Softest of Mornings and The Lifeline of Awareness and Gratitude

Softest of Mornings by Mary Oliver from Long Life:  Essays and Other Writings (DaCapo Press)
Softest of mornings, hello.
And what will you do today, I wonder,
   to my heart?
And how much honey can the heart stand, I wonder,
   before it must break?

This is trivial, or nothing:  a snail
   climbing a trellis of leaves
     and the blue trumpets of flowers.

No doubt clocks are ticking loudly
   all over the world.
I don't hear them.  The snail's pale horns
   extend and wave this way and that
as her fingers-body shuffles forward, leaving behind
   the silvery path of her slime.

Oh, softest of mornings, how shall I break this?
How shall I move away from the snail, and the flowers?
How shall I go on, with my introspective and ambitious life?


As I was paging through books looking for a poem for this Mary Oliver Monday  I was struck by this one. And not because it speaks to my experience, as is usually the case with what I usually write about; rather because this morning I hear the clock ticking so I haven't been looking at the leaves.

Instead of my normal oozing into the soft morning, today I jumped out of bed, barely glancing out the window and that only to see if it was raining yet, before making coffee and making my bed (in that order) so I could be at my desk and get an early start on work.  Maybe it's the charged air brought about by the approaching storm that has me humming and vibrating and active this morning. Maybe it's the energy behind some work projects that I want to hold onto and perpetuate this week.  Or maybe it's just the knowledge that the pages of my "to do" notebook are filling up faster than things are being crossed out.  Whatever it is, my focus this morning has been on my desk, not on the world outside my window.

And that got me to thinking about awareness and gratitude.

A friend and I were talking about this subject last week.  We'd both been in dark places recently and were sharing how we could to stop ourselves from sliding back down that slippery slope of self-pity and woe that often ends with a canonball into the pit of despair. He said that he has come to realize that lack of gratitude leads to those dark places.  If he holds in one hand something as simple as the blessing of sight and all that comes along with that, it far outweighs any misery he might be tempted to hold onto with the other.  Opening his eyes for a moment of awareness and gratitude each day have become essential for him.

So this morning I may not have spent time looking out my window yet but I can take a moment to be thankful for what I can see here at my desk.  A  soy candle that smells like cedar wood and pine needles reminds me of the trees when I don't have time to get out and walk among them.  The flame of that candle that I light as I sit down to work is an acknowledgment of the presence of the Holy and the Spirit that animates my work and connects it to something bigger.  Icons of Julian of Norwich, Brigid and Melangell  honor the legacy of wise women who have gone before me and the small stack of books on the corner is a nod to the creativity of contemporary women who inspire me.  The containers of Sharpies behind my computer remind me of a young contemporary woman who inspires me, Malala Yousafzai, and makes me ever the more grateful for the freedom and resources I have so often taken for granted in my own pursuit of knowledge.  And the pink and red apples in my grandmother's old milk glass bowl  . . . well the blessings that come along with that sight are far too numerous even to begin to count.

What the birds and Ned Stark know . . .

October by Emily Dickinson
These are the days when Birds come back—
A very few—a Bird or two—
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old—old sophistries of June—
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee—
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear—
And softly thro' the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.

Oh sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze—
Permit a child to join.

Thy sacred emblems to partake—
Thy consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!


I came across this piece yesterday while searching for a poem about bird migration.  I decided to wait and post it this morning, not realizing then that the forecast for the rest of this week would be more June than October-like and thus making it all the more perfect poem for this first day of October.  (And October was its original title although now it's more commonly titled according to its first line as so many of Emily's poems are.)

So why was I looking for a poem about bird migration you may be asking?  Well I'll tell you.  I spent the better part of Sunday morning spying on the various species of birds who were stopping by the dogwood tree in our front yard.  Evidently our neighborhood is an avian rest stop on the migration interstate and Sunday morning that tree must have looked like the equivalent of a Starbucks to our fine feathered friends.  

