If we could, like the trees, practice dying, do it every year just as something we do— like going on vacation or celebrating birthdays— it would become as easy a part of us as our hair or clothing.
Someone would show us how to lie down and fade away as if in deepest meditation, and we would learn about the fine dark emptiness, both knowing it and not knowing it, and coming back would be irrelevant.
Whatever it is the trees know when they stand undone, surprisingly intricate, we need to know also so we can allow that last thing to happen to us as if it were only any ordinary thing,
leaves and lives falling away, the spirit, complex, waiting in the fine darkness to learn which way it will go. ~Grace Butcher, “Learning from Trees” from Poetry of Presence
And is it not enough that every year A richly laden autumn should unfold And shimmer into being leaf by leaf, It’s scattered ochres mirrored everywhere In hints and glints of hidden red and gold Threaded like memory through loss and grief, When dusk descends,when branches are unveiled, When roots reach deeper than our minds can feel And ready us for winter with strange calm, That I should see the inner tree revealed And know its beauty as the bright leaves fall And feel its truth within me as I am?
It is not yet enough. So I must try, In my poor turn, to help you see it too, As though these leaves could be as rich as those, That red and gold might glimmer in your eye, That autumn might unfold again in you, Feeling with me what falling leaves disclose. ~Malcolm Guite from “And is it Not Enough?”
If I were to die as a leaf does, I would want to change my clothes just bit by bit, overnight oozing gradually to scarlet, bleeding into the green a little bit more, until I’m so unrecognizable, I’ll seem brand new.
That would be ideal.
The reality is a fading to grey and brown, my edges withered and torn, bug-bitten with holes and weather-beaten bruised, dangling and fearful of letting go and so forgotten.
So I remember: no one, not one, falls without its Maker knowing. No one, not one, dies without being made brand new.
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Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry. ~Mary Oliver from A Poetry Handbook
…I want to write with quiet hands. I want to write while crossing the fields that are fresh with daisies and everlasting and the ordinary grass. I want to make poems while thinking of the bread of heaven and the cup of astonishment; let them be songs in which nothing is neglected, not a hope, not a promise. I want to make poems that look into the earth and the heavens and see the unseeable. I want them to honor both the heart of faith, and the light of the world; the gladness that says, without any words, everything. ~Mary Oliver from “Everything” from New and Selected Poems: Volume Two
Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves. —T.S. Eliotfrom The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
Much of the time, on the surface, we appear a tangled mess – a jumble of unarticulated feelings and desires, needs and wants.
Deeper down, there is a hungry soul in a place that can’t be seen.
We rarely dip in there; it can be a sore spot we are tempted to touch but avoid doing so because of its tenderness.
The bright light of a few well chosen words can ring us like a bell; we are struck dumb finding such clarion clarity comes to a place so well hidden.
A rope of words drops to lift up the lost and sad and empty – a reminder mere words can rescue and revive.
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At times these days I think of the way the sun would set on the farmland around our small house in the autumn.
A view of the horizon, the entire circle of it, if you turned, the sun setting behind you, the sky in front becoming pink and soft, then slightly blue again, as though it could not stop going on in its beauty, then the land closest to the setting sun would get dark, almost black against the orange line of the horizon, but if you turn around, the land is still available to the eye with such softness, the few trees, the quiet fields of cover crops already turned, and the sky lingering, lingering, then finally dark.
As though the soul can be quiet for those moments. All life amazes me. ~Elizabeth Strout, from My Name is Lucy Barton
I have learned, from those much wiser than I am, to recognize moments meant for quieting.
The news of the world constantly rushes past; there is suffering beyond imagining in the lives of a few I know well and for millions I don’t know at all.
What little can I do to make a difference? So much need lies beyond my short reach.
Instead of feeling abandoned on the shores of overwhelm, I seek out the familiar, the routine, and the ordinary, lingering immersed in the recurring patterns of the day and night as the world keeps on spinning on its axis.
I too turn around to witness that which surrounds me, and in so doing, my soul is quieted. And amazed.
One year ago, my teacher and mentor Jane Goodall passed into eternity, leaving behind this message for us all…
Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home. ~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.
He loved mountains, or he has loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire. ~J.R.R. Tolkienfrom The Lord of the Rings
This time of year, we feel a call to drive up the highway an hour or so to witness grander things than our own worries or the chaos of yet another election season.
