It doesn’t take something huge and flashy to ignite sheer joy.
What could be more beautiful than unexpected early morning dew on a porch plant? Or more dramatic than the droplets’ expanding reflections of the world as their fleeting forms swell, moving toward descent and the next adventure?
yet another dawn in Greensboro NC, April 2024
"Wake at dawn with a winged heart
and give thanks
for another day of loving."
— Kahlil Gibran
(Grateful Living Word for the Day 4/18)
******
There is so much to love in this world:
the kindnesses of friends and strangers;
works of creativity that transform our being in ways that enliven all;
the persistence of Life, which loves to live.
In the spring of the year, we focus on the renewal and burgeoning
of the natural world.
When we see the flowers, smell the gentle rain on warming soil, watch the nest-building and the emergence of newly born beings,
our hearts seem to expand with the overwhelming wave of beautiful possibilities.
ducks going to the waterfall in inner courtyard, Friends Homes West, April 2024
But, of course, the Life in which we rejoice is not simple.
All that grows must be fed.
You know the cycle.
Simply put:
Plants feed on sunlight and on the body of Earth.
Some animals feed on the bodies of plants.
Other animals feed on the bodies of those who eat plants.
Bacteria and fungi feed on the bodies of both plants and animals.
Soil is enriched. New soil is formed.
The cycling and recycling continues.
Hawks, too, must feed their young.
outside our house, April 2024
In her poem “The Way In,” the Chickasaw writer tells us:
"To enter fire, be dry.
To enter life, be food."
When my body dies, it will receive a green burial — no embalming, no box. My body will truly become food for other beings.
In the meantime, there are other ways that I can enter Life, providing food to others — both food to feed their bodies and food to feed their hearts and spirits.
How many ways am I entering Life each day?
How many ways am I feeding others?
And how many ways am I being fed?
I am grateful for the interconnections, relationships, entanglements
of which Life is created,
It is an honor to be part of the Dance.
(from my window some weeks ago)
"Dawn and sunset are the mystical moments
of the diurnal cycle,
the moments when the numinous dimension of the universe reveals itself with special intimacy.
Individually and in their relations with each other
these are moments when the high meaning of existence is experienced."~Thomas Berry, The Great Work, 18
February reflection from the Center for education, imagination, and the natural world https://www.beholdnature.org/
Yesterday the sun rose bright, direct, in an absolutely clear sky. At one point near the start of its day, it shone straight through the eastern window and the kitchen door and into the next room, where I sat working at the computer, facing north. The brilliance coming at a right angle bothered my vision, but I didn’t want to shut the blinds. At one point, I glanced west to get away from the insistent light, to rest my eyes.
After a few moments, my logical mind spoke — explaining to my enchanted child-self that it was probably the slant of the sun through the beveled edge of a clear glass window-hanging.
Time passed. I glanced again. The rainbow had moved and grown.
Logical explanations not withstanding, there is something magical about being bedecked, clad in rainbows– not just the impact of bright colors against a shadow, but even more the movement, the change, the fleeting yet intimate embrace by elemental forces.
This morning the sky was cloudy, the sun muted as it rose. A different kind of gift, a different kind of blessing.
THE OPENING OF EYES
David Whyte
That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing of light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out.
I knew then as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been,
nor the remaining pages in a great book waiting
to be read.
It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.
It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground
As the sun shifts north, as warm days become more common and flowers leap into life, I’ve been thinking about the ways we humans have looked at and integrated ourselves with the seasons of this Earth to which we belong. On Friday, I learned that the Japanese have — with the same careful, subtle gaze as in Haiku — divided the year in 72 micro-seasons. Yesterday I learned that the name of this time (the 7th micro-season, March 6-10) is
“Hibernating Creatures Open Their Doors”
The words resonated within me like a large, deep gong:
a summons,
a challenge,
an invitation to step out into the light,
to take part in the ever-changing world.
During the last months, I have spent far too many days curled up in my den — filled with anxiety, grief, anger, fear, and despair as I learn more & more about both the increasing human destruction of Earth and the rise of authoritarianism around the world. Here in the U.S., the latter is a real & increasing threat as one man holds us and our government hostage to his megalomania, offering “divine salvation” to his followers and violence to those who dare to question him.
