Category: peace

Hushed October Morning

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O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
~Robert Frost from “October”

After yesterday’s travel through curtains of heavy rainfall,
we abandoned plans to meet with family across state
for today’s memorial service, so returned home,
defeated, weary with sadness.

October is enough reminder of mortality,
with winds stripping trees to bare bones,
birds flocking and vacating,
bright leaves reduced to rusting dust.

This morning, the rain suspended,
its gray curtain pulled back briefly
to view what awaits beyond the haze:
this luminous brilliance, radiance, promise.

Slow down to look. Slow down to live. Slow.

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One Old Dog Has Gone Away

barnstormingblog9 Comments

Two old dogs out doing chores.
One on two legs, one on four.
Side by side, they water and feed.
Caring for others daily need.

Two old dogs make their rounds
Well worn paths on familiar ground.
To greet the day or say goodnight
Side by side, their friendship tight.

Two old dogs with dish and pail.
Singing songs and wagging tail.
Slower now, than in the past
But that just makes the good time last.

Two old dogs, both muzzles grey.
Aging joints sometimes curb play.
Companionship a simple joy.
His old dad; Dad’s old boy.

Two old dogs, and then one day
One old dog has gone away.
The other left to carry on
Two legs to barn and field and pond.

One old dog, eyes full of tears
Can still feel his old friend walking near
A reminder in the morning dew.
Just one path, instead of two.

When one old dog has no more chores
And walks through heaven’s golden doors
He’ll see that face he can’t forget.
A kindred spirit, not just a pet.

So many old dogs, made whole; anew
Reunion of a loyal crew.
Never again to be apart.
Many souls. But just one heart.
~Jeff Pillars “Two Old Dogs”

I knew this day was coming. Samwise Gamgee, approaching age 14, had been hinting that he was getting ready to leave for the past couple weeks. He was much slower following me for chores, his appetite wasn’t quite as robust as usual, and his hearing was fading.

Life had become an effort when it had been a lark for 13+ years.

But yesterday morning, he perked up enough to do his usual rounds on the farm, poke around the stalls in the barn, check the cat dishes for morsels, and bark when a strange car drove in the driveway.
Then last night he ignored his supper, laid down and closed his eyes, having used up all his reserves.

This morning, he was gone, leaving only a furry shell with big ears behind.

He had joined us on the farm as company for our aged Cardigan Corgi Dylan Thomas, who died two years after Samwise arrived. Then Sam himself needed company, so another Cardigan corgi, Homer, arrived.
They became a happy Corgi team on the farm.

Sam had a great dog life, with the exception of getting lost once and one overnight visit to the emergency vet hospital for treatment from poisoning from ivermectin, the horse worming medicine he somehow managed to lap up quickly off the barn floor when a horse dripped the paste from her mouth. After that he promised to never need a vet again.

His peaceful passing is a reminder of our temporary stay on his soil.
He’s smelling the flowers and watching the sunrises and sunsets from the other side now.

I honor Samwise’s long life with the photos I have compiled over the years.

Till we meet again, old friend.

photo by Nate Gibson
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The Glow of Ripeness

barnstormingblog4 Comments

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills—
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn’t always understand.
~Czeslaw Milosz “Love” from New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001

Let him kneel down, lower his face to the grass,
And look at light reflected by the ground.
There he will find everything we have lost…
~Czeslaw Milosz from “The Sun”

It’s not easy to subdue the needy ego and let the life-giving soul take control, even though doing so saves us grief and serves the world well. So if you see me on the street one day, quietly muttering, “Only one thing among many, only one thing among many…,” you’ll know I’m still working on it, or it’s still working on me.
~Parker Palmer “The Big Question: Does My Life Have Meaning?”

It is always tempting to be self-absorbed; since my heart stent placement nearly 8 months ago, I tend to analyze every sensation in my chest, fuss over how many steps I take daily, and get discouraged when the scale doesn’t register the sacrifices I think I’m making in my diet.

In other words, in my efforts to heal my physically-broken heart, I become the center of my attention, rather than just one among many things in the days/months/years I have left. I need to look at myself from a distance rather than under a microscope.

It is a skewed and futile perspective, seeking meaning and purpose in life by navel gazing.