There is always that moment as we turn the bend into Heather Meadows when Mount Shuksan suddenly appears, overwhelming the landscape and everything and everyone else.
There is simply nothing else to look at so I stand there gawking, forgetting to breathe.
Then I realize that I become more self-conscious rather than less: here I am at the foot of this incredible creation, wondering at how blessed I am to be there; that moment becomes all about me. Yet the mountain has been here for eons and will continue to be here for eons. Just a mere blip in that continuum, I feel summoned.
We leave behind all the political divisiveness and drama and talking heads: up in the mountains there is such sheer stillness all around us – nary a breeze or a bird call or even a bug making ripples on the lakes to spoil the perfect reflection.
I bring these images back with me to remember that moment of awestruck witness. The photographic image isn’t the real mountain or the pristine perfect reflection. Yet it means I was privileged to watch this mountain watching me back, welcoming me home.
The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back. ~ C. S. Lewis from Till We Have Faces
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From steady rain we step to sheltered ground in the dark cathedral of the barn, breathe in scents of damp wood and hay, assume a reverent stillness. The dog, with the sudden confidence of one engaged, at last, in good work, trots through the barn’s far doorway heading seven white-faced ewe lambs. Not knowing me, they halt, uncertain, until you smoothly bucket corn from storage to trough, and they— as sheep will—follow where hunger leads. Hard teeth crack dry kernels in percussive counterpoint, a muted consort mimicking the fall of winter rain on wooden shingles. In entiring darkness, we stand, until from your post beneath the hayloft beams, you turn to me, grinning, and say, That’s a good sound. And it is. ~Brian Volck “Visiting”
Every now and then, I forget to turn off the lights in the barn. I usually notice just before I go to bed, when the farm’s boundaries seem to have drawn in close. That light makes the barn seem farther away than it is — a distance I’m going to have to travel before I sleep. The weather makes no difference. Neither does the time of year.
Usually, after turning out that forgotten barn light, I sit on the edge of the tractor bucket for a few minutes and let my eyes adjust to the night outside. City people always notice the darkness here, but it’s never very dark if you wait till your eyes owl out a little….I’m always glad to have to walk down to the barn in the night, and I always forget that it makes me glad. I heave on my coat, stomp into my barn boots and trudge down toward the barn light, muttering at myself. But then I sit in the dark, and I remember this gladness, and I walk back up to the gleaming house, listening for the horses. ~Verlyn Klinkenborg from A Light in the Barn
…let me live in a small room up the narrow stairs from the stalls, the horse shifting comfortably below, browsing and chewing sweet hay. A single bed with blanket the color of factory-sweepings will suffice, each day shaped to the same arc, because days can only end when the lock slides free on the stall’s Dutch door, and I lead the horse in, then muscle the corroded bolt shut. That’s what days are for: I cannot rest until the horse comes home. ~Julie Bruck from “To Bring the Horse Home”
The best moment in the barn is in the evening just following the hay feeding, as the animals are settling down to some serious chewing. I linger in the center aisle, listening to the rhythmic sounds coming from their stalls. It is a most soothing contented cadence, first their lips picking up the grass, then the chew chew chew chew and a pause and it starts again. It’s even better in the dark, with the lights off.
In the past, I’ve enjoyed listening to the eating sounds at night from the remote vantage point of my bedroom TV monitor system set up to watch my very pregnant mares before foaling. A peculiar lullaby of sorts, strange as that seems, but when all my farm animals are chewing and happy, I am at peace and sleep better.
It reminds me of those dark deep nights of feeding my own newborns, rocking back and forth with the rhythm of their sucking. It is a moment of being completely present and peaceful, and knowing at that moment, nothing else matters–nothing else at all.
If I am very fortunate, each day I live has a rhythm that is reassuring and steady, like the sounds of hay chewing, or rocking a baby. I awake thinking about where my next step will bring me, and then the next, like each chew of sweet hay.
I try to live in communion, without distraction by the worry of the unknown.
But the reality is: life’s rhythms are often out of sync, the cadence is jarring, the sounds are discordant, sometimes I’m the one being chewed on, so pain replaces peacefulness.
Maybe that is why this lullaby in the barn~~this sanctuary~~is so treasured, the chosen place of Jesus’ birth. It brings me home to that doubting center of myself that needs reminding that struggle is fleeting, and peace, however elusive now, is forever. I always know where to find it for a few minutes at the end of every day, in a pastoral symphony of sorts.