At first it was the robins who came through.  They caught my attention when one plump bird swooped in to land on the edge of a branch loaded with red berries, only to discover as he put his feet down that it wasn't strong enough to hold him so he toppled to the grass. (If you've never seen a grown bird fall out of a tree in which he's trying to land, it's a pretty amusing sight and makes you reassess the notion that they're graceful creatures.)  He then proceeded to do a repeated hop, bounce and flutter up from the grass to try to get to the branch before giving up and finding a sturdier limb to stand on.  Other robins soon descended, some lighter than the first chubby visitor and thus able to balance on the slender branches.  

After a few minutes, the robins took flight as a cloud of European starlings descended on the neighborhood, noisily making their way from yard to yard and tree to tree. (It's amazing to think that this now highly invasive species of bird started from fewer than 60 released in Central Park in the late 1800's and now number about 150 million.  It seems like at least a million of them  were in Wheaton/Silver Spring/North Kensington on Sunday.) They left and a few stragglers came . . . a yellow bellied sap sucker, a cardinal couple, a smattering of wrens, and one lone brilliant but skittish blue jay.  

Then the process started all over again, minus the robin falling out of the tree.  I guess he learned his lesson. By noon the cranberry leaved dogwood that had been loaded with fire engine red berries when I woke up was stripped clean.

I'm sure there's a lesson about preparation and faith in here somewhere.  Because despite it being a balmy 80 plus degrees this first week in October, as the birds know . . .

(With thanks to George R. R. Martin and the current Game of Thrones mania for
providing a large selection of "Winter is coming" graphics from which to choose.)

Poetry, Presence and Prayer - Remembering R.S. Thomas

Emerging by R. S. Thomas from Frequencies (Macmillan)
Not as in the old days I pray,
God. My life is not what it was...
Once I would have asked healing.
 I go now to be doctored...
to lend my flesh as manuscript of the great poem
Of the scalpel. I would have knelt
long, wrestling with you, wearing
you down. Hear my prayer Lord, hear my prayer. 
As though you were deaf, myriads of morta
lshave kept up their shrill
cry, explaining your silence by their unfitness.

It begins to appear
this is not what prayer is about.
It is the annihilation of difference,
the consciousness of myself in you,
of you in me...I begin to recognize
you anew, God of form and number.
There are questions we are the solution 
to, others whose echoes we must expand
to contain. Circular as our way
is, it leads not back to the snake-haunted
garden, but onward to the tall city
of glass that is the laboratory of the spirit.


Today is the feast of R. S. Thomas.  Well, not officially, although I have no doubt one day it will be, at least on the calendar of the Church in Wales.  But today does mark the thirteenth anniversary of the passing of this great Welsh poet/priest so I thought it fitting to give a nod to R.S. this morning.

I'll admit it took me a while to warm up to him. Thomas isn't exactly a warm and fuzzy kind of poet . . . nor a warm and fuzzy priest from what I've heard from those who knew him.  When I was in Wales a few years ago I attended a lecture about his life in which the presenter (an acquaintance of the poet) had photographs to accompany his talk. A few days later when I had the opportunity to speak to a colleague and close friend of Thomas's, I asked if he ever smiled.  At first his friend was a bit taken aback at the question but as he thought about it he realized he couldn't remember a single instance of him smiling.  He finally said that Thomas's second wife gave him moments of "great delight" and he's sure he must have smiled when with her. I certainly hope so, for both their sake's.  

A photo of Thomas and his wife, obviously the first one.

Despite the gruff demeanor that often came through in his work, the more I read of his poetry, the more I started to warm up to it and to him.  His understanding of the complex political, social and religious climate of Wales and its history struck a deep chord in me.  When it came to his religious verse, though, I found his experience alien and uncomfortable while at the same time beautiful.  In two of his most famous poems, "Via Negativa" and "Absence" he writes about how he experiences the Holy as absence or rather just-missed-presence like when you enter a room that someone has just left.  And while I've definitely had those moments in my spiritual journey, they are fortunately few and far between.  It literally pained me to think of this insightful, talented poet, who's primary vocation was to the priesthood, as never experiencing even a glimpse of the divine presence. 

