Tag: cascades

Ah, What If?

barnstormingblog1 Comment

What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in your hand
Ah, what then?
~Samuel Coleridge  “What if you slept”

This mountain, this strange and beautiful Shuksan flower that appears suddenly as we round a corner on the hour drive up the Mt. Baker Highway:  this mountain has one foot on earth and one foot in heaven – a thin place if there ever was one.

The only way to approach is in awed silence, as if entering the door of a grand cathedral.  Those who are there speak in hushed tones if they speak at all.

Mt. Shuksan wears autumn lightly about its shoulders as a multi-faceted cloak, barely anticipating the heavy snow coat to descend in the next few weeks.

I hold this mountain tight in my fist, wanting to turn it this way and that, breathe in its fragrance, bring it home with me and never let go.

Ah, what then?

Home is not nearly big enough for heaven to dwell.  I must content myself with this visit to the thin edge, peering through the open door, waiting until invited to come inside.

Original Barnstorming artwork note cards available as a gift to you with a $50 donation to support Barnstorming – information here
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$10.00
$20.00
$50.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is deeply appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Immortal Alps Look Down

barnstormingblog1 Comment

In lands I never saw — they say
Immortal Alps look down —
Whose Bonnets touch the firmament —
Whose Sandals touch the town —

Meek at whose everlasting feet
A Myriad Daisy play —
Which, Sir, are you and which am I
Upon an August day?
~Emily Dickinson #XXX Part Three: Love

What are men to rocks and mountains? 
~Jane Austen from Pride and Prejudice

This August day:

the immortal mountains loom large, a reminder of our transient blossoming at their everlasting feet.

We are but momentary blooms, gracing the ground, waiting patiently for our time in the sun.

Mountains We Had Never Seen

barnstormingblog5 Comments

shuksan927185

 

baker927183

 

shuksan9271810

 

 

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.
~J.R.R. Tolkien from The Fellowship of the Rings

 

 

baker927181

 

shuksan927183

 

Thank God who seasons thus the year, 
And sometimes kindly slants his rays; 
For in his winter he’s most near 
And plainest seen upon the shortest days.

I scent my med’cine from afar,
Where the rude simpler of the year
October leads the rustling war,
And strews his honors on the summer’s bier.

The evening of the year draws on, 
The fields a later aspect wear; 
Since Summer’s garishness is gone, 
Some grains of night tincture the noontide air.
~Henry David Thoreau, selected stanzas from “The Fall of the Leaf”

 

 

shuksanpeekaboo

 

shuksan9271816

 

Wandering in a wild land of beauty,
especially in the coolness of autumn,
with the dry hot melting “garishness” of summer past,
God is most plain in these places,
His slanting rays touching
everything and all,
especially me.

 

 

artistpointfoliage2

 

shuksan9271811

 

 

To Shut Out the Immensity

barnstormingblog2 Comments

shuksan77180

 

He loved mountains,
or he had 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 Tolkien from Lord of the Rings 

 

shuksan77186

 

I am so high in the windy sun,
On the rock-boned back of the highest thing,
That the mountains under me, every one,
Are but wrinkled gestures …. westering.
~Thomas Hornsby Ferril from “One Mountain Hour”

 

 

shuksan77187

 

Surrounded as we are in the northwest by so much raw and rugged beauty, I’m easily overwhelmed.  My breath catches when I turn my face to these monoliths of stone and ice.

There is no sound up there except my heartbeat.  No birds.  Even breezes are silent with no trees or leaves to rustle.  Twenty foot walls of snow.

I am content to gaze at these peaks from afar, now and again to visit awed at their feet, to listen for their stories of near-eternity.

I always retreat back home chastened.

So infinitesimal among such immensity.

 

sisters76184

 

baker6418

Strange Visions of Mountains

barnstormingblog2 Comments

sunrise106172

danartistpoint5
photo by Dan Gibson

 

danartistpoint6
photo by Dan Gibson

 

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.
~ J.R.R. Tolkien from The Fellowship of the Ring

 

bakerswirl2

 

shuksan104174

 

danartistpoint2
photo by Dan Gibson

 

Perhaps we actually dwell in Middle Earth here in the Pacific Northwest where astounding, mysterious and dangerous places abound.
The mountains are much more than strange visions; they stand sentinel over our backyard.

For those who live in the unending horizon of the plains, this is the stuff of dreams.

I wake early each morning,  just in case the color explodes overhead.

It did today.

 

danartistpoint4
photo by Dan Gibson

 

sunrise10617

 

Financial Support for the Barnstorming Blog from our Readers

Your financial support helps to keep this blog an ad-free daily offering. Your contribution of any amount is encouragement to me and deeply appreciated.

$10.00

Needful Vanishing

barnstormingblog1 Comment

sunrise1116151

vanishing

The mountain’s power
lies in the open secret of its remote
apparition, silvery low relief
coming and going moonlike at the horizon,
always loftier, lonelier, than I ever remember.
~Denise Levertov from “Open Secrets”

What does it serve to insist / … that its vanishings / are needful, as silence is to music?
~Denise Levertov from “Against Intrusion”

 

During these stormy autumn days,
the mountain vanishes and reappears
sometimes several times a day.
It peeks out from its cover of blankets
sometimes pink
sometimes gray
always a white comforter snugged to her shoulders.

Like a pause in a symphony overture,
the strings poised with bows above the instrument
the winds taking a breath,
we too all hold our breath,
waiting for the vanishing mountain
to reappear with the downbeat,
grand and sweeping,
ready to carry us away.

sunrise111615

rainbowfarm

Lenten Grace — Emptied and Hollow

barnstormingblog3 Comments

photo by Kathy Yates
photo by Kathy Yates

Experiencing the present purely is being emptied and hollow;
you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I am often unprepared for the rush of challenges each clinic day brings.  Each call, each message, each tug on my arm, each box of kleenex handed over, each look of hopelessness  —  I am emptying continuously throughout the day.  If I’m down and dry, hollowed to the core with no more left to give, I pray for more than I could possibly deserve.

And so it pours over me, torrential and flooding, and I only have a mere cup to hold out for filling.  There is far more cascading grace than I can even conceive of, far more love descending than this cup of mine could ever hold, far more hope ascending from the mist and mystery of doctoring,  over and over again.

I am never left empty for long,  grateful for a hollow hallowed.