As many of you know, I lived for 5 years under a dictatorship. I went to Tripoli, Libya, to teach in an American school in 1969 — arriving just a couple weeks before the coup that put Muammar Gaddafi into power. Indeed, as I stepped out the door on Monday, September 1, ready for the first day on school, my neighbor called over the wall: “No school today. There’s a revolution.” I laughed and said, “I’ll bet you always say that to first year teachers.” But no — it was true.
I won’t go into all the details here. Let me just say that when Trump was elected in 2016, I began to suffer from PTSD as my body remembered the kinds of things that happen under a dictatorship, the things that had happened to me personally and the more general things such as, by government degree, spending hours with a black marker crossing out every mention of or reference to Israel in our teaching materials. (You can, I am sure, imagine my reaction to the banning of books that is currently happening in some parts of this country.)
I am not saying that these past months have been without light. The metaphorical den I dug was not without windows. The beauties of the more-than-human continued to give me joy & relief — the dawn behind the bare-boned filigree of winter trees, the deer that came to graze below our house on one of my most difficult days, and always the birds, the birds, the birds. And the human world, too, reached out to me in many ways, even when my back was turned — Synchronicities kept calling me home to myself with increasing frequency.
As John O’Donohue says so beautifully in To Bless the Space Between Us:
“Within the grip of winter, it is almost impossible to imagine the spring. The gray perished landscape is shorn of color. Only bleakness meets the eye; everything seems severe and edged. Winter is the oldest season; it has some quality of the absolute. Yet beneath the surface of winter, the miracle of spring is already in preparation; the cold is relenting; seeds are wakening up. Colors are beginning to imagine how they will return. Then, imperceptibly, somewhere one bud opens and the symphony of renewal is no longer reversible. From the black heart of winter a miraculous, breathing plenitude of color emerges.
The beauty of nature insists on taking its time. Everything is prepared. Nothing is rushed. The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward; change remains faithful to itself until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival. Because nothing is abrupt, the beginning of spring nearly always catches us unawares. It is there before we see it; and then we can look nowhere without seeing it.
Change arrives in nature when time has ripened.”
[O’Donohue also says…]
“But change is difficult for us. So often we opt to continue the old pattern, rather than risking the danger of difference. We are also often surprised by change that seems to arrive out of nowhere.
We find ourselves crossing some new threshold we had never anticipated. Like spring secretly at work within the heart of winter, below the surface of our lives huge changes are in fermentation. We never suspect a thing. Then when the grip of some long-enduring winter mentality begins to loosen, we find ourselves vulnerable to a flourish of possibility and we are suddenly negotiating the challenge of a threshold.”
So here I am at a threshold, deciding to emulate both the plants and my fellow hibernating animals, to open the door, to emerge — hungry and ready to grow, ready to create once again.
Equinox…. A time to think about balance….
But balance is not mere stasis. And just now it is the movements, the transitions that maintain the balance, that are delighting me.
The summer’s “duck dramas” on the pond seem to be winding down. Mysteries remain: early in the spring Mama Merganser and her 9 ducklings disappeared overnight as did Mallard Mama #3 and her six little ones about a month ago. Still Mallard Mamas #1 and #2 each successfully raised 2 of the 4 ducklings with which each began. Family #1 has flown. The second family still spends some time in the pond, and every day that we see those three we sigh with satisfaction, like proud grandparents.
So much continues to happen all around me every day.
Several days ago I received a prompt suggesting that I write — in 10 minutes — a poem following the structure and including the beginning & ending lines of an old Celtic verse: “I have news for you.” and “This is my news for you.” I thought it would be fun to try writing it with some of the things I’d seen during the past week. Here I’ve tidied it up a bit, but I am still surprised by where the hasty writing lead me:
APPROACHING THE AUTUMN EQUINOX I have news for you: Each evening, the sun sinks earlier under the comforting wing of night. Drought departs and rains offer a final chance for ripening. Leaves hold their green, but colder winds hint at the limits of growth. Every day the woodpeckers create their cache, packing seeds in the deep crevices and wrinkles of old oak's skin. The deer begin to gather. New antlers adorn feisty young bucks while the does patiently prepare for next year's fecundity. One bright morning this year's fawn emerged alone from the woods -- just the faintest echo of dappling lingering along her flank. She paused to stare at this intruder in her meadow, then sprang exuberantly -- leap after arcing leap -- up and over the hill. This is my news for you: Prepare to change.
by MCK — after an old Celtic verse, author unknown
I live in a state of wonder.
