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I just had a really interesting/uncanny experience out in the fields, and I'm going to tell you about it.
I'm stuck on a plot point in a book I'm working on, so I went out for a walk to try and free my brain up (also I'm on #harvestwatch right now, for the podcast). I toured the wheat and barley fields around the village, and came back via a stubble field that once grew oilseed rape.
I was walking along with my hands in my pockets, thinking, when my entire body went on to alert. Big adrenaline hit, eyes wide, heart beating, hairs on arms standing up. No (conscious) reason for it.
Next thing I know, a tiny dust-deviil (!) whooshes towards me from my left and passes across the stubble field a few feet in front of me, whirling up bits of tinder-dry chaff, and meanders off, only to blow itself out and disappear!
I felt the force of it, its power – but could also feel how completely unconnected it was to the wider weather: the light breeze elsewhere that had nothing to do with its motion or energy. It felt... UNCANNY.
A couple of things really interested me. Firstly, that my body knew about it before "I" (interesting distinction) did, and registered it as a threat. Secondly, that my "mind" (interesting again) immediately ascribed INTENTIONALITY to it. Its motion seemed deliberate, planned.
And afterwards, I thought about how what seemed unusual, uncanny to me was probably deeply familiar to any of my forebears who worked the land (and we were farm labourers on my dad's side, in common with so many). I bet it was a known thing on warm days in certain weathers.
I wonder if their bodies would have had the same threat reaction (it felt a bit like a ghost passed by me!), or whether greater familiarity with stubble fields in hot weather would have tamped down that response. Or maybe a dust devil will always make you jump!
I feel really privileged to have seen and felt that. Just goes to show, you never know what's going to happen when you go out for a walk! <ENDS>
Oh I found this, which I took just before it happened. So those were the atmospheric conditions. The exposed ground was hot from the last three days’ sun.
