nature – Page 55 – Barnstorming

An Absolute Patience

October 25, 2018October 25, 2018 barnstormingblog2 Comments

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
~T.S. Eliot from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

oaklanetall

An absolute
patience.
Trees stand
up to their knees in
fog. The fog
slowly flows
uphill.
White
cobwebs, the grass
leaning where deer
have looked for apples.
The woods
from brook to where
the top of the hill looks
over the fog, send up
not one bird.
So absolute, it is
no other than
happiness itself, a breathing
too quiet to hear.
~Denise Levertov, The Breathing

Up to my knees in fog ~
some days up to my eyebrows
and how much longer will my head stay in the light.

I am drawn to fog
that absorbs light and color
and me.

Doing chores this foggy morning is a baptism:
complete immersion in the soft exhalation
of breath
when all God’s people say Amen.

Gossamer Garlands

October 22, 2018 barnstormingblog2 Comments

The sun-dipped isle was suddenly a sheep
Lost and stupid, a dense wet tremulous fleece.
~George Mackay Brown “Fog” from The Weather Bestiary

When I was young, fog felt oppressive,
as mournful as the fog horns sounding continually in the nearby bay.
Now in sixty years later
I appreciate fog for slowing me down
when life compels me to rush too fast.
When forced to take time,
I begin to notice what I missed before:
clouds descend to hug and kiss the ground
to bejewel everything they touch.
The dead and dying
become glorious in subtle beauty,
the farm all gossamer garland and transparent pearls.

To Hone and Tend Creation

October 14, 2018 barnstormingblog5 Comments

Creation is the arena in and through which God wishes to reveal himself.
In creating, in preserving, in pursuing; in hallowing, in participating, in wooing—
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit have made all creation,
and all its creatures, great and small, their delight.

We recognize that, being made in his image, we are appointed as his stewards.
This does not give us carte blanche with God’s world.
We are not given creation to plunder,
but to hone and tend in such ways that every little part of it gives glory to God.
~Kathleen Mulhern in Dry Bones

I like the thought of creation being “wooed” into existence by God. Indeed I need to be gently wooed into tackling the day and tending my part of creation. The night may have been sleepless, the worry endless, the efforts I make futile.

Yet I’m here for a reason, as is every spider, mouse and even mosquito. It is all to His glory, as insignificant as I feel.

There can be nothing but wooing wonder in all He has made.

The Windowed Light

October 13, 2018 barnstormingblog3 Comments

In its web I see the mountains
swell with slow rhythmic oscillations
in a sea of sky and waves of breaking clouds.

I listen to the leaves—
those that fall, those that persist
on their dichotomy of stems—

Dissection never reveals the whole.
The fragile rings hide their slender strength,
as the trees abide the sultry air,

brandishing their rattling bassinets
in Spring and in the throes of Autumn
drop their dappled dress exposed.

This is the fineness that holds me
here, fibers that vibrate from my searching
for the words to describe them,

words, like houses made of trees,
that let the winds play at their doors,
and let the windowed light know where I am.
~Richard Maxson, from “A Green and Yellow Basket” in Molly and the Thieves

There are no words for this light, for this color, for this richness
so I simply dwell within it, failing to describe it.

I can’t stop looking, can’t stop breathing it in.

How is it dying is so glorious that it makes me gasp at being alive?

A Mosaic of the Seasons

October 12, 2018 barnstormingblog6 Comments

Winter is an etching,
spring a watercolor,
summer an oil painting
and autumn a mosaic of them all.
~Stanley Horowitz

Autumn does have a culminating sense about it: it is the finale, the wrap up, the faretheewell, the new leaf turned, now tired.

Everything that has come before is still here, under cover of glorious color and will remain after that last leaf falls and is recycled.

So we begin again with the annual rotation of the etchings, the pastels, the full throated oils and the ultimate mosaic.

The Artist’s signature can be spotted on every canvas.

Jane Comes to Town

October 9, 2018October 10, 2018 barnstormingblog6 Comments

jane108183 — photo of Jane Goodall by Rhys Logan, smiling at me as I came up to give her a hug, courtesy of WWU University Communications

Dr. Jane Goodall, now 84 years old, paid a visit to our city of Bellingham, Washington last night to give a lecture on behalf of Western Washington University to an audience of 1300 adults and children, emphasizing once again how any one unassuming and highly motivated person can make a difference in the survival of the earth and its inhabitants, whether plant, animal or humankind.

