The hillside spirit that calls me “Little Sparrow” is not easy to spot now. Its attention was full on the farmed fields before where I felt it strongest, and after its chastisement I stopped trying to snoop on its business.
I thought after the “harvest festival” (read: Halloween) it would return to snarky rejoinders as I speed by.
The fields are fallow and left to rot in preparation for stripping of larger material in spring a few weeks and the plowing under of everything else. Birds of prey now lord over the fields and predate on their subjects smaller critters that gorge on pumpkins and corn abandoned as unpretty.
The land spirit is still there. Kinda. It appears to be “sleeping” as I dart past what my senses see as its “cave”, but I know I’m in error.
It only appears to be sleeping because it is not acting on my level of awareness. Just like the fields appear to be “fallow” because there are no humans working it. Part of finding my place in the world(s) is finding where my place is not and accepting that.
I’m sure it would have a lot to say about human centrism if it heard me say there was a life lesson in this observation. After all, it does not exist to be my teacher.
But I would be a terrible student if I didn’t learn something just the same.