Light Through the Window

As much as I love walking around outside and seeing what's out there, and there is always something new, I also appreciate those things I see in a new light here inside, how the morning light plays with the objects I walk by every day. On this particular morning, I was struck by the shadows on the ottoman next to the bookshelves, reflected in the rug at their feet.

However, it was not the first thing I noticed this morning. It was that the petals had fallen from the small bouquet of peonies I'd picked two days ago. The scent was heavenly, and what remained, though a bit gangly, gave me a whole new view of their soft beauty. I noticed the small knob on the stem standing out in the light, the veins in the leaves just above it and how the water created little bubbles of moisture at the top of the vase. Later today, I'll pick a fresh bouquet. I love having enough for a few inside as well.

Last night, a thunderstorm passed through. Actually, it did more than pass, it stayed around for the entire evening. So, I unplugged myself from all technology, and curled up with Buddy in the corner of the sectional next to the window. I love storms and am so grateful Buddy doesn't get unnerved by them. We watched and listened. Now, this morning, the light coming through the windows is creating a really nice postlude.

While checking out new posts by fellow bloggers, I came across two, each offering music as the perfect accompaniment to the beginning of the day. I found the video at the bottom over at coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com. I hope you'll go to this link (you'll need to check for it on his sidebar), because just below the video there is an equally perfect poem by Mary Oliver: "The Sun."

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And Will, at verticalsearcher.blogspot.com has a wonderful music video posted of, "A Small Measure of Peace," from the movie, "The Last Samurai." Between these two musical selections, a poem by Mary Oliver, and the light coming through the windows, it's been one fine morning.

What the Bumblebee Said

When I first bought this place, almost two years ago now, I made a promise to myself that I would come to know every nook and cranny, that I would teach myself to fully see everything around me and it would become as familiar to me as my childhood home was, after years of exploration. 

Every day, on our walk in the meadow behind the house, Buddy covers the now familiar ground as though for the first time. He never seems to tire of it. Together, we're seeing things (well, he's mostly smelling things) from a renewed perspective.

For example: the other day, a tree that sits along the fence line, and which appears to be half-dead, was alive with butterflies. A variety of them floated around my head and some even posed for me. I was particularly smitten by this beauty.  Her velvety brown wings tipped with circles of blue and fringed with white, reminded me of a dress I wore to a Christmas concert when I was 15. I played the clarinet, rather poorly, and that's not a humble statement. It was really bad.

Just across from the butterfly tree is my garden, where I was faced with yet another tree that's in dire need of pruning, but the pink blossoms sprouting from the almost bare branches asked me to wait until later in the season, and then only with great care. Where there is life, there is hope. That's what the bumblebee said.

When I turned, I saw my cabin through the trees. From the back, the green and blue reflected in the windows caught my attention.

As did the vines starting to fill out around the roof line of the chicken coop and garden shed:

Then it was the old snow fence lying curled up in the corner...

...several patches of little white flowers next to the skeletal remains of a long-abandoned shed, and the play of shadows on what is left of its walls:

Back at the garage (a term I use loosely), a collection of blue shovels Otis left behind (I trust he didn't need them where he was going) was reflected in the metal siding, along with some of the irises he planted:

When I went to get some garden tools from the shed, the mama bird, who created this magnificent nest in the rafters, sat on the lilac bush just outside and expressed concern for my presence, as her offspring patiently waited with open beaks. Of course, when they knew I was there they quickly closed them.

No, it doesn't look like Buddy and I will be running out of things to see, or smell, any time soon. The wild roses that line the north side of my vegetable garden are just starting to bloom:

Buddy, grown tired of posing, says hi.

Here's Joni Mitchell performing "Woodstock" at Big Sur, in 1969: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBqodL2OJ1A

"I dreamed I saw the bombers
riding shotgun in the sky
turn right into butterflies
above our nation."

