Tag: storms

Where the Ordinary Comes Alive

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your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers, 
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
~e.e.cummings from “[somewhere I have never traveled,gladly beyond]

Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is a way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples, and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.
~William Martin from The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents

Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity.
~John Ruskin

It is at the edge of a petal that love waits.
~William Carlos Williams from Spring and All 

Here is the fringy edge where elements meet and realms mingle, where time and eternity spatter each other with foam.
~Annie Dillard from Holy the Firm

We tend to look for love only inside the heart of things,
watching it pulse as both showpiece and show off,
reverberating from deep within,
yet loud enough for all the world to bear witness.

But as I advance on this life’s road,
I find love lies waiting at the periphery of my heart,
fragile and easily torn as a petal edge – 
clinging to the fringe of my days,
holding on through storms and trials.

This love is ever-present,
protects and cherishes,
fed by fine little veins which branch
from the center to the tender margins of infinity.

It is on that delicate edge of forever I dwell,
waiting to be fed, trembling with anticipation.

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Full of Mystery

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It’s strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you. 
~John O’Donohue from Anam Cara

We must learn to acknowledge
that the creation is full of mystery;
we will never entirely understand it.
We must abandon arrogance
and stand in awe.
We must recover the sense
of the majesty of creation,
and the ability to be worshipful in its presence.
For I do not doubt that it is only
on the condition of humility and reverence before the world
that our species will be able to remain in it.
~Wendell Berry from  The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

How did we come here and how is it we remain?

Even when the wind blows mightily,
the waters rise,
the earth shakes,
the fires rage,
the pandemic persists…

~we are here, granted another day to get it right. And will we?

It is strange to be here,
marveling at the mystery around us –
recognizing we are the ultimate mystery of creation,
placed here as its witnesses,
worshiping in humility, with reverence and obedience.

We don’t own what we see;
we only own our awe.

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Apples Plummet Like Rain

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kingapple

 

kingapple

 

And then there is that day when all around,
all around you hear the dropping of the apples, one
by one, from the trees. At first it is one here and one there,
and then it is three and then it is four and then nine and
twenty, until the apples plummet like rain, fall like horse hoofs 
in the soft, darkening grass, and you are the last apple on the
tree; and you wait for the wind to work you slowly free from 
your hold upon the sky, and drop you down and down. Long 
before you hit the grass you will have forgotten there ever 
was a tree, or other apples, or a summer, or green grass below,
You will fall in darkness…
~Ray Bradbury from Dandelion Wine

 

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kingapple2

 

We are in the midst of our annual October storms complete with pelleting sheets of rain and gusty breezes.  Along with power outages and an ever-present risk of flooding, these storms facilitate the annual “falling of the fruit” from our trees.  It is risky to walk in the orchard this time of year – one could stroll about enjoying the brisk temperatures and autumn colors and be unexpectedly bonked on the head and knocked out cold.

The apples thud like horse hooves in the grass as our Haflingers race about in the cool wet weather enjoying the last bit of freedom before the winter lock up.  Apples thud like over large rain drops but without the splatter.  Apples thud after gradually loosening their hold on the sky and plummeting to come to rest on a soft carpet of green.

I recognize this call to let go,  although clinging tenaciously when buffeted, my strength waning.  Thought I fret and worry, the time must come for the pulled-forth fall.  I may land a bit bruised, but will glisten golden from the journey.

 

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autumn927147

 

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