Instead, I should be concentrating on the ripeness of each day. I’ve been given a second chance to recalibrate my journey through the time I have left, focusing outward, gazing at the wonders around me, sometimes getting down on my knees.

I don’t fully understand how I might serve others by what I share here online, or what I do in my local community with my hands and feet. I now know not to miss the moments basking in the glow of loving those around me, including you friends I may never meet on this side of the veil.

May you glow in ripeness as well.

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The Singers of Life, Not Death

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The rain falls and falls
cool, bottomless, and prehistoric
falls like night —
not an ablution
not a baptism
just a small reason
to remember
all we know of Heaven
to remember
we are still here
with our love songs and our wars…

Here too
in the wet grass
half a shell
of a robin’s egg
shimmers
blue as a newborn star
fragile as a world.
~Maria Popova from “Spell Against Indifference”

…I had sat down to rest with my back against a stump. Through accident I was concealed from the glade, although I could see into it perfectly.

The sun was warm there, and the murmurs of forest life blurred softly away into my sleep. When I awoke, dimly aware of some commotion and outcry in the clearing, the light was slanting down through the pines in such a way that the glade was lit like some vast cathedral. I could see the dust motes of wood pollen in the long shaft of light, and there on the extended branch sat an enormous raven with a red and squirming nestling in his beak.

The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestling’s parents, who flew helplessly in circles about the clearing. The sleek black monster was indifferent to them. He gulped, whetted his beak on the dead branch a moment, and sat still. Up to that point the little tragedy had followed the usual pattern.

But suddenly, out of all that area of woodland, a soft sound of complaint began to rise. Into the glade fluttered small birds of half a dozen varieties drawn by the anguished outcries of the tiny parents.

No one dared to attack the raven. But they cried there in some instinctive common misery, the bereaved and the unbereaved. The glade filled with their soft rustling and their cries. They fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer. There was a dim intangible ethic he had violated, that they knew. He was a bird of death.

And he, the murderer, the black bird at the heart of life, sat on there, glistening in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed, untouchable.

The sighing died. It was then I saw the judgment. It was the judgment of life against death. I will never see it again so forcefully presented. I will never hear it again in notes so tragically prolonged.

For in the midst of protest, they forgot the violence.

There, in that clearing, the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush. And finally, after painful fluttering, another took the song, and then another, the song passing from one bird to another, doubtfully at first, as though some evil thing were being slowly forgotten. Till suddenly they took heart and sang from many throats joyously together as birds are known to sing.

They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven. In simple truth they had forgotten the raven, for they were the singers of life, and not of death.
~Loren Eiseley from The Star Thrower

Each of us at times are as vulnerable as a nestling, just hatched.
The world is full of those who would eat us for lunch and do.

The world is also full of those who grieve and lament the violence that surrounds us, the tragedy of lives lost, the unending wars, the bullies and the bullied.

But the bird of death does not have the final word. He will soon be forgotten, forever sidelined as we reject what he and others like him represent.

Our cries of lament, our protests of violence transform into a celebration of life – we do not abandon all we have lost, but no longer allow any more to be stolen from us.

Only then may grief’s shadow be overwhelmed by joy.

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A Peculiarly Genial Light

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I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.
There is no season when such pleasant
and sunny spots may be lighted on,
and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings,
as now in October.
The sunshine is peculiarly genial;
and in sheltered places,
as on the side of a bank, or of a barn or house,
one becomes acquainted and friendly with the sunshine.
It seems to be of a kindly and homely nature.
And the green grass strewn with a few withered leaves looks the more green and beautiful for them.
~Nathaniel Hawthorne from The American Notebooks

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 

If I were a month,
I would choose to be October:
bathed in a “peculiarly genial” and friendly light.
A kindly and homely nature,
slowly withering, yet still crisp,
with mild temperature and modest temperament
despite a drenching rain and wind storm or two,
once in a while foggy.

Most of all,
I would cherish my flashes of burnt umber
as I reluctantly relinquish the light.

text by Mechthild of Magdeburg
Effortlessly, Love flows from God into man,
Like a bird who rivers the air without moving her wings.
Thus we move in His world one in body and soul,
Though outwardly separate in form.
As the Source strikes the note, humanity sings —
The Holy Spirit is our harpist, and all strings
Which are touched in love must sound.