One morning this past June during the early morning Eucharist at Gladstone's Library, Peter Francis, the warden of Gladstone's,  included several of Thomas's poems in the service. Many of the pieces he read that morning were old favorites of mine and I bobbed along gently on the waves of their words until he got to the above poem.  As he read "Emerging," I was overwhelmed with a tidal wave of emotion and tears. I can't say exactly what brought it on.  Maybe  it was a sense of relief that this poet I so admire had finally had an experience Presence.  Maybe it was guilt for taking for granted my own experience of the same.  Or maybe it was just that I was getting about four hours of sleep a night at that point and was exhausted.  

Whatever it was about this particular poem that touched me so deeply that morning, it continues to do so.
And in addition to (or maybe despite) whatever it was, I have come to realize that in this poem, I think Thomas gives the best definition of prayer, as I understand it, that I've ever come across:

It is the annihilation of difference,
the consciousness of myself in you,of you in me...
Maybe he finally figured out that instead of chasing the just missed presence, the way to experience God is simply to stand still . . . .

A Poem for the First Full Day of Autumn

The Harvest Moon by Ted Hughes from Season Songs (Faber & Faber)
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing, 
A vast balloon, 
Till it takes off, and sinks upward 
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon. 
The harvest moon has come, 
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon. 
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum. 

So people can't sleep,
So they go out where elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.
The harvest moon has come!

And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.

Till the gold fields of stiff wheat
Cry `We are ripe, reap us!' and the rivers
Sweat from the melting hills.

Harvest Moon by George Heming Mason

It's the first full day of autumn here in the northern hemisphere and from the activity in my backyard early this morning, I suspect the birds must sense the seasons have changed.  The robins and wrens have been feeding with a frenzy since dawn, plucking red berries from amidst the dappled leaves of the dogwood trees and poking around the fading wildflower garden for any lingering insects.  

I've been feeling that burst of fall energy as well-- making to do lists (actually a to do notebook as my Facebook friends know), reorganizing my home office, cleaning and clearing out clutter.  I think part of this energy, both mine and that of the birds, is an innate urge to prepare for winter.  Even though we haven't had our first frost yet, the robins are plumping up their rusty breasts and beginning to form flocks, while I'm replenishing my tea stocks and bringing up sweaters from the basement wardrobe.  

At the same time, though, I don't want to rush or work my way through autumn, missing out on its delights.  I want to be aware of the snap of yet another new-to-me tart apple from the farmer's market, pause as I notice the slightly deeper blue of the September sky, breathe in the old book scent of falling leaves.  One reason I chose today's poem by Ted Hughes is that it's one of the few autumn poems I have read that is truly focused on the present moment-- no lamenting the fruitfulness of summer or the songs of spring, no fretting about the cold winter days to come-- simply a celebration of a single autumn evening. 

(If you missed this year's harvest moon last week, you can take a quick break from being in the present to check out some great images on the EarthSky website here.)

Autumn Virtual Art Gallery

going home by Aonghas MacNeacail from The Faber Book of Twentieth Century Scottish Poetry 

see the geese

journeying and

the swallows

long since the cuckoo went

see the red leaves

rising on

the wing of a gust

rising and travelling

the salmon is a great way out

on his journey

the sun reclining

moon rising

            in their familiar changing parabolas

summer journeying

autumn on his back

            a great spreading behind

back and forward on the wharf

            an exile back and forward

back and forward

            back and forward

I woke up this morning a bit chilly from sleeping with my window open last night.  The clamorous thunder storms that rolled through yesterday afternoon and evening have brought a foretaste of autumn. And as it's been a while since I posted a virtual art gallery, I decided a few autumn images by famous artists would be just the thing to accompany this poem by Aonghas MacNeacail and his invitation to see the signs that tell of the changing of the seasons.  For me the first signs were the early apples at my favorite farm market (Zestars are a new favorite) and the already-reddening-leaves on the dogwood trees in the yard.  What signs are you noticing of summer journeying with autumn on his back?  

