Segade waterfalls, Galicia _ Spain

The arrival of a new season is always a gift for those who find real beauty in the intimate details of a fleeting, ever-changing moment. Through nature’s ability to sow our path with tiny treasures in the shape of wild seeds, that beauty transcends as a powerful reality from which a connection with authenticity emerges and a voyage towards intensity is born where nature is the only possible canvas.

Spring is a start over, an ok…this has been good, let’s do it again! And every year at CE we accept the invitation and join in on this cyclic game. We prepare for it during winter by building birdhouses, in our workshop, for passerines so that during breeding season, in the spring and summer months, they can use huts, hollows and holes to lay their eggs.

For me, as a maker in CE, it is the perfect excuse to go outside and connect as an active participant in this time of efflorescence.  Packing your backpack and setting off in search of a place to hang the birdhouse you’ve selected, with hopes that a pair of birds will call it home this season, transforms the day into a sort of pilgrimage to a place, a personal sanctuary, where you can return and check the level of success, measured solely in units of attitude and intention. Food for the soul.

This time around I wanted to chose a different place, somewhere other than the previous forests or landscaped grounds where I alone or accompanied by my family had hung other birdhouses. On this occasion, I felt like testing out a river zone and going in search of the Grey Wagtail, probably the most fluvial and slender of the wagtails. This species always seeks out areas where water is present, and in this case, fancies stretches of currents and rapids.

The stretch of the Umia River that passes through the town of Caldas de Reis in the Pontevedra region in Spain was the spot I chose. I was familiar with the area and knew that during the hike up to the waterfalls the surroundings offered a very interesting landscape of old mills, boulders and trees where I could explore and find the perfect place for my birdhouse this spring.

Although the sun was shining when dawn broke, I packed a jacket to keep me warm from the lingering chill on a late winter’s morning and basic items I never leave home without such as my pocket knife, serrated knife and slingshot along with some water, food and coffee.   I chose the Forest birdhouse, the first model I started making in series somewhere around 2011, and for which I have a particular fondness.

Heading upstream, I followed the river’s course in search of unmarked trails, jumping from rock to rock. I zigzagged amidst the trunks some of which had kept up their vertical fight against the current. Others had lost the battle, surrendering in a horizontal homage to the Umia and, at times, forming unrehearsed bridges and dams.

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