Action 9: Exploring
After being under lockdown for almost 3 months, we were finally allowed to go outside our locality. I did not want to miss this chance of stepping out, so I decided to go out on an early morning drive. Even after being in my house for so long, I did not feel like driving towards the city. So, I decided to go towards the countryside. My uncle has a farmhouse nearby and since I had not been there for so long, I decided to visit that.
It felt nice driving after so long. Since it was still early in the morning there were fewer people on the road and everything felt new, as if it were just washed.
Since no one had been to the farmhouse in a while, I could see how all the plants had all grown so much and covered the walkways which were earlier easily visible. I felt as if I was trying to enter some restricted area. In some parts the growth of the plants was so much that it had covered almost the entire fencing. The ground which was earlier open with no plantation of any sort, now had all kinds of shrubs, so much that it almost looked like a jungle. Looking at all of this I felt that if given a chance even nature around us is looking to take up as much space as possible.
There was a patch of chili plantation we had done before the lockdown and now it had some green and red chilies hanging in it. Looking at them it felt like the red chilies were acting as guards to that area and keeping everything at bay. While experiencing all of this I could not help but think how even nature is so protective.
Since the last action I had been trying to explore different materials, so for this action I decided to do something similar, with the things I could find there. I found a cotton bud and broken branch. I started to tear up the cotton just to explore what was inside. At the center I could feel the hard seed with my fingers. I decided to tear up the cotton to get to the seed. It was not easy. The cotton was stuck to it so hard I literally had to use my cutter to remove it. After opening the seed, I found some yellow sticky material inside it. (I do not know what it was), but that again took me back to the idea how nature is so protective. For one thing, the yellow material I found inside the seed had 3 layers of protection.
I also had some other things with me that day. A needle, some thread and my face mask. Putting down everything in front of me I could see how this yellow sticky material was so important for us. Since it was part of the seed which made the cotton bulb, which was turned into thread and used to make my face mask.
Doing this action took me back to my action 3 where I had tried to scale out my connections. After spending a little more time at the farmhouse I headed back home. With what I had experienced that morning, I came back with a new understanding of how space and the sense of being protected is important for everything around us, be it humans, animals or nature itself.