An Autumn Stroll - Renoir

By the Stream, Autumn - Gaugin

The Church of Old Lyme, Connecticut - Hassam

Autumn Asters 

Birkenwald - Klimt

Wherever

It Was Early by Mary Oliver from Evidence (Beacon Press)
It was early,
  which has always been my hour
    to begin looking
      at the world

and of course,
  even in the darkness,
    to begin
      listening into it,

especially
  under the pines
    where the owl lives
      and sometimes calls out

as I walk by,
  as he did
    on this morning.
      So many gifts!

What do they mean?
  In the marshes
    where the pink light
      was just arriving

the mink
  with his bristle tail
    was stalking
      the soft-eared mice,

and in the pines
  the cones were heavy,
    each one
      ordained to open.

Sometimes I need
  only to stand
    wherever I am
      to be blessed.

Little mink, let me watch you.
  Little mice, run and run.
    Dear pine cone, let me hold you
      as you open.

Edward Hopper - Cape Cod Morning

For some reason, I've been awake early these past few mornings.  It's still dark outside when I open my eyes so I lie in bed and listen to the world waking up outside my window.  At first I wonder how I've managed to sleep through the insect noises during the night.  The crickets and cicadas drown out the sounds of the pre-dawn commuters on Connecticut Avenue.  As the traffic picks up, so do the birds arriving in the backyard looking for breakfast.  Before too long I'll start hearing the early morning honks of geese flying overhead but for now it's mainly the tweets and whistles of robins, wrens, and the occasional caws of a murder of crows.

With the birds, comes a tinge of light.  I've been pulling back my curtains, trying to see the sunrise but the horizon is obscured by trees and houses.  Rather than a dramatic, colorful unfolding, day light arrives like a faulty halogen light, taking its time getting brighter.    By the time the bus pauses at the stop nearby and announces in its automated female voice, "L8, Friendship Heights," morning has arrived.

Sometimes I read Mary Oliver and wonder if I'd be more of a morning person if I could step out of my house and walk a few yards into the woods, to the beach, or to a nearby pond.  And sometimes I need only to stand (or lie) wherever I am to be blessed.

Once Upon a Time . . . A Damascene Moon

A Damascene Moon by Nizar Qabbani
Green Tunisia, I have come to you as a lover
On my brow, a rose and a book
For I am the Damascene whose profession is passion
Whose singing turns the herbs green
A Damascene moon travels through my blood
Nightingales . . . and grain . . . and domes
From Damascus, jasmine begins its whiteness
And fragrances perfume themselves with her scent
From Damascus, water begins . . . for wherever
You lean your head, a stream flows
And poetry is a sparrow spreading its wings
Over Sham . . . and a poet is a voyager
From Damascus, love begins . . . for our ancestors
Worshiped beauty, they dissolved it, and they melted away
From Damascus, horses begin their journey
And the stirrups are tightened for the great conquest
From Damascus, eternity begins . . . and with her
Languages remain and genealogies are preserved
And Damascus gives Arabism its form
And on its land, epochs materialize 

I woke up wanting to post something about Syria today but have spent the better part of today's writing time struggling to find the right words, both my own and those of another to anchor this post.  When I finally decided upon a poem by Qabbani I had a few from which to choose.  I kept going back and forth between the poem above and A Lesson In Drawing, the latter a heartbreaking commentary on living with oppression and the reality of political violence.  

I finally decided on A Damascene Moon because I wanted to offer images of Syria in contrast to those recently seen on the news. Qabbani writes about an idealized Damascus of the past, an epicenter of life and culture, which seem far removed from the stories of death and conflict coming out of Syria's capital in recent weeks.   

In 2009 I was fortunate to visit Syria.  From the minute I stepped off the plane onto the runway and could smell the Bedouin fires I'd seen dotting the desert on our nighttime descent, I felt like I was in a fairy tale.  And as the struggle with evil in human form is so much a part of any fairy tale, I can only hope that when this chapter of Syrian history has been completed, Damascus will once again be a city where life and culture is preserved rather than destroyed.