~ Joni

Lieutenant Hope is Adjusting my Helmet

"The Future"

On the afternoon talk shows of America
the guests have suffered life's sorrows
long enough. All they require now
is the opportunity for closure,
to put the whole thing behind them
and get on with their lives. That their lives,
in fact, are getting on with them even
as they announce their requirement
is written on the faces of the younger ones
wrinkling their brows, and the skin
of their elders collecting just under their
set chins. It's not easy to escape the past,
but who wouldn't want to live in a future
where the worst has already happened
and Americans can finally relax after daring
to demand a different way? For the rest of us,
the future, barring variations, turns out
to be not so different from the present
where we have always lived -- the same
struggle of wishes and losses, and hope,
that old lieutenant, picking us up
every so often to dust us off and adjust
our helmets. Adjustment, for that matter,
may be the one lesson hope has to give,
serving us best when we begin to find
what we didn't know we wanted in what
the future brings. Nobody would have asked
for the ice storm that takes down trees
and knocks the power out, leaving nothing
but two buckets of snow melting
on the wood stove and candlelight so weak,
the old man sitting at the kitchen table
can hardly see to play cards. Yet how else
but by the old woman's laughter
when he mistakes a jack for a queen
would he look at her face in the half-light as if
for the first time while the kitchen around them
and the very cards he holds in his hands
disappear?  In the deep moment of his looking
and her looking back, there is no future,
only right now, all, anyway, each one of us
has ever had, and all the two of them,
sitting together in the dark among the cracked
notes of the snow thawing beside them
on the stove, right now will ever need.

~ Wesley McNair


wesleymcnair.com/


"Main Street Mansion," by Grant Wood. Pencil, chalk, charcoal on brown paper, 20 x 15 3/4.
It was one of the illustrations used in the Grant Wood illustrated edition of Sinclair Lewis', Main Street.

Some Enchanted Evening Along the Santa Fe Trail

One of my favorite poets is Naomi Shihab Nye. There's something gentle and kind about her writing and it comes through in every word. When I read her poem, "Full Day," which you'll find below, I was reminded of my own small box of treasures filled with memories gathered many years ago. My mother bought it for me for my twelfth birthday.

We had been out shopping together, perhaps for my birthday present but I'm not certain, when we stopped in a store very near to where I am now living. While there, I spotted a beautiful, black lacquer music box with a Japanese design and doors inside to hold jewelry, should I ever have any. I stared at it, turned the mechanism underneath, opened it so I could listen to its tune, "Some Enchanted Evening," then glanced at my mother a time or two to let her quietly know I had found something absolutely perfect. Did I think she'd actually buy it?  It seemed far-fetched from where I stood.

But, a few minutes later she did just that. I felt like the richest girl alive when we left that store. I can remember sitting in the car on the way home with the music box in my lap, unable to believe it was actually mine.

It's a tad travel worn now, but it still contains some treasures from earlier times. The mechanism that played the music as well as the inner hinges broke a long time ago so I haven't been able to listen to its tune for over twenty years. Except for this ...

I was getting ready to move from Santa Fe back to Minnesota, carefully carrying it from the house out to the garage where I planned to pack it in a box filled with newspaper before its return home. I held it close in both hands, as you do when you're carrying a box of treasure. As I stepped through the door into the garage the music started playing. I stood in disbelief and quietly waited as it played, "Some Enchanted Evening," all the way through, with the lid closed. And then it ended. Though I tried several times it never played again.  That is, until today. The deeply meaningful reason I received this message today shall remain my private understanding. But I'd like to share the poem with you that brought forth this memory.


"Full Day"

The pilot on the plane says:
In one minute and fifty seconds
we're going as far
as the covered wagon went
in a full day.
We look down
on clouds,
mountains of froth and foam.
We eat a neat
and subdivided lunch.
How was it for the people in
the covered wagon?
They bumped and jostled.
Their wheels broke.
Their biscuits were tough.
They got hot and cold and old.
Their shirts tore on the branches
they passed.
But they saw the pebbles
and the long grass
and the sweet shine of evening
settling on the fields.
They knew the ruts and the rocks.
They threw their furniture out
to make the wagons lighter.
They carried their treasures
in a crooked box.


~ Naomi Shihab Nye, from Come with Me



Among the treasures in my own "crooked box" is a small amber hair comb that belonged to my mother, long before she became my mother, as well as an amber beaded necklace from her youth.

