In Blackwater Woods

In Blackwater Woods Mary Oliver

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars

of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment,

the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders

of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is

nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned

in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side

is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world

you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it

against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

Photo Safari On The Little Sioux

Last Sunday morning, Charlie came in my bedroom and said, 'it's photo safari day, where are we going?'. My heart was happy, it's no small feat to share a passion for the natural world and photography with your kids. Will found an old camera of Jack's in his bedroom that we gave to Charlie and now we are a gang of four for our Sunday safaris. We went to the Little Sioux River (when we were still a gang of three and one George) and hiked down the stream bed, it was another beautiful afternoon in what is turning into a lifetime of beautiful afternoons.

One of the things I enjoy most about our outings is watching the kids bent over a flower, fallen log or a patch of moss and realizing they get it. They understand we are blessed and it is the nuances and little details that tell the stories we carry with us. Finding a beautiful mushroom,  a perfectly curled piece of birch bark or a leaf hanging from a spider's web is proof positive that there is magic and divine benevolence in our midst.

Trees are amazing, they find a way to grow skyward and set down roots in just about any situation. I love to see their roots above ground weaving in and out of the river bank. I feel better being around them, they remind to build a strong foundation but remain flexible.

A Ritual To Read To Each Other

This morning, I was in the basement attempting to make sense of the piles of clothes, socks and towels that resembled a small mountain range. Since the basement is NOT my favorite place to be, I thought listening to MPR might make my task more enjoyable. Eboo Patel, founder of InterFaith Youth Core, was offering his perspective on religious intolerance and the resulting violence we read and hear about every day. At the end of his interview, he quoted a portion of the last stanza of William Stafford's poem, 'A Ritual To Read To Each Other'. I stopped sorting clothes and let the phrase, 'For it is important awake people be awake' sit with me. What does it mean to be awake?

The mountain range of clothes kept me in the basement for the majority of the afternoon and I had plenty of time to think about Stafford's poem. I am awake when I am walking on the beach with the dogs, making cream cheese wontons with Charlie and Meghan, going on photo safaris with Will and Sadie on the Little Sioux River, watching Ted and Jack laugh about Henry's snoring or catching a glance of the lake on my way to pick up the kids at school. What awakens me can be as simple as planting a garden or as complex as protecting Lake Superior. It comes down to stewardship and legacy— how will I protect what I love and how will I leave it for my children and grandchildren. Poems like Stafford's remind me to be awake, listen with an open heart, watch the horizon and do everything I can to ensure truth will light the darkness.

A Ritual To Read To Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am and I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail, but if one wanders the circus won't find the park, I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote important region in all who talk: though we could fool each other, we should consider— lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give— yes or no, or maybe— should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford

To Be Of Use

I have an old wooden bowl I bought in Alabama a few years ago. It is beautiful and it sat on a shelf, looking beautiful. One night, a friend of mine suggested we put salad in it for dinner. I thought about it for a minute— what would happen if I filled it with salad greens and put it on the table? The bowl was put to use and looked right at home on the table, much more beautiful than sitting, empty, on the shelf.

Why was I reluctant to use the bowl? It was made years ago for the sole purpose of holding items and somewhere along the line, it moved from wooden bowl to antique. I was scared I would ruin it if I put salad greens in it, it was 'too special'. Ironically, the bowl looks better because of its use— the salad oil has moisturized the wood and it has a beautiful patina. Patina comes from use and that is truly beautiful.

To Be of Use 

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy

Surrender

I took George to the beach yesterday. It was snowing sideways, the waves were hitting the beach hard and the wind was howling— savage beauty. George and I love the beach in all its incarnations: rain-soaked, shrouded in fog, bathed in sunlight or snowbound. I love the beach so much it makes me wax poetic. Seriously, walking the beach is my version of meditation and given the grey noise in my world, a little meditation is a good thing. In between wishing I had worn a hat and gloves, I was thinking about surrender and what it really means.

As I get older, I have begun to see the freedom of surrendering in my life. I have spent 42 years bound and determined to drive my bus whenever, wherever and however I want. It gets exhausting. My mantra lately is to allow space for change. The tricky part for me is realizing the change I am making space for may not be what I envisioned. As I was walking yesterday, I realized true surrender, not surrender on my terms, is trusting what's next is greater than anything I could have dreamt for myself. The beach is my cathedral, I would be lost without the cleansing power of wind and water.

I have walked by a large piece of driftwood on the beach countless times. Yesterday, something caught my eye and I stopped. There is a raven's head, clear as day, on one of the branches. As I stood there in amazement, I knew whatever lies ahead of me, the nurturing guidance of the natural and spiritual worlds is ever-present. On the way back to the car (I really should have worn a hat), I found a perfect dragonfly dusted with sand and snow. I picked it up and brought it home; I thought my warm kitchen might revive it. No such luck, it was a victim of the snow storm. I am going to save it with a note that says, 'surrender to mystery'.

My dear friend, Mindy, sent me C. P. Cavafy's poem, 'Ithaca', right before Good Thyme opened. We have been friends for 22 years and she knew exactly what to give me to mark the beginning of a life I had dreamed of. It eloquently reminds me to relish the journey.

Ithaca

As you set out for Ithaca
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
 
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
 
Keep Ithaca always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.
 
Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
 
And if you find her poor, Ithaca won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithacas mean. 

C.P. Cavafy

Spring Equinox 2012

It's official, spring arrives at 12:14 am tonight. New beginnings and fresh starts- in the garden and ourselves. This has always been a time for reflection- where am I going, what do I want, how am I going to get there? I have a tendency to get wrapped up in endless minutiae and forget to pause, reduce the noise in my head and look around. Rainer Maria Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet, said, "Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Spring starts slowly (except this year). The garden, brown and littered with debris from the winter, starts to awaken and shake off her lethargy. As the days grow longer, she starts to gather steam and finally explodes in the chaotic riot of color and texture of August. But it all starts with a little green shoot in the spring. I want 2012 to be the year I decide to live mindfully, fully engaged in the present moment. I hope to hold the image of tender green leaves emerging from darkness into light and remember to gradually live my way into the answers.