September. The birds are busy at the feeder. It has been fun to watch the young ones grow up this summer. Gradually the young finches, cardinals, and bluebirds are coming into their adult colors. Every day, a stronger patch of red, another blue feather…. And now some of the birds seem to be taking note of the turning season. The red-bellied woodpecker visits often, taking his mouthful of seeds straight to Old Oak, where he hides them in deep crevasses of the bark.
September. Even though it has been dry here, mushrooms are springing up in their multitudes — Deer are gathering in larger groups again — and though the hot days are not yet done with us, the nights are cooling down, promises of the new season ahead.
Having been tuned into school schedules for much of my life, September has always brought me feelings not of endings but of new beginnings, new possibilities, new vistas opening up. This year that sense of anticipation is somewhat muted, but just typing down the preceding sentence — a memory of that feeling, a reminder to myself — is helping lift my spirits and clear my vision a bit. Now my curiosity kicks in — What next?
The morning of September 1st brought to my mailbox two wonderful quotes and an exquisite photo in a friend’s substack. They are so beautiful and so true to my thinking/feeling that I must share them with you.
The first quote is the monthly Reflection from the Center for Education, Imagination, and the Natural World , an organization dear to my heart:
September Reflection
"One of the great achievements of humanity during the early period of awakened consciousness was its capacity for subjective communion with the totality of things and with each particular thing. Each fragment of matter had it own subjectivity, its own interiority, its own spirit presence. It was to this spirit presence that humans addressed themselves. So with the trees and flowers, birds and animals, so with the wind and the sea and the stars, so with the sun and the moon. In all things there was a self, a subjectivity, a center; humans communed with this center with a profound intimacy."
~ Thomas Berry, “Contemplation and World Order”
And then the Word for the Day from https://grateful.org/ :
"Our sense of enchantment is not triggered only by grand things; the sublime is not hiding in distant landscapes. The awe-inspiring, the numinous, is all around us, all the time. It is transformed by our deliberate attention. KATHERINE MAY
Sensing the Seasons and Cycles and Spirals of Being enriches my life. But I don't want to forget that my awareness of & participation in Life are made up of Moments, of Nows -- each encompassing both beginnings and endings, each a threshold new possibilities. I would like to become more attentive to each moment & to the myriad beings that companion me along the way.....
Yesterday a friend and I went to have tea at a favorite tea house, only to find it closed for summer vacation. I was surprised to find that a coffee house had recently opened next door. We checked it out and found they had, in addition to all the usual coffee concoctions, a wonderful selection of teas. When we wondered about moving outside, they showed us the patio behind — mossy & walled like a magical secret garden. And, next to that, a space filled with trees & ferns — shadier & more open to the breeze that was gentling the morning’s heat. An enchanted oasis, hidden behind a row of shops on a fairly serene commercial street.
No one else was there. Surprised & captivated, we dried off two chairs — still wet from the previous day’s very brief but very welcome rain — and sat down. We drank our tea (mine, mango-peach mixed with strawberry-lemonade – yum!) and shared an almond cookie. It was a calm and quiet time… exploring, as always when we get together, the thoughts, feelings, and discoveries that had emerged since our last conversation. Among other things, we talked about the hawk that had bumped my house and been briefly grounded.
As we were nearing the end of our time together, my friend looked behind me and exclaimed, “What is that?! It’s the biggest insect I’ve ever seen — big enough to be a mammal!” I turned & looked — crawling across the flagstones was what appeared to be a very large black beetle. I went closer to look. It was a mammal — a bat — injured or ill — slowly dragging himself along on his hooked hands (elbows?), his wings only slightly flared along his body…. He hobbled slowly but with determination — heading always to the south, as if he had a destination in mind. He showed no signs of the devastating white-nose syndrome, but something was deeply wrong. I was swept up in what felt like a tsunami of compassion as I watched. Poor bat, I found myself repeating, poor little bat…. I watched for a time — not only seeing but feeling the pain of his small progress — immobilized by and drowning in love and sorrow.