RIP Seamus Heaney

Digging by Seamus Heaney from Death of a Naturalist (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Between my finger and my thumb   The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   
Bends low, comes up twenty years away   
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
Seamus Heaney taught me to write poetry. Well, actually George O'Brien taught me to write poetry, with the help of the above poem by Heaney.  It was during an Irish literature class Professor O'Brien taught at Georgetown University as part of the Liberal Studies graduate program.  We read Yeats and Joyce, of course, then Kavanagh and Kinsella, and finally Seamus Heaney.  As Professor O'Brien unpacked this poem that, on one level, is about the very act of writing poetry, he showed us how the images, rhyme structure, diction, and form all work together to create a perfect poem.  I can honestly say it was a miracle worker moment for me.  Like Helen Keller at the pump associating the letters being spelled out on her palm with the word water, I realized that it was more than just a loose association of words on a page that equaled poetry.

The sad thing was, I had spent many years writing poetry.  Just the year before, I'd taken a poetry writing class at that same university, albeit with a different instructor.  In that class, we started out with free writing using Peter Elbow's book, Writing with Power, and then jumped straight into the deep end of the poetry pool, bringing in our poems for group critique, which was the bulk of the class.  No lessons in between to teach us the rhythm or breath or stroke-- it was sink or swim and naturally we all sank.

Likewise, I'm sure I studied poetry in high school, but I don't really recall learning what makes a poem a poem.  In one assignment we had to choose a poem, memorize it, and write a paper about it.  The paper wasn't as much about the poem itself, rather about the literary criticism associated with the poem.  I think the only reason I remember that assignment is because we were supposed to go to the Library of Congress to do the research.  My father dropped me off at the Library and I spent my allotted hour lost in the back stairwells, never actually making it to any books.  In the end, I went to my local library and picked Carl Sandburg's "Chicago," not because I particularly liked the poem but because there were two books of poetry criticism that referenced the poem and I figured that was good enough to simulate the resources available at the Library of Congress.  Oh-- and then there was the time we had to pick a poem and do an interpretive reading as a group.  I convinced our group that The Cremation of Sam McGee would likely earn us, if not an A, at least a few laughs from our classmates.  It did both.  

Yet during all those years of oblivion as to what poetry actually entailed, I continued to write poems, often inspired by the worksI devoured in elementary school-- namely various books of limericks and the collected canon of Shel Silverstein.  My poems probably weren't too bad for a 5 year old but for a 25 year old, they sucked.  And I finally knew why.  

So it was during that Irish literature class at Georgetown that I decided to stop writing poetry and started reading poetry instead. If one Seamus Heaney poem provided such insight, no doubt there was a lot more I could learn from reading other great poems.  To the mix of the Irish poets I read in class I added others from the British Isles:  the old guard of Shelley, Keats, Blake, Byron and the Brownings along with Dylan Thomas, T.S. Eliot, and the dreamy Rupert Brooke.  I discovered an anthology of contemporary poets by Blood Axe Books and started reading poets who were actually alive and some of whom were around my age.  And when I did start writing poetry again, I found it was much better.  Not great, often not even good, but definitely better.  

So thank you Seamus Heaney, for teaching me to write poetry.  You illumined so many lives.  May light perpetual shine upon you.

Heaney reading "Digging" at Villanove courtesy of the WSJ online

Mary Oliver Monday - Don't tell the CDC we're starting an epidemic

Mozart, for Example by Mary Oliver from Thirst (Beacon Press)
All the quick notes
Mozart didn’t have time to use
before he entered the cloud boat

are falling now from the beaks
of the finches
that have gathered from the joyous summer

into the hard winter
and, like Mozart, they speak of nothingbut light and delight,

though it is true, the heavy blades of the world
are still pounding underneath.
And this is what you can do too, maybe,

if you live simply and with a lyrical heart
in the cumbered neighborhoods or even,
as Mozart sometimes managed to, in a palace,

offering tune after tune after tune,
making some hard-hearted prince
prudent and kind, just by being happy.