Images:
The music box.
My mother, at the age of 16. She passed on in the year 2000.

A Tale Called Time

It's been many years since I read Born on the Fourth of July, the story of Ron Kovic and the terrible aftermath of his time served in Viet Nam, yet I still can recall my response and the tears shed while reading his closing words remembering a particular day in his young life, a moment of almost unbearable poignancy, before the war and the wheelchair. He wrote, "There was a song called "Runaway" by a guy named Dell Shannon playing one Saturday at the baseball field. I remember it was a beautiful spring day and we were young back then and really alive and the air smelled fresh...."

This seemingly small moment in time had somehow remained fixed, as though the day itself had just happened and all of life was yet to come. We probably all have these moments, moments that come to define us. I am very grateful that my own have not been marked by tragedy.

On days such as this one, it's easier to sense the goodness life has wrought. The sun is shining bright in a cloudless blue sky, a slight breeze comes up every few minutes and rustles the leaves on the trees. Three goldfinches share the bird feeder with a pair of red-winged blackbirds, the deep pink blossoms of a crab apple tree as their backdrop. The shadows created by the tree limbs, outlined on the grass below, feel peaceful and right.

Earlier, I had walked to the almost-overgrown orchard next to the field and watched as a bumblebee buried its nose in a soft white apple blossom, while a small yellow butterfly settled briefly in the tall grass, flew a few inches and settled again, doing this over and over until it moved out of sight.

On my way back to the house, I stopped to look at the old license plates Otis had nailed to the shed in the years before I arrived, a simple progression of numbers telling a tale called time.

Then, I looked over at my garden gate and thought of the sugar snap peas, quietly pushing their way through the dark earth to the waiting sunlight.

"Runaway," for those who might want to remember:

Philosophy and Potato Planting

After coming in from planting two rows of potatoes, 36 soon-to-be-hills of a variety of red and Yukon gold, I had me a little nap and then I started messing around on the computer. Next thing I know, here I am talking about it. Good grief. You'd think I'd have something better to do on a Saturday night. But, I don't. Hey, I have my potatoes planted. There's a super-moon tonight. And all is well with the world. Well, maybe not, but let's pretend, just for tonight, shall we?  Even this Linda Pastan poem I found a short while ago seems to fit right into the scheme of things. I've read only a few poems by her thus far, but every one resonates in some fashion.

"Clock"

Sometimes it really upsets me --
the way the clock's hands keep moving,

even when I'm just sitting here
not doing anything at all,

not even thinking about anything
except, right now, about the clock

and how it can't keep its hands still.
Even in the dark I picture it, and all

its brother and sister clocks and watches,
even sundials, all those compulsive timepieces

whose only purpose seems to be
to hurry me out of this world.

~Linda Pastan


Speaking of being hurried out of this world: today is Soren Kierkegaard's birthday (1813-1855). On a bookshelf behind my chair sits a framed quote (I like to think of it as my prayer) by this Danish philosopher and theologian. I've included it in a previous post, probably two years ago now, but I'm re-posting it today not only as a way to honor him, but also to remind myself to pray for this daily and to live it more effectively:

"As my prayer became more and more attentive and inward, I had less and less to say. I finally became completely silent.... This is how it is. To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking. Prayer involves becoming silent, and being silent, and waiting until God is heard."   ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Both images are paintings by van Gogh.

If interested in Kierkegaard, here's a good site: plato.stanford.edu/entries/Kierkegaard

Followed by a Jackson Pollock Morning

A few evenings ago, I was taken by surprise at the sound of seagulls flying overhead. I've seen them congregating in parking lots where they expect to find fast food flung out of car windows, and they're usually found on larger lakes in the area throughout the summer, but I wasn't expecting to see flocks of them flying over Lonewolf in late April.

To enhance the scene, they were flying against the backdrop of a waxing crescent moon, lit by the sun still sinking in the west. Off the moon's shoulder sat Venus, like a lantern suspended by thick twilight. The sound and the scene kept me standing there for several minutes. It was a really beautiful sight. I thought about my favorite seagull of all, Jonathan Livingston. He taught me valuable lessons way back in the '70's, lessons that have stayed with me and continue to serve me well.