Someday my hope for heaven will be angel choruses of glorious praise, augmenting a hay-chewing lullaby.
So simple yet so very, very good.
TEXT O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, iacentem in praesepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Iesum Christum. Alleluia!
TRANSLATION O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the virgin whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord, Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
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Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you. ~David Wagoner “Lost”
Our grandchildren — born in Tokyo, adapting to a rural life here — bring within them the serenity of the gardens they visited there, finding respite from worldly worries and sorrows.
We remind them to love such stillness: there is rest after busyness, there is light beyond darkness, there is peace amid chaos, there are smiles after tears, there is quiet within noisiness, there is grace and mercy forever…
…as we who are older give way to the new.
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Day after day, day after still day, The summer has begun to pass away. Starlings at twilight fly clustered and call, And branches bend, and leaves begin to fall. The meadow and the orchard grass are mown, And the meadowlark’s house is cut down.
The little lantern bugs have doused their fires, The swallows sit in rows along the wires. Berry and grape appear among the flowers Tangled against the wall in secret bowers, And cricket now begins to hum the hours Remaining to the passion’s slow procession Down from the high place and the golden session Wherein the sun was sacrificed for us. A failing light, no longer numinous, Now frames the long and solemn afternoons Where butterflies regret their closed cocoons. We reach the place unripe, and made to know As with a sudden knowledge that we go Away forever, all hope of return Cut off, hearing the crackle of the burn- ing blade behind us, and the terminal sound Of apples dropping on the dry ground. ~Howard Nemerov “Summer’s Elegy” from Collected Poems
As far as I can see this autumn haze That spreading in the evening air both ways, Makes the new moon look anything but new, And pours the elm-tree meadow full of blue, Is all the smoke from one poor house alone With but one chimney it can call its own; So close it will not light an early light, Keeping its life so close and out of sight No one for hours has set a foot outdoors So much as to take care of evening chores. The inmates may be lonely women-folk. I want to tell them that with all this smoke They prudently are spinning their cocoon And anchoring it to an earth and moon From which no winter gale can hope to blow it,— Spinning their own cocoon did they but know it. ~Robert Frost “The Cocoon”
The summer ends, and it is time To face another way. Our theme Reversed, we harvest the last row To store against the cold, undo The garden that will be undone. We grieve under the weakened sun To see all earth’s green fountains dried, And fallen all the works of light. You do not speak, and I regret This downfall of the good we sought As though the fault were mine. I bring The plow to turn the shattering Leaves and bent stems into the dark, From which they may return. At work, I see you leaving our bright land, The last cut flowers in your hand. ~Wendell Berry “The Summer Ends” from A Timbered Choir.
I too regret the closed cocoon, so seemingly safe at the time — once launched before being ready, there is no returning.
In this fading, failing light, I feel undone, weepy at harvest, gathering urgently, not wanting anything to go to waste, trying to memorialize it all as it changes.
I part again from you, Summer – your gifts seemed endless until you yourself ended – a reminder that someday, so must I.
photo by Bob Tjoelker
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Thereis something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man… ~Long time equestrian wisdom attributed to many famous riders
Twenty-five years ago today, two days before the world changed forever, I helped organize a gathering of Haflinger horse owners from western Canada and the United States in our nearby town of Lynden, Washington. We enjoyed an annual meet-up at the local fairgrounds to enjoy our horses together for a few days doing breed demonstrations for the public, riding, jumping, dressage, driving in teams, vaulting – a little of everything with our versatile horses.
We received permission from Lynden City Hall to have a Haflinger parade on a quiet Sunday morning while local folks were worshipping in the many churches in town. We wanted to be sure to begin from the fairgrounds after services had started, do a two mile route through town and back to the fairgrounds before the traffic increased later.
It was a remarkable sunny morning of over ninety Haflingers and their people – some riding, driving, or leading their horses — all enjoying the quiet peace of a Sabbath morning in a friendly little town. Some of the owners and their horses had been in local parades in their home towns, but none had the experience of being an “all Haflingers” troop through a downtown.
It all went smoothly without a hitch. Well, actually there were several “hitches” in the parade: carts and wagons being pulled by our golden friends.
Everyone returned safely home before September 11, 2001. Life hasn’t felt as peaceful or calm in the same way ever since. This 2001 Haflinger parade was the one and only time it happened in our part of the world.
This is to remember those few days we spent together — the insides of us enjoying the outsides of our Haflingers.
