pish—pish—pish—kaplunk!

“Three skips!  Good one, Ilya!”

The boy picked up another flat stone and awkwardly twirled it towards the surface of the water.

Pish—kaplunk!

“Ohh…not as good as the last,” Baba lamented, a smile across her face.

The small lake in the center of town had thawed, and Ilya was begging Baba for days to visit.  Despite his short time on the earth, he always loved how the fresh days of spring lay like a vibrant cloak of sound and color upon the land.  Pascha was late this year, and spring was springing more fully than other years in the past.  Even the cooler, shaded areas had long since lost their snow, replaced now with grassy greens, leek shoots, and yellow dandelions.  Birds flitted and sang in the village with a rare boldness around so many people.  As if stirred from sleep, Ilya saw that the land was well awake, stretching its tight, winter limbs back into the suppleness of new life and growth.  The sun warmed both bodies and hearts with its glorious return. 

Baba picked up a palm-sized stone and tossed it gingerly into the still waters. 

“See how the rock splashes and then ripples out?”

“Yeah, you threw a big one,” Ilya exclaimed.

“That first splash sends out rings, one after the other, across the whole surface.  Watch what happens when they reach the shore.”

Ilya fixed his eyes on the concentrics, bobbing up and down while still spreading out from the origin point.  When they reached the shore, they bounced backwards as if to return toward the center of the lake, overlapping the other rings still making their way outward.

“They turn around,” he exclaimed with glee at the discovery.

“Yes, onuk: one big splash on the water will ripple out across the whole lake and back again.”

Ilya picked up a rock and threw it as far as he could.  Another splash, another set of rings traveling across the glassen surface.

Baba shifted tones, “We do the same thing with our choices.  Every time you do something nice for someone, that small act of kindness is like a splash of love that spreads rings beyond what you can see.”  Ilya lifted a smooth rock and threw it as far as his little arm could manage.  Baba quickly picked up another and landed it in the same spot.

“If two of us make a splash in the same place, look how much bigger the waves are, and how much farther they travel!”

Ilya paused, mesmerized by the movement of the water.  He turned his head in all directions to watch as the concentric rings covered the surface from shore to shore.

“What if a hundred people threw in rocks at the same time,” he asked, turning back towards Baba with excitement for the possibilities.

“Oi, dear one!  The wave might cover our whole village!”  They both laughed, imagining the fantastical scene.

“But think what would happen if one hundred people all did something nice for each other, all at the same time.  Imagine the waves from that splash!”

Ilya smiled and added, “We’d be drowning in love!”

Baba tipped her head back with laughter.  “Such a clever boy you are!”  Ilya’s face flushed as he turned back towards the lake and threw in a handful of tiny pebbles.

“The little things make a difference too, see?”  Baba walked next to him and crouched down to his height.  She gently tapped her fingertips against his heart.  “Even the tiniest pebble makes its own splash and ripples.”  The sunlight sparkled on their faces, reflected off the miniature waves lapping at the shoreline stones.

Baba sat down and untied the drawstring of her embroidered pouch.  She carefully reached inside and pulled out a completed pysanka.  Amid stars and colored flowers, Ilya noticed sections adorned with circles within circles.  He excitedly pointed them out, “Look, just like the water!”

“Exactly,” Baba exclaimed.  “Nature has so much to teach us if we just have the eyes to see and the heart to listen.  God speaks to us through His Creation, and I transfer those messages to the eggs as prayers.”

She tapped the pysanka gently with her finger, “This is a special prayer for Mr. Yanchuk.  His children have all moved away, and he’s sad that he has nobody to take care of anymore.  I want him to see that he can still make a difference in the lives of all the people around him.”

Ilya picked up another rock and tossed it thoughtfully into the lake.  “That’s my prayer for Mr. Yanchuk.”

“Ah, yes, and I’m sure those ripples have touched his heart in this very moment.”