The next morning, as I was leaving to have lunch with a friend, I found my blue car covered in white splotches of seagull poop. It looked like Jackson Pollock had paid a visit. I almost felt avant garde as I drove the ten miles to the nearest car wash. Almost.

Images: Jackson Pollock's 1 - 4

A Maxfield Parrish Evening

It doesn't take much to make me happy. For instance, the sunset this evening ...


"You Reading This, Be Ready"

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a greater gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life.

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

~ William Stafford





www.parrish-house.com

The photograph is mine.

Moving Brush Piles in the Rain

Before turning in last night, I stepped outside to listen to the river churning as it made its way around the bend and under the bridge. It's running high and fast this spring and I love the sound it makes in the dark. However. As I looked down in the hollow I could make out the silhouette of a brush pile I had spontaneously created when I first moved in here two summers ago and to which I have recently been adding. I could see, even in the dark, that the pile will be hiding the many irises that are getting ready to bloom. A couple of days ago I cleaned out a tire full of them that Otis had created nearby. Yes, a tire full of irises. There was a time when I might have blushed at that revelation, but now I view it as a fine form of recycling.

I actually have a few old tires in the back part of the yard that have been used for flowers in the past, before I arrived, that I'm cleaning out and planning to care for, as well as ten very large tractor tires that were used in creating another vegetable garden out near the road. I went by it two evenings ago on a walk with Buddy and thought again of reworking it, cleaning out the tires and planting potatoes in them. I've read where big tires are good for planting several things, potatoes first and foremost. Talk about a nice raised bed. Plus, when spring is in full bloom I will be working next to the lilac bushes which form that corner of my property, another nice bonus. We shall see ...

Back to the brush pile.

When I woke early this morning to the sound of rain and leftover feelings from some unsettling dreams, I thought again of that poorly placed brush pile and decided I should move it as soon as possible. I didn't want anything obstructing my view of the flowers. And as much as I actually like brush piles and the notion that they can be habitat for a variety of creatures, I knew this one needed moving.

So, while Buddy was still sleeping I quietly left the house, went into the rain and did just that. I can't remember feeling this happy about outside work. It was so peaceful and satisfying. As I worked, I thought about a Robert Morgan poem I had read many months ago. It's been waiting in the wings for the perfect morning to be shared. And this is the perfect morning.


"Working in the Rain"

My father loved more than anything to
work outside in wet weather. Beginning
at daylight he'd go out in dripping brush
to mow or pull weeds for hogs and chickens.
First his shoulders got damp and the drops from
his hat ran down his back. When even his
armpits were soaked he came in to dry out
by the fire, make coffee, read a little.
But if the rain continued he'd soon be
restless, and go out to sharpen tools in
the shed or carry wood in from the pile,
then open up a puddle to the drain,
working by steps back into the downpour.
I thought he sought the privacy of rain,
the one time no one was likely to be
out and he was left to the intimacy
of drops touching every leaf and tree in
the woods and the easy muttering of
drip and runoff, the shine of pools behind
grass dams. He could not resist the long
ritual, the companionship and freedom
of falling weather, or even the cold
drenching, the heavy soak and chill of clothes
and sobbing of fingers and sacrifice
of shoes that earned a baking by the fire
and washed fatigue after the wandering
and loneliness in the country of rain.

~ Robert Morgan

P.S. Robert Morgan is the same poet who wrote "White Autumn." Remember the woman in the rocking chair with clay pipe hidden in the cabinet?  Same poet.  Here it is if you'd like a reminder: teresaevangeline.blogspot.com/2012/01/everything-is-ok-just-way-it-is.html

The images were taken last year, later in the spring, when the irises were blooming and things had greened up considerably.

Blackbirds in the Snow

After several weeks of spring yard work and cleaning out the gardens to reveal the tiny shoots of greenery just peeking through the damp earth, I woke up to several inches of snow this morning. I knew it was coming, had read the news the evening before, and when I finally went to bed shortly before midnight the snow was already starting to come down. I have to say, I not only don't mind, but I'm feeling quite peaceful about it. There's something very calming about a late snow, as though the momentum we had been riding requires a hiatus, a breather, a reminder to Be Here Now,* to be a part of the great I Am.

