Dippity Do - Inspired by Peppers, Wren and a Handful of Youth

Here on this warm just-before-the-rain November Monday, I savor the green pepper growing in my tiny, portable greenhouse and lavender blooming nearby. A robin drinks from the dish of water I keep filled as a wren sings "Dippity, dippity, dippity, do."

Wren's song takes me back to Havasu Canyon. In early 2009, my friend Karen in NY who was was really more of an aquaintance at the time issued an internet call inquiring if I might want to hike into Havasu Canyon with her, home to the Havasupai in the Grand Canyon's western end.

On our first night after ten long, hot July miles, I lay in my tent expecting canyon quiet while several twenty somethings "next door" began to play dippity-do, a game of some sort unrelated I was certain to the pink hair styling gel with which I had grown up.

Here I lay in this most sacred of places, home of the blue green waters of the Havasupai people expecting to feel a sense of sacredness, hoping to hear the wisdom of this place and instead I lay judging these young adults whose laughter was amplified in the narrow canyon. I lay there witnessing my disappointment and the expectations of silence that I didn't even know. Internally I debated, trying to discern what to do. Should I say something, nothing or.....should I join in? Just as I decided to get up, walk over and ask if I could play too they stopped. I had actually become curious as to dippity-do.

The next day all but a couple of them packed out but not before helping Karen and me move a table to further set up camp. They left me appreciating them, feeling kin to these young women and men, fellow trekkers on life's journey.

Today I realize in this growing, greenhouse that's Earth all is woven together as I listen with my eyes and insides whether I'm gardening, hiking, working, playing, waking or sleeping. In this trek together wren and these youth remind me of the importance of play and singing through dippity-do.

How do you listen? What do you hear when you really stop to listen? How do you experience play?

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 14 November 2011
dawn@imaginetheshift.com