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For a Moment, the World Wakes Up

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                       1

Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; it’s not just the symbolism,
to confront in the death of the year your death,
one blazing farewell appearance, though the irony
isn’t lost on you that nature is most seductive
when it’s about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself—

        the trees don’t die, they just pretend,
go out in style, and return in style: a new style.

                        3

You’ll be driving along depressed when suddenly
a cloud will move and the sun will muscle through
and ignite the hills. It may not last. Probably
won’t last. But for a moment the whole world
comes to. Wakes up. Proves it lives. It lives—
red, yellow, orange, brown, russet, ocher, vermilion,
gold. Flame and rust. Flame and rust, the permutations
of burning. You’re on fire. Your eyes are on fire.
It won’t last, you don’t want it to last. You
can’t stand any more. But you don’t want it to stop.
It’s what you’ve come for. It’s what you’ll
come back for. It won’t stay with you, but you’ll

        remember that it felt like nothing else you’ve felt
or something you’ve felt that also didn’t last.
~Lloyd Schwarz from “Leaves”

The world wakes up and comes to, with vivid, overwhelming color
for a moment before it dies.

The landscape is simply acting out its part, perhaps just pretending.
Nothing is really dying, just taking a nap under a brilliant blanket.

Rest well. See you next year.

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What I’ll Remember

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old milk barn

The partly open hay barn door, white frame around the darkness,
the broken board, small enough for a child
to slip through.

Walking in the cornfields in late July, green tassels overhead,
the slap of flat leaves as we pass, silent
and invisible from any road.

Hollyhocks leaning against the stucco house, peonies heavy
as fruit, drooping their deep heads
on the dog house roof.

Lilac bushes between the lawn and the woods,
a tractor shifting from one gear into
the next, the throttle opened,

the smell of cut hay, rain coming across the river,
the drone of the hammer mill,
milk machines at dawn.
~Joyce Sutphen “The Last Things I’ll Remember” from First Words

I turn this seasonal corner, facing deep into autumn,
summer fading in the rear view mirror.

Even as the air bares chill, and the clouds sopping soak,
the riches of summer remain vivid.

Let me remember:
even if I too fade away, readying for the next turn.

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An Unshadowed Light

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Within the ongoing havoc
the woods this morning is
almost unnaturally still.
Through stalled air, unshadowed
light, a few leaves fall
of their own weight.

                                       The sky
is gray. It begins in mist
almost at the ground
and rises forever. The trees
rise in silence almost
natural, but not quite,
almost eternal, but
not quite.

                      What more did I
think I wanted? Here is
what has always been.
Here is what will always
be. Even in me,
the Maker of all this
returns in rest, even
to the slightest of His works,
a yellow leaf slowly
falling, and is pleased.
~Wendell Berry “VII” from This Day

What more did I think I wanted?

What always has been and always will be:

Until I’m not able to hold on in the wind and rain,
may I be a spot of unshadowed light
in this dark and bleak world.

I’ll let go like a yellow leaf in autumn,
when the time comes,
if it pleases my Maker.

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Horses Without Headlights

barnstormingblog2 Comments

… The Amish have maintained what I like to think is a proper scale, largely by staying with the horse. The horse has restricted unlimited expansion.
Not only does working with horses limit farm size, but horses are ideally suited to family life.
With horses you unhitch at noon to water and feed the teams and then the family eats what we still call dinner. While the teams rest there is usually time for a short nap.
And because God didn’t create the horse with headlights,
we don’t work nights.
~Amish farmer David Kline in Great Possessions

photo by Joel De Waard
photo by Joel De Waard
photo by Joel De Waard
photo by Joel De Waard

You can’t have the family farm without the family.
~G.K. Chesterton from “The Unprecedented Architecture of Commander Blair,” Tales of the Long Bow

Photo of Aaron Janicki haying with his Oberlander team in Skagit County courtesy of Tayler Rae
Benjamin Janicki of Sedro Woolley raking hay with his team of Oberlanders

I’m 71 years old ~ old enough to have parents who grew up on farms worked by horses, one raising wheat and lentils in the Palouse country of eastern Washington and the other logging in the woodlands of Fidalgo Island of western Washington. The horses were crucial to my grandfathers’ success in caring for and tilling the land, seeding and harvesting the crops and bringing supplies from town miles away.  Theirs was a hardscrabble life in the early 20th century with few conveniences. Work was year round from dawn to dusk; caring for the animals came before any human comforts. Once night fell, work ceased and sleep was welcome respite for man and beast.