"Manna"

Everywhere, everywhere, snow sifting down,
a world becoming white, no more sounds,
no longer possible to find the heart of the day,
the sun is gone, the sky is nowhere, and of all
I wanted in life -- so be it -- whatever it is
that brought me here, chance, fortune, whatever
blessing each flake of snow is the hint of, I am
grateful, I bear witness, I hold out my arms,
palms up, I know it is impossible to hold
for long what we love of the world, but look
at me, is it foolish, shameful, arrogant to say this,
see how the snow drifts down, look how happy
I am.

~ Joseph Stroud

*Be Here Now, by Ram Dass.

Joseph Stroud is an American poet born in 1943.

The photographs are mine.

To Drink Water from Cupped Hands

A beautiful male cardinal, who appeared to be flying solo, stopped by my yard this morning and sat in the crab apple tree long enough for me to take a few photos. Last year a lone cardinal passed through and I couldn't help but wonder if it's the same one, returning along a traditional route to his summer home.

The trees are budding out despite very cold nighttime temps and several gloomy, not-so-warm days. But today the sun is shining and so I stopped to admire the trees at the far end of the rock garden near the hollow. Their tiny tips of red and green waving in the wind against the blue sky remind me that everything is going according to plan. The world knows what it's doing without me having to do a thing except witness its effortless awakening.

Passing a bird house that had gone unnoticed when I first moved here, I stopped to admire the peeling paint of what must have been a rather colorful little dwelling once upon a time. I thought about Otis, the man who cared for this place so lovingly, noted the date he'd painted on the back of the birdhouse, and renewed my own commitment to the land.

As I walked up the sloping lawn, my father came to mind and I was momentarily filled with a sadness over the fact that he is no longer in this world. This man who loved the world and yet struggled at times to find peace within it, who saw eighty-four springs (it seems like such a paltry number now), is not here to see this spring. And now, I can't seem to shake a Raymond Carver poem I read a few days ago. It speaks to why I returned to this place of my childhood. I thought you might like it, too.


"The Trestle"

I've wasted my time this morning, and I'm deeply ashamed.
I went to bed last night thinking about my dad.
About that little river we used to fish -- Butte Creek --
near Lake Almanor. Water lulled me to sleep.
In my dream, it was all I could do not to get up
and move around. But when I woke early this morning
I went to the telephone instead. Even though
the river was flowing down there in the valley,
in the meadows, moving through ditch clover.
Fir trees stood on both sides of the meadows. And I was there.
A kid sitting on a timber trestle, looking down.
Watching my dad drink from his cupped hands.
Then he said, "This water's so good.
I wish I could give my mother some of this water."
My father still loved her, though she was dead
and he'd been away from her for a long time.
He had to wait some more years
until he could go where she was. But he loved
this country where he found himself. The West.
For thirty years it had him around the heart,
and then it let him go. He went to sleep one night
in a town in northern California
and didn't wake up. What could be simpler?

I wish my own life, and death, could be so simple.
So that when I woke on a fine morning like this,
after being somewhere I wanted to be all night,
somewhere important, I could move most naturally
and without thinking about it, to my desk.

Say I did that, in the simple way I've described.
From bed to desk back to childhood.
From there it's not so far to the trestle.
And from the trestle I could look down
and see my dad when I needed to see him.
My dad drinking that cold water. My sweet father.
The river, its meadows, and firs, and the trestle.
That. Where I once stood.

I wish I could do that
without having to plead with myself for it.
And feel sick of myself
for getting involved in lesser things.
I know it's time I changed my life.
This life -- the one with its complications
and phone calls -- is unbecoming,
and a waste of time.
I want to plunge my hands in clear water. The way
he did. Again and then again.

~ Raymond Carver

The photographs are mine.

So Much is Happening Out There

Early this morning, I mean really early this morning, even before the light was glinting off the metal roof of the old chicken coop, I was sitting here thinking about all that is going on out there, 'there' being the world of nature ... all the creatures sleeping in their burrows or nests, perhaps nestled in among their young ... those sleeping in the meadow and under the pines, or returning to their places of rest after spending several hours roaming the night ... and those who are waking to another day. And, I just read the perfect poem to fit these early morning thoughts ... but first, let me tell you what led to them.