It had been over two decades since I’d last seen her so it was a great privilege to be able to greet and hug this former teacher of mine and a hero of our time, and to see the next generation have opportunity to hear her stories in her own voice.

I’ve shared this story before here but watching her speak last night in the historic Mt. Baker Theater, I couldn’t help but recall the first time I met Jane one-on-one, over forty-five years ago:

Standing outside a non-descript door in a long dark windowless hallway of offices at the Stanford Medical Center, I took a deep breath and swallowed several times to clear my dry throat. I hoped I had found the correct office, as there was only a number– no nameplate to confirm who was inside.

I was about to meet a childhood hero, someone whose every book I’d read and every TV documentary I had watched. I knocked with what I hoped was the right combination of assertiveness (“I want to be here to talk with you and prove my interest”) and humility (“I hope this is convenient for you as I don’t want to intrude”). I heard a soft voice on the other side say “Come in” so I slowly opened the door.

It was a bit like going through the wardrobe to enter Narnia. Bright sunlight streamed into the dark hallway as I stepped over the threshold. Squinting, I stepped inside and quickly shut the door behind me as I realized there were at least four birds flying about the room. They were taking off and landing, hopping about feeding on bird seed on the office floor and on the window sill. The windows were flung wide open with a spring breeze rustling papers on the desk. The birds were very happy occupying the sparsely furnished room, which contained only one desk, two chairs and Dr. Jane Goodall.

She stood up and extended her hand to me, saying, quite unnecessarily, “Hello, I’m Jane” and offered me the other chair when I told her my name. She was slighter than she appeared when speaking up at a lectern, or on film. Sitting back down at her desk, she busied herself reading and marking her papers, seemingly occupied and not to be disturbed. It was as if I was not there at all.

It was disorienting. In the middle of a bustling urban office complex containing nothing resembling plants or a natural environment, I had unexpectedly stepped into a bird sanctuary instead of sitting down for a job interview. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do or say. Jane didn’t really ever look directly at me, yet I was clearly being observed. So I waited, watching the birds making themselves at home in her office, and slowly feeling at home myself. I felt my tight muscles start to relax and I loosened my grip on the arms of the chair.

There was silence except for the twittering of the finches as they flew about our heads.

After awhile she spoke, her eyes still perusing papers: “It is the only way I can tolerate being here for any length of time. They keep me company. But don’t tell anyone; the people here would think this is rather unsanitary.”

I said the only thing I could think of: “I think it is magical. It reminds me of home.”

Only then did she look at me. “Now tell me why you’d like to come work at Gombe…”

The next day I received a note from her letting me know I was accepted for the research assistantship. I had proven I could sit silently and expectantly, waiting for something, or perhaps nothing at all, to happen. For a farm girl who never before traveled outside the United States, I was about to embark on an adventure far beyond the barnyard.

jane108182 — giving Jane a hug, courtesy of WWU Communications (Rhys Logan)

jane108181 — 45 years since we met in her Stanford office full of wild birds – photo by Rhys Logan (WWU)

(this essay was published in The Jane Effect in 2014 in honor of Jane’s 80th birthday)

A new documentary “Jane” is now streaming on Amazon Prime and is reviewed at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/movies/jane-review-jane-goodall-documentary.html

photos courtesy of The National Geographic (www.nationalgeographic.com)

and Western Washington University Communications

One Alone Together

October 7, 2018 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

l (a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l
iness…

~e.e. cummings

So many feel they are the only one
to fall
until they land in a cushion of others
comforted.

Some dangle suspended
twisting and turning in the slightest breeze
not knowing when the fall will come.

I know I’m both~
one alone
and many together

held by a slender silken thread
until the moment comes
when I’m let go.

An Unexpected October Thing

October 5, 2018 barnstormingblog1 Comment

After the keen still days of September,
the October sun filled the world with mellow warmth…
The maple tree in front of the doorstep burned like a gigantic red torch.
The oaks along the roadway glowed yellow and bronze.
The fields stretched like a carpet of jewels,
emerald and topaz and garnet.
Everywhere she walked the color shouted and sang around her…
In October any wonderful unexpected thing might be possible.
~Elizabeth George Speare from The Witch of Blackbird Pond

On this early morning
gray clouds lay heavy and unrelenting
hovering low over the eastern hills,
when a moment’s light snuck out from under the covers
throwing back the blankets
to glow golden over the mountain.