I'm posting this poem in honor of someone who will likely never see it.  I don't know much about him.  I don't know his name or where he lives.  I don't know who his friends or family are.  I don't even know if he has friends or family, although I can't imagine he doesn't.  I don't know if he's gay or straight, partnered or single.  I don't know if he's Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist or Hindu or Zoroastrian or unaffiliated or other.  

All I know is that just when I needed a shot of positive energy this weekend, there he was, bouncing down Connecticut Avenue by the firehouse in Kensington, beaming at everyone he saw.  He exuded joy and I found myself smiling as I drove past, infected by his contagious smile.  

So thank you, happy-guy-walking-down-the-street with your backpack on.  Today I'll do my best to help spread the epidemic of light and delight, just by being happy.  

In case you need a little motivation and don't have a bouncy guy in a backpack walking down the street to inspire you, here's a 30 second clip from the brilliant movie, Amadeus, of Tom Hulce as Mozart laughing. 

Looking at the grass on Mary Oliver Monday

The Singular and Cheerful Life by Mary Oliver from Evidence (Beacon Press)

The singular and cheerful life

of any flower

in anyone's garden

or any still unowned field--

if there are any--

catches me

by the heart,

by its color

by its obedience

to the holiest of laws:

be alive

until you are not.

Ragweed,

pale violet bull thistle,

morning glories curling

through the field corn;

those princes of everything green--

the grasses

of which there are truly

an uncountable company,

each on its singular stem

striving

to rise and ripen.

What, in the earth world,

is there not to be amazed by

and to be steadied by

and to cherish?

Oh, my dear heart,

my own dear heart,

full of hesitations,

questions, choice of directions,

look at the world.

Behold the morning glory,

the meanest flower, the ragweed, the thistle.

Look at the grass.

"Look at the grass." 

It was what I told myself as I stood on a narrow dirt path with the Irish Sea raging below me.  In the not-too-far-away distance was Middle Mouse, or Ynys Badrig (Patrick's Island), home to razorbills and cormorants and the northern most point in Wales.  But I couldn't pause to do any bird spotting or stop and take in the dramatic view.  My only focus was getting back the path I'd come across without being swept over the edge by the gale force winds or, more likely, stumbling over my own feet and tumbling down the rocky hill into the sea below me. 

The initial walk to where I was hadn't been nearly as petrifying.  I was wandering around the churchyard at Llanbadrig on Anglesey Island, trying to find a solitary place to perch when I first spied the path.

Many of my fellow pilgrims had gone away from the churchyard, up and over the hills to a bench where the Dalai Lama had reportedly sat for a while before proclaiming the seascape the most beautiful view he'd ever seen.  Others remained inside the sanctuary of the small church, admiring the Islamic inspired stained glass windows, chatting with the ladies filling the church with flowers for Sunday, and trying to stay out of the fierce wind. 

I was walking among the graves, as I often like to do, but even the presence of those dearly departed felt like too much company for me at the time.  So when I looked over the wall and saw the narrow grass and dirt path leading away from the church and the hill with the amazing view, I decided to follow it.

And follow it I did, marveling at the ombre of blues as sea met sky in the distance, wondering if the path really went through the mass of gorse ahead (as you can see by the picture it did), and wondering about the centuries of footsteps that had flattened and worn away the grass.  Perhaps even St. Patrick himself had walked along that very cliff after he'd recovered from his little ship wreck adventure. 

At the point where there was little spare land between my feet and a rocky cove below, the path turned away from the sea and wound its way up into green fields spotted with suspicious ewes who bleated warnings at their lambs as I approached. 

I debated walking further but decided not to disturb the sheep so I turned to head back and I froze.  For the first time I noticed how narrow the path was, how uneven, how undefined at places. And that wind!  Did it just start blowing that hard or had I not noticed the effort it took to remain upright as it howled around me?  I thought about turning around again and continuing along the path through the sheep fields but rather than heading back towards the road, it looked like it just continued along the sea, albeit at a safer distance from the rocks and water.