My first impulse was to take him to a wildlife rehabilitation center for evaluation, but my time as a volunteer at the Wildlife Center of Virginia had taught me that bats were not on the list of welcome guests. So I did nothing.
The bat had, in spite of his infirmity & hobbled gait, a profound dignity. I think I hoped he could drag himself to the corner of the “secret garden” so he could recover or die in privacy, as peacefully as possible.
We went into the coffee house to report the bat so they could call animal control. Numb, I didn’t wait to see what happened…… I wish I had.
******
This morning the local newspaper reported that a bat from another part of town had tested positive for rabies — the 9th rabid animal in the county this year.
At that point, I began to wonder why we hadn’t just called animal control ourselves. ….I think I’d forgotten that I even had a phone with me — as if the ache of compassion had temporarily shut down my rational brain, made me as helpless as the bat.
And it wasn’t until I started to type this that it occurred to me that I could have gotten lots of photos of the bat. The thought never entered my mind as I watched him — and anyway, why would I take a photo of another being’s misery? Of course, I know that such photos have ignited a larger awareness of crisis situations & wrongs committed, have led to positive action — to healing and change. But somehow this bat’s suffering did not feel emblematic of some larger story. It felt to me as if a recording of his plight would be an invasion of his right to privacy. ….. I still don’t know what was happening in me, what his presence provoked…..
Unlike so many others, I was neither revolted nor frightened by the bat’s presence. I have always found bats fascinating and, as I’ve learned & experienced more, that fascination has grown into a deep fondness and respect. Now I cannot shake loose the vision of that little bat, limping fiercely forward.
As always, Life leaves me with questions rather than answers. Obviously, I have much to learn about my odd response to this encounter, my lack of direct action. And now I am left with more wonderings: Two encounters with winged beings who have been grounded — the hawk briefly; the bat no doubt permanently. These were living individuals, each with his own unique awareness of being. And yet, how easily my mind seizes them, transforms them to metaphors with larger meanings….. to stories that can only be told in their fullness in fairy tales or poems….
BEN OKRI writes:
"Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different. For different perceptions of reality we need a different language. We like to think that the world is rational and precise and exactly as we see it, but something erupts in our reality which makes us sense that there's more to the fabric of life. I'm fascinated by the mysterious element that runs through our lives."
And this morning from https://grateful.org/ :
"This is a time for straying, for losing one’s way, for asking new questions. A sacred activism. A slowing down that knows enchantment is not in short supply."
— Bayo Akomolafe
August 22, 2023
After my last post, I thought I might leap back in to blogging, but each time I sit down to write, I find myself wondering about whether to continue the blog — and, if so, how?
In her book Cacophony of Bone, Kerri ní Dochartaigh quotes an unnamed person as saying: ‘What are you ready to share? To speak into being? … Can you allow whatever has been on your heart to come forward?’ Then she repeats the questioning : “Well can I? I have no idea if I can, or how I would even begin.”
………..
Just NOW, as I was typing the last words above, I heard a loud bump on the window. There was a young red-shouldered hawk sitting on the ground, below the bird feeder placed close to the house. I saw him look around, re-orienting himself. Imagining that he had tried to seize a tasty feast of finch or wren, I watched to be sure he was alright. The sight of that splendid bird, grounded, filled me with such awe that I could do nothing but stand there, taking his beautiful being into my heart. At last it occurred to me that I might take a picture to show you. It took me a moment to get the phone ready to go. I paused to zoom in, to get it the shot “perfect.”
Suddenly, my foolish concerns were brushed aside as he spread his great wings and erupted into flight, returning to the element from which he came. Startled, I pressed the button as I staggered back. Focusing on the making of an image, I missed the reality of seeing the full majesty of his flight & his disappearance into the woods.
I was left with this….
Some things are perhaps, like Trickster, not meant to be captured ….
He was a hawk, living as hawks do, searching for nourishment. And I am a human, living as humans do, searching for nourishment of a different kind, searching for meaning. Was it merely coincidence? My mind comes up hard against the synchronicity, knocking me down as surely as the collision with house knocked the hawk to the ground. My heart wants to spin meaning, to weave tapestries of meaning. Was this sudden happening the answer to my questions? Or was it another question? Or something else entirely?
