After savoring a lunch of wild rice and mushrooms, cucumber salad, and a strawberry sundae, the duck pond draws my attention because I notice the ducks are making an odd little slurping sound. A brown and black father duck sits on a stump in the middle of the pond surveying his duckdom with diffident grace. On the other side of the pond a whitish mother duck wanders all over the pond nonchalantly with six rambling ducklings who take after dad right behind, more or less. As they move through the water they are slurping up the green plants on the surface of the water. Soon dad slips into the water and joins them in the feasting. He stays a distance from them and they move away from him as he moves forward. They do not look at one another. The ducklings follow the mother duck but resemble the dad. They have no interest in him or what he is doing. From one end of the pond to the other the ducks leave an intricate lacework of trails in the green plant. I begin to wonder what the green plant is and why they like it so much. My intuition tells me it must be good because they look healthy and content. I search online for green algae and ducks and find a link to The Charms of Duckweed. It is easily confused with algae because it is so tiny, but it is actually the world’s smallest flowering plant and produces the world’s smallest fruit. It is higher in protein per square foot than soybeans and easier to grow. It is edible for humans and is being used by environmentalists to reduce nitrates in waste water. Here is the site http://www.mobot.org/jwcross/duckweed/duckweed.htm. It is fascinating to me! So much so that I find that I can’t get the duckweed out of my mind. All day duckweed keeps coming to mind. I want to shift to something new, but for some reason it keeps coming back. I am aware of this and try to let it come and go. But even in the middle of the night it comes back. At 2:30 am, I begin to call it “stuckweed.” It is very interesting and I’m grateful for it, but I’d like to think about something else … like God maybe. What message is there in this duckweed for me? The retreat director encourages me to stay with it although I’d rather not. It seems silly to be thinking about duckweed all the time. We’ll see.