In the rural NW Washington countryside where we live, we’ve been fortunate enough to live near farmers who still dabble in horse farming, whose draft teams are hitched to plows and mowers and manure spreaders as they head out to the fields to recapture the past. They still gather together in the spring to have a well-attended and friendly competition plowing match.

Watching a good team work with no diesel motor running means hearing bird calls from the field, the steady footfall of the horses, the harness chains jingling, the leather straps creaking, the machinery shushing quietly as gears turn and grass lays over in submission. No ear protection is needed. There is no clock needed to pace the day.  

There is a rhythm of nurture when animals instead of engines are part of the work day. The gauge for taking a break is the amount of foamy sweat on the horses and how fast they are breathing. 
It is time to stop and take a breather,
it is time to start back up to do a few more rows,
it is time to water,
it is time for a meal,
it is time for a nap,
it is time for a rest in a shady spot. 
This is gentle use of the land with four footed stewards who deposit right back to the soil the digested forage they have eaten only hours before.

Our modern fossil-fuel-powered approach to food production has bypassed the small family farm which was so dependent on the muscle power of humans and animals. In our move away from horses worked by skilled teamsters, what has been gained in high production values has meant loss of self-sufficiency and dedicated stewardship of a smaller acreage. Draft breeds, including the Haflinger horses we raised for forty years, now are bred for higher energy with lighter refined bone structure meant more for eye appeal and floating movement, rather than the sturdy conformation and unflappable low maintenance mindset needed for pulling work.

Modern children grow up with a different set of values as well, no longer raised to work together with other family members, as well as the animals on the farm for a common purpose of daily survival.

Still fascinated by the The Small Farmer’s Journal, I am encouraged when the next generation reaches for horse collars and bridles, hitches up their horses to do the work as it used to be done.  Although the modern world will never go back to the days of horse-drawn farming and transportation, we can acknowledge there were some benefits to the old ways of doing things, when progress meant being harnessed together as a team with our horses, tilling for truth and harvesting hope.

photo by Tayler Rae



I like farming. I like the work.
I like the livestock and the pastures and the woods. 
It’s not necessarily a good living, but it’s a good life. 
I now suspect that if we work with machines
the world will seem to us to be a machine,
but if we work with living creatures
the world will appear to us as a living creature. 
That’s what I’ve spent my life doing,
trying to create an authentic grounds for hope.
~Wendell Berry, horse farmer, essayist, poet, professor

photo by Tayler Rae
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Surprising the Sky

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A curious Cloud surprised the Sky,
‘Twas like a sheet with Horns;
The sheet was Blue —
The Antlers Gray —
It almost touched the Lawns.

So low it leaned — then statelier drew —
And trailed like robes away,
A Queen adown a satin aisle
Had not the majesty.
~Emily Dickinson

The sky is full of clouds to-day,
And idly, to and fro,
Like sheep across the pasture, they
Across the heavens go.
I hear the wind with merry noise
Around the housetops sweep,
And dream it is the shepherd boys,—
They’re driving home their sheep.

The clouds move faster now; and see!
The west is red and gold.
Each sheep seems hastening to be
The first within the fold.
I watch them hurry on until
The blue is clear and deep,
And dream that far beyond the hill
The shepherds fold their sheep.

Then in the sky the trembling stars
Like little flowers shine out,
While Night puts up the shadow bars,
And darkness falls about.
~Frank Dempster Sherman “Clouds”

White sheep, white sheep,
On a blue hill,
When the wind stops,
You all stand still.
When the wind blows,
You walk away slow.
White sheep, white sheep,
Where do you go?
~Christina Rossetti “Clouds”

The afternoon sky becomes a chenille bedspread,
covering over a dying autumn landscape.

If only we could throw such a comforter
over our messy human lives.

We all might sleep a bit better…

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