The way in which I choose to tell myself the story will create the path — or the crossroads — that I discern, the next step I choose to take….
August 23, 2023
And again today, coincidence continues….
I randomly picked up a book from one of my piles to read at lunch — What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be? When I opened it, again randomly, I found myself reading a lovely essay by Gavin Van Horn — a meditation on his relationship with Lake Michigan and with the ocean. In it, he doesn’t answer the title’s question directly but seems to follow Emily Dickenson’s advice: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”
Nearing the end of his essay, Van Horn tells of his encounter with a gull:
“Can you expect answers from water? …… A gull pondered me, a quizzical look in his red-rimmed eyes, wondering if there were crackers in my backpack. I had none. He tacked left, then right, faced me again. I thought he might have a message to deliver from the ocean.
“From ancient Greece to Tibet, India to Polynesia, birds are messengers, flying like dreams between our earth-bound existence and the realm of the sky. Augury: the practice of looking to birds to know the will of the gods, from which comes the word auspicious. We take the auspices, grope for indications of benevolence.
“Even within the cosmologies that feature more anthropomorphic deities, the messenger birds persist — or parts of them do — in the guise of angels. Real birds, however, possess the advantage of being more visible than most angels, and therefore more consistently available for interpretation.
[…….]
“All of us… need assurance from somewhere, a favorable nod in our direction, an indication that we are on the right track. Think of augury as ethology with benefits.”
“Do you have a message for me? I ventured cautiously to the gull. I don’t need to fight a war or plant a field. I just want to know how to mend what feels as though it is breaking.
“The bird paced between me and the ocean, paused, offered a slight turn of his head. I waited. The ocean murmured. The gull remained silent. Last chance I said, daring the bird.
“Soon it became clear I’d get no magic. Gulls have their own business to attend to, their own company to keep. I wanted answers — from the gods, the earth, nature, our animal kin — some backing, some revelation from outside to quell the doubt within.
“I instead received a different message: The world might indeed speak, but it doesn’t speak to me alone. The gull is full of its own gullness. If that’s not enough for me, I’m asking the wrong questions.
“So, we looked at each other, the gull and I. We shared the beach and contemplated the briny smell of the wind together. The ocean murmured. I exhaled. This is enough. Why ask for more when so much is given? “
–by Gavin Van Horn from his essay “The City Bleeds Out (Reflections on Lake Michigan)” in What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be?
August 24, 2023
And here I am. Still curious. Still filled with awe and wonder.
Perhaps, in all this pondering, I have not found “answers”
to the questions with which I began this post.
But I do feel more open it whatever may come.
I give thanks to the writers I have quoted here and,
most of all, to the hawk.
May he fly free!
**********
And, finally, a poem by Garcia Lorca for this season (inner & outer):
“August.
The opposing
of peach and sugar,
and the sun inside the afternoon
like the stone inside the fruit.
The ear of corn keeps
its laughter intact, yellow and firm.
August.
The little boys eat
brown bread and delicious moon.
by GARCIA LORCA
The last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about how I’ve been “not-writing” for Trickster’s Hoard. There have been plenty of amazing moments to share — ones I’ve liked, ones I haven’t enjoyed, and many many that have been so awesome that the words allude me. In fact, I’ve believed that my lack of communication has been about my lack of words. But, a couple days ago, I realized that this wasn’t the whole problem, that I’d somehow slipped back into my own fearful self that felt safer being silent. I’ve failed to reach out & share — as so many of you do, so beautifully in your blogs! In other words, I’ve been “hoarding.” Then I remembered the reason I’d named the site “Trickster’s Hoard.”
This morning I went back to read the first of my 100 posts, explaining the name:
For the last 15 years or more I’ve been haunted by the Trickster Spirit as he appears in cultures around the world. I’ve studied him diligently in anthropology texts and read volume upon volume analyzing his tales. But Trickster doesn’t live in categories or theories. He doesn’t dwell on the printed page. Trickster — like Life itself — is present only in movement, relationship, and change. If, in a story, he is cut into pieces, he puts himself back together and goes on his way. No one can truly capture his essence, but storytellers, poets, and artists do invite you to glimpse and participate in his many facets. Trickster is Change & he changes the world.