Late yesterday afternoon I stepped outside to take the sheets off the clothesline and a bald eagle was soaring overhead. He visits quite regularly now, often landing on the scraggly pine tree at the end of the driveway. At about the same time Buddy was all excited by the chipmunk that lives under our porch. He followed his scurrying with a great deal of enthusiasm as though expecting any moment the chipmunk would stop and play with him.

Then, later in the evening, an owl was hooting, quite boldly, in the woods just beyond the hollow. I couldn't see him, only hear him, but his call was loud and persistent. Other birds were calling so enthusiastically it was almost a cacophony ... but a rather nice one.

As I stood and listened, all the insects seemed to come to life. So many insects cover even one acre of ground. Millions. Many millions. Really. There's so much going on out there. When I think of all that's happening in the natural world all around this planet at any given moment ... it's mind-boggling. Also, very life-affirming.

Mary Oliver, as always, says it with love:

"It Was Early"

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.


~ Mary Oliver, from Evidence





For more on just how much life is out there, here's a good page, with fascinating information. I mean it. Fascinating: www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/buginfo/bugnos.htm

The photograph is mine.

Where the Lawn Meets the Meadow

Spring is here and the red-winged blackbirds have returned, having arrived outside my kitchen window some time last week. They fly to the feeder every morning, flaunting their red and yellow shoulder pads, then leave it to the finches and several others that congregate there for the remainder of the day, not returning until early evening.

Several trumpeter swans flew over again yesterday followed by sandhill cranes, too high to see beneath a gray flannel sky, but not so much that I couldn't hear their distinctive sound. And last night, just after dark, I stepped out onto the porch in time to hear Canada geese passing overhead. I could almost feel their wings pressing them onward through the night.

The deer have gotten a little braver and I now see them browsing in the backyard just before sunup. Their droppings in the meadow behind the house, along with signs of a red fox I believe may be living nearby, have been joined recently by fresh bear scat. The path that the animals all seem to use behind the house, where the lawn meets the meadow, have more than a few indications of its return.

Buddy and I continue to take our walks in the meadow, then follow the fence line looking for crows in the field and on through the plantation of smaller Norway pines, most of which are now between fifteen and twenty feet high. They form a nice canopy for the deer where they bed down at night. I love seeing those little ovals of grass formed by their warm bodies. When the smallest of the ovals show up, I know that fawns have been born. I can well imagine the protection the small family of deer provides for them in case the coyotes venture too near. They all seem to have developed a respect for one another, no signs of otherwise, so I will continue to see it that way and hope they will, too.

Spring also means a return to yard work, but my friend, Anne Robey, from New Mexico, suggested we see this ongoing work as the work of eternity, which is really suggesting we keep it in the now, all that really exists. Having no constraints of time, except those we foolishly impose upon ourselves, allows us to let go with no expectation of anything but our growing awareness of the ever-unfolding beauty all around us.

Our mutual friend, Jamie Ross, an uncommonly fine poet, wrote last evening of his impending return from San Miguel de Allende to the cold, clear waters of the Vallecitos River that runs through the Carson National Forest near his home. He wrote of listening to our instincts and allowing the form of our writing to simply emerge. It's the season of returning.

For the past few days, I've had a song stuck in my head, a song from my much younger days, when George Jones was on every jukebox, as well as our turntable at home. I've been singing it to Buddy and, so far, he hasn't started howling. He has, however, spent an inordinate amount of time out on the porch. I'll spare you my version. Here's George:

Pink Lightning Over the San Juan

In the spring of 2001, JB and I were exploring the southwest, living out of a van and trying to keep from doing each other bodily harm. We'd spent the day on Cedar Mesa before heading to the Mokee Dugway, a dirt road (not for the faint of heart) that snakes its way along the edge of the mesa and down to the Valley of the Gods below. We'd taken this road many times and each time we said, 'Never again.'  But, there we were, arguing over who would drive and who would ride shotgun. Truth be told, I like to drive. And, if we were to go over the edge, I'd have no one to blame but myself.