Only a minute of unexpected light underneath the gray
gone in a heartbeat
(as are we) yet
O! the glory when we too are luminous.

Nowhere to Hide You

September 30, 2018September 30, 2018 barnstormingblog6 Comments

When you are already here

you appear to be only

a name that tells of you

whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though

you are still summer

still the high familiar

endless summer

yet with a glint

of bronze in the chill mornings

and the late yellow petals

of the mullein fluttering

on the stalks that lean

over their broken

shadows across the cracked ground

but they all know

that you have come

the seed heads of the sage

the whispering birds

with nowhere to hide you

to keep you for later

you

who fly with them

you who are neither

before nor after

you who arrive

with blue plums

that have fallen through the night

perfect in the dew

~W.S.Merwin “To the Light of September”

Each month has its special light
though luminous September sweeps them all;
I must grasp tightly before tomorrow slips away to October.

Like a squirrel, there must be a place
I can hide such riches, tuck the light away in a hole,
pile shells on top,
to bring it out on the darkest winter day
and feast upon it.

I do know better;
this glow follows the birds as they fly away.
They keep it in safekeeping
towing it back on their wings come spring.

In the meantime I must remember
the endless summer that is September.

Just Passing Through

September 29, 2018 barnstormingblog4 Comments

All through August and September
            thousands, maybe
tens of thousands, of feathered
            creatures pass through
this place and I almost never see
            a single one. The fall
wood warbler migration goes by here
            every year, all of them,
myriad species, all looking sort of like
            each other, yellow, brown, gray,
all muted versions of their summer selves,
            almost indistinguishable
from each other, at least to me, although
            definitely not to each other,
all flying by, mostly at night, calling to each
            other as they go to keep
the flock together, saying: chip, zeet,
            buzz, smack, zip, squeak—
            those
sounds reassuring that we are
            all here together and
heading south, all of us just passing
            through, just passing
through, just passing through, just
            passing through.
~David Budbill “Invisible Visitors”

Some feathered travelers slip past us unseen and unheard. They may stop for a drink in the pond or a bite to eat in the field and woods, but we never know they are there – simply passing through.

Others are compelled to announce their journey with great fanfare, usually heard before seen. The drama of migration becomes bantering conversation from bird to bird, bird to earth, bird to sun, moon and stars, with unseen magnetic forces pointing the way.

When not using voices, their wings sing the air with rhythmic beat and whoosh.

We’re all together here — altogether — even when our voices are raised sharply, our silences brooding, our hurts magnified, our sorrows deep, so our route of travel becomes a matter of debate.

Our destination is not in dispute however. We’re all heading to the same place no matter how we get there.

We’re all just passing through, just passing through, just passing through.

I come from Pacific Northwest farmers going back four generations: the daughter of teachers, married to a son of farmers. We have raised three children who are making a difference in the world in their professional lives and as people of faith.

While keeping my eyes and heart open to the extraordinary things around me, I have worked over forty years as a family physician as well as a steward of the small farm we call home.

What I harvest in words or pictures finds its way here.
I welcome your messages and comments sent to emilypgibson@gmail.com

…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. … And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 8 -9

What is my only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
~Heidelberg Catechism

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.
~ T.S. Eliot

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To live is so startling, it leaves little room for other occupations.
~Emily Dickinson

I believe in God as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
~ C. S. Lewis

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.
~ Augustine

Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
~ Mary Oliver

The seed is in the ground. Now may we rest in hope while darkness does its work.
~ Wendell Berry

Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine the true poetry of life.~ Sir William Osler

But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
~George Eliot’s final sentence in Middlemarch

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
~ E.B. White

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.~~ “The Wild Geese” Wendell Berry

Let it come, as it will, and don’t be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come.
~ Jane Kenyon from “Let Evening Come”

You can only come to the morning through the shadows.~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Look for what you notice but no one else sees. ~Rick Rubin

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. ~ Thomas Merton

This life therefore is not righteousness,
but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet
what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished
but it is going on.
This is not the end
but it is the road.
~Martin Luther

Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
~ Mary Oliver

It is not your love that sustains the marriage —
but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

She has done what she could…
~Mark 14:8

What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?~ J. R. R. Tolkien from The Hobbit

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