When I attempted to analyze or describe Trickster in approved academic fashion, to pin him down like a specimen in a museum, he just slipped off the page and, laughing, danced off to other adventures. Finally I realized that all the time I’d been trying to “understand” him, he’d been trying to invite me to play, to explore my own transformation, to engage with the world in all its guises.
Trickster Spirit is a paradox. Whatever you can say about him, the opposite is also true. For example, among the Akan-Ashanti of West Africa, the Trickster (Anansi, the Spider) not only scattered the world’s Wisdom among the people but also, in other stories, brought the people Disease and Death. Among the Diné of the American Southwest, Trickster (Ma’i, Coyote) is a source of both healing and witchcraft.
So, is he a culture hero? Yes. Or the source of trouble? Yes. Or a character in instructive morality tales? Yes. On & on… The only things I might dare say about Trickster are that he is insatiably hungry, insatiably curious, and an inveterate boundary-crosser and transformer. In many of his stories, Trickster brings things out of hiding or tricks others into giving them to him. Then, most often (as in next week’s story), Trickster inadvertently spills his cherished hoard out into the world.
Hence, this blog. For far too long, I’ve kept my weavings of words, fiber, and ideas safely hidden in closed boxes. Now, in response to Trickster’s prodding , I’ll open some of those boxes, spill out the contents, and see what happens.
trickstershoard.com March 21, 2021
Well, all I can say is that Trickster has been at work in my life again — not, this time, inviting me into the Dance but rolling up the dance floor the way Raven rolled up the Beaver’s house & their lake and tucked the bundle under his arm. [see story, Oct. 15, 2021] The Beavers were were diligent in pursuing their lost belongings. They couldn’t catch Raven, but they kept gnawing down his roosts until at last he flew off — spilling the sweet waters, giving them not to the Beavers who’d hoarded them, but making lakes, ponds, rivers for all the people. What will happen if I shake off my inertia & begin to chase Trickster in earnest. As Einstein said, “Nothing happens until something moves.” Hmmmm…. we’ll see……
The surge of new Spring life here continues with all its drama. For several weeks earlier this spring, our community pond hosted a hooded merganser and her 8 babies. Mergansers are diving birds and it was pure delight to watch the little ones discover their powers — diving deep & bobbing back up, again & again.
Then suddenly — overnight — the whole family disappeared. We all miss them. The ducklings were not yet fledged. There was no evidence that the resident hawk or marauding raccoons had been at work. I guess it will remain a mystery.
In recent weeks, a mallard and her 4 babies have been a joy. Then one day last week there were only 3 to be seen.
We suspect one of the pond’s turtles got the 4th.
This morning there only 2 ducklings.
Neighborhood ponds have lots of Canadian geese & goslings. Even the little retention pond next to the local grocery store hosts both ducks and geese. The fluffy babies there have grown into gangly adolescents — They are just beginning to get their feathers & look like they’re still working out how to gracefully coordinate longer necks & legs.
[There were lots of Canadian geese here when we arrived summer but — much my sorrow — not everyone shares my passion for these beautiful birds & the administration hires someone to chase them away. Sigh… ]
A great gray heron visits the pond here occasionally, always bringing joy to anyone watching. Who can resist their stately, patient stance or their majestic wingspread as they fly, with neck folded in an S and legs trailing. Magical beings. There are many indigenous stories about Heron, gathered from all over Turtle Island. And, even though herons aren’t related to cranes, I can’t help thinking of them in relation to all the old European stories & myths of cranes. Liminal birds — shape-shifters dwelling at the intersection of many worlds.
Last night, the tiniest frog I have seen hopped across the pond path in front of me. It must have been a Little Grass Frog, the smallest frog in North America. This photo by Tracy Welker https://fineartamerica.com/featured/little-grass-frog-tracy-welker.html will give you an idea of the size. The memory of this tiny being — intricate of form & acting according to its own purpose — still floods me with awe & simple happiness.
Such diversity and so much beauty in this incredible world — an astonishing interweaving of all into One — a multi-dimensional tapestry, the great feast we call Life — with each being always becoming something new. I am filled with gratitude, humbled to be both a witness to and a part of it all!
Messenger by Mary Oliver "My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird — equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand. Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here, which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever." ~ Mary Oliver ~
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