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I will wait here in the fields to see how well the rain brings on the grass. In the labor of the fields longer than a man’s life I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too.
I will be standing in the woods where the old trees move only with the wind then with the gravity. In the stillness of the trees I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too. ~Wendell Berry “Stay Home” from Collected Poems
A steady silver rain pours out over the gray world on an ordinary morning. Drenching for hours the field, wild flowers, soil and all the birds off somewhere dry in hidden nests, keeping quiet.
And you, too: keep quiet for a few hours, let your thoughts fizz like that silver sheen, shushshushshushshush, ceaseless sheet of velvet, of plenty. Enough to hear, to drink, to soak in, though you hadn’t known how dry you were. ~Joanne Esser “What You Need: (It Doesn’t Have to Be Lightning)” from Nothing is Stationary
Yesterday morning, our county was awakened shortly after 6AM with several thunder crashes after lightning bolts flashed and illuminated our dark bedroom.
Thunder storms are unusual in the Pacific Northwest; even more unusual is an early morning storm with so much drama and subsequent dumping rain.
I was fortunate to be sheltering inside a comfortable home with a good roof — not sitting in a tree.
I was happy,watching it happen without it happening to me.
Then I looked out my kitchen window, where a drenched pine siskin sat trembling on our bird feeder, her breakfast interrupted by the downpour. No doubt she would much rather have been at home quietly sitting in her favorite tree, but as she was unable to fly so soaked by the heavy torrent, she huddled under the little cover of the feeder, trying to ride it out.
Watching her cope with her wet plumage from an unplanned bird bath, I realized I hadn’t known how dry I was.
After twenty minutes, the storm was all over as the sun began peeking out from behind roiling clouds. She shook off the excess drops from her feathers, picked out a few more seeds before launching on her way to parts unknown.
I sat and finished my toast, musing at our brief breakfast alongside one another, each safe under temporary shelter. In her own way, she let me know: In the stillness of the trees I am at home. Don’t come with me. You stay home too.
And so I shall…
Lyrics: We all need love and shelter A place where we let go and rest To live secure with one another To be ourselves, not somebody else
Everybody needs respect and dignity Everybody needs love, real love
We all need to know we’re worthy That we are treasure to our core We can tell the truth about our trauma To be believed so we can be restored
Everybody needs love; everybody knows love Is what it takes to make a life So everybody breathe love; everyone receive love It’s how we heal and make things right
We all need confirmation To know that we are seen and heard To live our lives out in freedom Then all our flags of hope can be unfurled
We all need a place to shelter
Lyrics: Whisper truth over me I’m loved eternally Never am I alone, you’re here with me I don’t have to be afraid Faithfulness doesn’t change Unshakable terra firm underneath my need
I wanna know this love A love that never dies For when I trust I find Your love sustains my life
Whisper grace over me I don’t need to earn your peace Help me surrender now as you carry me When shadows are lengthening I’m sheltered beneath your wings Compassionate arms of love are still underneath
I wanna know this love A love that never dies For when I trust I find Your love sustains my life
I wanna know this love A love that never dies For when I trust I’ll find Your love sustains my life
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And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A gale arose on the lake, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’
And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm.
They were amazed, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’ Matthew 8:23-27
Sweet Jesus, talking his melancholy madness, stood up in the boat and the sea lay down,
silky and sorry. So everybody was saved that night… Nobody knows what the soul is.
It comes and goes like the wind over the water — sometimes, for days, you don’t think of it.
Maybe, after the sermon, after the multitude was fed, one or two of them felt the soul slip forth
like a tremor of pure sunlight before exhaustion, that wants to swallow everything, gripped their bones and left them
miserable and sleepy, as they are now, forgetting how the wind tore at the sails before he rose and talked to it —
tender and luminous and demanding as he always was — a thousand times more frightening than the killer storm. ~Mary Oliver from “Maybe”
We sleep through our diminishing days even more than we sleep through the nights, unfocused on each passing moment which never is to come again.
Those moments crash to shore, then pull back to be lost forever.
There is a blindness in us all about what is inevitably coming, how we tumble through the years like waves, overcome by their passage, helpless to stop them.
Yet He is tender and luminous and demanding He speaks to us with the same words as He addresses the relentless stormy destructive sea.
Peace be still!
And so we obey in our helplessness, forgiven, saved by grace, so silky and sorry.
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