The Barn Loft

View from the barn, looking up the driveway
Photo by Mary North Allen

The barn was great fun to play in, especially the loft, and most especially when it was mostly filled with hay. Exploring the dark corners below the eves from atop a solid bank of hay was invariably an adventure. By moving a few bales around, my friends and I could create a hiding spot behind which no one could see us. We, however, could peek between the slats of the barn walls and see the driveway, the house, the other farm buildings, and the view up and down the valley. What a liberating feeling! Sometimes, in one of those back corners, we would find a nest full of eggs. The hens must have also liked the seclusion.

Door from the barn loft to the main floor
Photo by Mary North Allen

The greatest fun in the barn loft was provided by the long, thick, heavy rope that hung down from the peak of the roof almost to the floor. We would skinny up it, as though we were sailors aboard a huge sailing ship: Put your hands up as high as you can and hold on tightly to the rope. Scooch yourself up. Hold on tightly with your knees, and again reach up as high as you can. Keep repeating as you swing gently from side to side, until you are as high up as you want to go. You can see the inside of the roof, and maybe a few pigeons. Then slide down (quickly for fun, but carefully, so as not to get rope burn if you are wearing shorts!) until you're at the height where you are ready and then -- jump!

View of the barn with the loft doors closed
Photo by Mary North Allen

Better than the sailor routine with the rope was swinging on it. Not far above the floor, just at the perfect spot was a large knot. When the two sides of the barn were filled to the rafters with hay, but the middle section was empty, we opened up the sliding doors as wide as possible. One of us climbed up the ladder to the rafters and made our way to the back of the barn, away from the doors, beside the open central space. The one standing below swung the rope up and back and the one on the rafters caught it. The big knot just reached the spot where we sat, ready. Perching on the knot, hanging onto the rope tightly, we jumped. Down, down, we fell, then the rope went taut and we would swing outward, out the barn door, out beneath the open sky, with a fleeting view of the trees and fields and streams as we swung upward to meet the sky until the rope could go no further, then backward and into the barn, then out again, and again, each time a shorter swing, until we came nearly to a stop. Then the rider let go and jumped off the "seat" to land on the barn floor. What an amazing and wonderful ride! It was impossible to get too much of it.

One of several rock outcroppings
at Loker Conservation Area

Nonesuch Pond in Natick, through the trees

Last Friday, I walked the trails of the Loker Conservation Area with five other women -- part of Earth-Connecting: Walking Wayland. I felt so comfortable -- easy conversation, sharing of knowledge about the land and the trees and the Earth, and a powerful sense of connection to this plot of land. The conservation area is close to the highway, and on one stretch of the trail the sounds of the traffic were quite loud. Normally that would have interfered with my ability to connect to myself and the Earth and to let the healing power of the Earth into my heart and soul, but not this day. This day something different happened; I felt the connection and the healing almost immediately -- the evergreens giving color amid the browns and grays of late winter / early spring, the rock outcroppings, the view between the trees of a distant pond across the highway, shared moments of silence as we each made our quiet, personal connection to the land, and somehow most of all, the knowledge that we were crossing the divide between two watersheds, from the SuAsCo - Assabet, Sudbury, Concord - Rivers Watershed, in which we all live, into a tiny corner of the Charles River Watershed. We connected to Boston Harbor with our feet. Two ways to touch the ocean. 

Taking a moment alone in silence
to connect to the trees and  the Earth

Kol haneshama tehallel Yah, Halleluyah. 
Let everything that has breath praise the One, Halleluyah. --Psalm 150:6


I have walked through many lives, some of them my own...   --Stanley Kunitz