Baba slowly stood up and regained her footing on the rocky ground.  She gently wrapped the egg and nestled it into the recesses of her pouch.  “It’s time to go now, dear one.  We’ll leave some stones for another day.”

They picked their way to the trail and followed its meandering across a grassy berm, through a strip of forest, and back out into field again as the village center appeared in the distance.  Ilya’s head swung from left to right, up and down, taking in every detail of the landscape and falling somewhat behind as a result.  

He stopped at a tree.  “Baba, come look!”

She paused and turned around to join him, a look of discovery and joy on her face.  “What did you find, onuk?”

He pointed at a tiny inchworm picking its way up the daunting tree trunk.

“That little one has a long way to go,” Baba said.  “But every step, no matter how small, moves it along its path.  A good lesson for us, too.”

“What do you mean,” Ilya asked turning away from the worm.

“When we have a lot to do, we can be like the inchworm and take things one little bit at a time, believing that we’ll eventually get where we’re going.”

Ilya turned back to the tree, “Yeah, he can’t see how far he has to go!”

Baba tilted her head and looked up the trunk.  “But being so close, he can see every detail of his journey.”

Ilya looked up and caught the movement of a hawk above.  “Look, look,” he exclaimed, pointing up at the soaring silhouette.

“The hawk is looking for food; good eye, Ilya!”

They watched it effortlessly circle upwards, caught in a thermal’s updraft.

“I bet the hawk can see the whole village from way up there.”

Baba agreed, “Yes, the whole village, and the land around it, and the lake.  Us, too.  From way up there, a hawk can see for miles.”

Ilya’s mouth dropped open a bit.  “I wish I could fly and see from up there.”

“You can’t fly, of course,” Baba mused, “but we can be like the hawk and look at things from a distance.  Sometimes we get too caught up in the details and miss the big picture.”

Ilya put his hands on his hips with childish exasperation, “The lake, the worm, the hawk: does every part of nature talk to you?!”

Baba laughed and grasped Ilya’s shoulder.  “Yes!  Of course!  Nature was here long before us, and it will be here long after us.  It has so much to teach those who humbly listen with their hearts.”

Ilya wrinkled his eyebrows as he worked to understand how mute nature could speak.  They turned to continue their journey, back to the edge of the village, then emerging onto the main dirt road.

“Now this part of nature won’t have anything to teach,” Ilya exclaimed defiantly, stopping in his tracks and pointing at a day-old horse plop. 

Baba turned and crouched down to Ilya’s height.  “What do you see on this pile of dung?”

“Yucky flies,” Ilya noted, pinching his nose and swatting at one that ventured too close to his face.

“And what’s growing all around these yucky flies?”

“Pretty flowers,” he said, bending down to pick one and smell it.

“A fly buzzes over a field of fresh, beautiful flowers, but look where it lands: on a pile of horse poo.”

Ilya looked back at the ground, wondering how anyone could learn anything from this stinky part of nature.

“Bees, on the other hand, fly over the same field,” she gestured with a sweeping motion, “but where do they land?”

“On the flowers,” Ilya reluctantly answered, sensing that Baba was about to make her point.

“Yes.  Flies and bees hover over the same field, but one lands on a flower and drinks sweet nectar, while the other lands on horse dung and feeds on filth.”

Ilya waited for the punchline.

“Be like the bee,” Baba said with a smile as she gently tapped the tip of his nose, “seek out the nectar of beauty, and stay away from the filthy dung heap.”  She turned and without another word continued down the road.

Ilya looked down again at the horse poo, then back to the flowers.  “Be like the bee,” he thought as he picked another flower and held it to his nose.  Its sweet scent snapped his mind back to the beauties of the spring season, and he scrambled to catch up with Baba.  All around him—from trees and clouds, birds and hedgerows—he caught faint whispers of wisdom that he did not yet know how to hear.  But he listened with new appreciation as he caught up with Baba.  He held her hand as they walked to deliver nature’s egg-prayers to Mr. Yanchuk.

Click for next chapter: Trilogy of Ceremonies