So I made my way back the way I came, placing one foot in front of the other, testing the sureness of the path, feeling for hidden dips or unseen stones that would send me careening down into the angry waters of the Irish Sea, the sight of which now caused my heart to quicken with fear.  I avoided looking at the drop by focusing my peripheral vision on the other side of the path.  "Look at the grass," I'd tell myself, look at the grass."  Of course, I made it back just fine and in one piece, albeit with my muscles a bit more tense than when I started.

It wasn't until I got home and was looking at the pictures from Llanbadrig that I realized the lesson for me in that walk.  Too often I embark upon a path with fear and hesitancy, rather than wonder and curiosity.  I get caught up in the narrowness of the track and the fierceness of the wind and when I do that, I expend much more energy-- mental and physical-- in inching forward than if I just trusted the way and admired the view.  Or even worse, I stay stuck where I am, in a place of perceived safety.  That walk along the path at St. Patrick's Church has become a touchstone for me, a reminder to act out of a place of trust and love rather than fear and doubt.  For as Mary Oliver writes, "What, in the earth world/is there not to be amazed by/and to be steadied by . . . Look at the grass."

Mary Oliver Monday - The Summer Day for a perfect summer day

THE SUMMER DAY by Mary Oliver from New and Selected Poems:  Volume One (Beacon Press)
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Sometimes it's a good idea to hold on to a thing, to keep the obvious tucked away until the time isn't merely good, rather, exquisitely perfect, to make your oblation.  Then, you can pull out what has been saved with a flourish and cry, "Voila!" turning something ubiquitous into something magical.

In as many times as I've posted a Mary Oliver poem on this blog, I've shied away from "The Summer Day,"  preferring to offer poems that are less well known and definitely less well quoted.  But something about this morning's clear blue sky, the breeze ruffling the grass, the sound of the cicadas in the maple tree outside my bedroom window, and the work I have to do the rest of the day made me realize it is indeed the perfect day for "The Summer Day."

Voila!  I give you the magic of Mary Oliver.

A particular eastern tiger swallow tail
visiting my wildflower garden

The magic for me this morning comes in hearing something new in a poem that I've read a gazillion
times before.  As with many people, I'm often left pondering the punch of the poem's last lines.  What captured my attention today though were the stepping stones of the first lines, that movement from the universal (literally) to the particularity of one specific grasshopper.

So, rather than viewing little details as distractions that lead me away from the picture work I have to do today, the invitation to me is to see in the particulars the opportunity to pay attention.  Quite a challenge for an Enneagram 7 and a Myers Briggs INFP but I'll give it a go, because who am I to argue with a Mary Oliver poem?

Mary Oliver Monday - A Lot of Images Meaning "Thanks"

THE MORNING WALK by Mary Oliver from Long Life:  Essays and Other Writings
(Da Capo Press)

There are a lot of words meaning thanks.
Some you can only whisper.
Others you can only sing.
The pewee whistles instead.
The snake turns in circles,
the beaver slaps his tail
on the surface of the pond.
The deer in the pinewoods stamps his hoof.
Goldfinches shine as they float through the air.
A person, sometimes, will hum a little Mahler.
Or put arms around old oak tree.
Or take out lovely pencil and notebook and find a few
touching, kissing words.


Or a person, sometimes, will pull out her camera and try to capture moments that inspired such overwhelming feelings of gratitude, perhaps in order to return to those images with a notebook and pencil at a later date, inviting the words to come after they've had some time to simmer. 

That's the work I find I'm doing now so I thought on this Mary Oliver Monday I'd share some images of thanks with you and invite you to share what has you saying, "Thanks," lately.



The resilience of nature
 

Doors opening
 

The survival of ancient wisdom


 




The beauty of perspective
 



Firm footholds on bumpy paths

                     

 



Blue sky, blue sea, blue bell . . . so many shades of blue.



This view



Curiosity and Daring



Artistic whimsy



The pleasure of discovering small surprises



Connecting with the ancestors

Vibrant colors



Acting without fear





Revisiting thin places