Aveyron / St Affique

I am stirred from a deliciously deep sleep by the sound of the wind whispering through the trees. The golden rays of dawn are streaming through the circular opening above my head. As I drag myself fully into the day, I can feel the canvas walls around me are breathing. Only an arm width away, N is pottering beside the stove. Seeing to the early morning pot of coffee.    

N and I have a tiny germ of a dream. 

Nothing fancy or big. 

Just a secret desire to spend a lot more of our time grubby. To work more closely with the natural world. To reduce the stuff in our life so as to live more simply yet more fully, more deeply. In a more manageable manner. 

Often, that is the only thing that we want. Mountains. Tiny house/yurt/cabin in the woods. High grass. Veggie patch. Wild flowers. Stars. Sky. Fresh air. (A few sheep).  All that hippy-dippy off-grid, composting toilet, Tom and Barbara stuff.

On our way back from the wedding, we couch-surfed in an alternative hamlet in the hills above St Affrique. We ate courgettes picked fresh from the veggie patch and spent the night in a yurt, perched on the side of a steep hill.

For now, it's just a little dream. A seed we planted in our imaginations a few years ago but that we tend to regularly with drops of hope and love. Sometimes it feels as if our seed is too small, that the conditions are too harsh for it to thrive, let alone take root. 

But that last night in the Aveyron was one of those nights when we wonder. Perhaps our tiny seed will one day sprout some tiny roots? Perhaps...it might just be possible after all.