation of our forests, wetlands and all of the animals therein.

These meetings conclude with a field trip, to one of the awesome natural wonders with which we are so blessed (do you know your blessings?). And courtesy of the good people at WASA, we visited the Hollis Reservoir, a dam, looking like a lake, high in the Northern Range. This beautiful place is still and quiet and creates an aura of bliss around those who spend some time within its secure area.

Special permission is needed from WASA because we citizens of this lovely land spew filth and garbage wherever we visit, and pour horrendous noise into the startled wilderness.

So, from the Hollis Reservoir, I retreated further, around and over Cerro del Aripo and down into the tiny, chocolate producing hamlet of Brasso Seco. Brasso Mountain Estate is a little piece of paradise a mile up the mountain from the village. Its Cocoa Palace is an upgraded cocoa house with a thatched-roof kitchen and clay ovens.

A small cottage is next to the old palace, and these, plus the large “copper” as swimming pool, are all set in a sunlit multi-flowering clearing in the forest.

I had decided to go there to be with Super Moon, who had hidden her waxing self behind the clouds while we were at Asa Wright’s Spring Hill. From the cottage verandah at dusk, I await Moon’s arrival over the forested hill.

The light clouds brighten in her approaching glow, until suddenly she peeps over the treetops of the ridge. As she rises to full view, her light bathes the clearing in her glow. She blows off a few small clouds which seek to embrace her, to shine down from a clear blue sky. How can the moonlit sky be so blue? The little valley below the verandah is a banana and plantain garden. The evening dew on their large leaves shines like crystal, or waving mirrors when the breeze touches them. Crystal wings quietly waving in the hollow below me shoot strobes of reflected moonlight back up to the treetops. It is mesmerizing to sit there and to be bathed in all that light -- steady from above, and waving from below.

How much of this energy can one absorb? And what might it be doing to me? Certainly it is all highly positive, and when I finally retire, sleep comes easily and gently.

Sometime in the night, I did not check the time (the “time” was night time!) a heavy shower of rain arrived, suddenly pounding on the roof, and passing on into the forest just as suddenly, chasing westwards after the Moon.

It is dark when I rise for coffee.

The ease of the electric device is briefly missed as I boil water in a saucepan on the single gas burner and throw in my mountain coffee.

I smile at the inconvenience of no electricity as I think of some cynical friends: “you say you going wilderness and you want electricity and gas?” Well, OK, I accept that, and I could have lit and fanned the wood in a clay oven into flames and brew my coffee there. Actually, with the wood fire you can “settle the grounds” in the saucepan by sprinkling wood ash into the mix.

Did you know that? I sit in bed in front of the wide open doors, watching the dark forest beyond, listening to the river sing below. Is the river in flood? A train approaching? The increasing noise is another brief but heavy shower passing, washing the night away, and the sky begins to brighten.

A hummingbird darts into the room, eye level with me sitting in bed, quarrels briefly and darts back out. What I do for that (sic)? The Immortelle across the way shines brightly now, shaking her damp vermilion locks in the morning breeze, and the birds begin to sing! Toucans call, mornin’ neighbour! And they move on, followed by the squawking parrots and the hammer sounds of Bellbirds. The Moon has gone, and the Sun is up, and the shower between the two has blessed me and Nature for the day ahead.

Next week, maybe, we will talk about the Trumpling (sic) of America?