Grounding with Bovines

Like most of us, I’ve been living at the pace of the mind, which is almost always in sixth gear. Human travel through time has shifted from foot to 5G. It is like sitting in a Formula One car, racing for days on end. No time to acknowledge that you're even in the car. And certainly no time to consider stopping.

It took a moment with the bovines for my car to finally stop. After weeks, maybe months, I felt I could simply… exhale.

The Held Breath

A late summer day on the land.

The cows haven’t been openly grazed for nearly a week. With the monsoon imminent, we humans are always playing catch up with the tasks that need completing before the rains arrive. Chop and store firewood. Rainproof structures. Repair bandhs. Harvest fruit.

And so the cows are led out of the shed, tethered to trees, and offered dry straw.

I feel the energy of these beautiful beasts each time I pass them. Big beady eyes follow me with their yearning to roam. Their nature calls them to walk land and graze. To return through their landscaped memory to places where ripened fruit may have fallen, or where water has coaxed fresh grass from an otherwise brown landscape.

The Call of the Mother

I could no longer ignore the call of Aaie’s spirit, the eldest bovine, rightly named.

On the afternoon of Poornima, the full moon, I release their ropes.

Her first motion is to seek water. As the other cows slowly join her, their muscles opening after days of stillness, the energy begins to rise. The excitement follows.

To watch a cow ‘have fun’ is pure delight.

Energy rushes into the tail, stiffening it in a gentle loop. They leap like bunnies, buck like deer, and run like horses. What a climax of energy for these otherwise slow and deliberate grazing mammals.

I have learned that such moments are best witnessed.

Do not attempt to keep track. Do not try to catch up.

They will run far, boomerang back to you to show their excitement, and then gallop away again.

My only job is to hold this moment of ecstasy.

Slowly, the energy settles into a rhythm of munching, tails swatting flies, and measured steps.

Being Herd

The nose has incredible muscles that allow it to lift, protecting the nostrils from the poke of grass blades. These same muscles raise the lips just enough to expose the teeth so they can gather a small bunch of grass. As is the basic rule of nature, movement is minimal. Energy is conserved and expended only as much as necessary for daily life.

They stay together as a pack. I am one of them.

Sometimes they keep track of me. Sometimes they forget where I am.

The cattle crane has arrived.

I lie down on the earth, feeling the dry, seeded wild grass beneath my back. Nargis keeps me company beneath the shade of a mango tree. I watch it sway against a backdrop of blue sky and building clouds.

Above the branches, swallows swoop low, the falling air pressure having brought the insects down with them.

All of nature is dancing this pre-monsoon dance.

Landscape Memory

The bovine is simple. Driven by the need to move, and as it moves, eat. Thus the term, grazer.

After sufficient grazing on abundant fresh green fibre, the animals move, led by their landscape memory, toward scarcer but richer fallen ripe fruits. Mangoes. Jackfruit. Chikoo.

Slowly, they cover and graze the entire earthscape of the land.

The Luxury of Time

As the sun begins to dip and their bellies fill, the bovines naturally turn toward home.

Along the way, they yank and pull at greens with the spirit of a last hurrah before rest.

As I stand, patiently watching their hurrah, they sometimes wander up to me, sniff, and continue on.

Sounds pour out of me—not words, but music of the spirit, singing the pure joy of this moment.

They listen.

Soft muscles shift their long ears ever so slightly, triangulating the source.

Dharti likes the sanctity of home at nightfall and leads the way back.

Aaie, the eldest sister and the largest, prefers to feed for as long as she can.

I feel the luxury of time.

It is ours today.

Here and now.

I wait patiently as she uncovers jackfruit seeds from the tree beside their home. Hidden beneath piles of dried leaves, her big wet nose sniffs them out. A few more high-energy snacks before the night's fast.

Eventually she walks home, where Dharti, Pritha, and Baaliya are already tethered, sharing licks of satisfaction.

As I bend to tie her to the post, Aaie licks my knee.

Her tongue always amazes me. Strong. Long. Thick. Rough as sandpaper. That something so rough can deliver such tenderness!

Presence

Bovines live in absolute presence.

Like many creatures of the wild, they seem to respond to thought itself.

I notice mango splattered across Aaie’s face. The moment the thought of licking her back arrives in my mind, Baaliya presents herself, bringing to life the idea.

In receiving, the animal offers the subtlest movement toward you—an appreciation of the gesture.

No sounds.

No thank-you.

Just full presence and receipt.

Heart full and nervous system grounded, I slowly make my own way home as the moon begins to light the night sky and the earth.