Eventually, we arrived at the bottom, all in one piece, then took a break to check out a habitation site JB had spotted from above. In canyon country, that's what riding shotgun is all about, spotting habitation sites and the ruins of cliff dwellings tucked into canyon walls. He's better at it than I am. But then, he's had more practice.

Note: JB has been living in Moab, Utah for five and a half years now. During this time, he's been on 423 day hikes - he's a Virgo, he keeps track - several of them ten miles long. This is in Canyon Country. And he's almost 65 (he told me I could say that). Darn his desert hide.

Back to my story ...

A little further down the highway that runs through this valley, there's a side road which leads to Goosenecks State Park. There, at an overlook, the San Juan River winds through a gorge with a view that's almost a mirror image of the beautiful and breathtaking road we'd just come down. We arrived late in the evening, in time to take a look before dusk settled in.

Aerial View of the San Juan, not at all unlike the Mokee Dugway.

We walked down a small, rocky path leading to a ledge and a somewhat closer view of the river. One could say we like living on the edge, or our version of it, anyway. While we were there, a storm started brewing. We could see it developing on the mesa across the river and, despite having some concerns, decided to watch for a few minutes. Awestruck by the pink lightning (that might be a poor choice of words), we stood there a bit longer than wisdom would dictate, proving Mr. Shakespeare right:  "What fools these mortals be."

Hugging the rock wall, we followed the path back to the top as quickly as that path would allow. By this time, we could feel our skin starting to tingle from the electrically charged air. Once we were safely ensconced in the car, we sat in silence and watched as, all across the distant mesa, deep pink lightning flashed again and again and again, against the darkening sky.




P.S. Today would have been Jack Kerouac's birthday.  You might think me mad (I won't refute it), but, sometimes, I feel as though he's here and we silently talk. Today, I touched a book of his poetry and ... I started to cry. I heard him say, "You can cry a thousand tears, sweetie, and it's still going to be just perfect."


 Images from Google, unattributed.

Standing in Awe of the World

For the past couple of weeks I've been feeling a call to spend even more time in the quiet of life, thinking less, reading less, speaking less. I even told a friend while visiting on the phone, "I'm tired of hearing my own voice. I find myself wanting to be still, to just listen and witness, to simply be present to the beauty of this world."

Last Sunday morning, as I was walking to the kitchen to put the coffee on, I paused at the living room window to look out and see what new tracks had been left in the freshly-fallen snow. Every day I'm rewarded with a variety of fresh animal tracks showing me they've been here but have become rather surreptitious in their timing. Which is to say, when Buddy's sleeping. In that moment I was able to condense this wish for quiet witnessing of the world into a simple phrase or two asking for more opportunities.

A short while later, I could hear something calling in the distance. Knowing there was no time to waste I flew out the front door and quickly rounded the corner of my house. There they were, coming towards me right above the treetops: six trumpeter swans moving as one, trumpeting as they passed. Their beautiful white wings against the deep blue sky seemed to be moving to the rhythm of life itself.  I stood in the snow, watching.  As they flew past me and down the driveway I could see their black bills, a flicker or two of their tongues as they called out, their black feet tucked in and held steady. And then, those luminous wings banked to the left and followed the river, in a perfect triangle of light.



Friend, you have read enough.
If you desire still more,
Then be the poem yourself,
And all that it stands for. 

~ Angelus Silesius  (1624-1677),  from The Cherubinic Wanderer

The photograph, taken yesterday, is of the river that runs along the edge of my home here at Lonewolf.

"I Won't Abandon Him to Mortality"

It seems like a lifetime ago, when I danced to the music of the Monkees in our high school gymnasium. I was wearing a plum colored, "poor boy" sweater, with plum and pink, windowpane checked bell bottoms, an image that has inexplicably remained with me for a long time now.

You've probably heard that Davy Jones, one of the Monkees, passed on a few days ago. As these things go, the news brings with it reactions from those closest to him, or most often associated. So, we heard from Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Michael Nesmith, his fellow Monkees. I've been an ongoing fan of Michael's and am especially fond of his beautiful and haunting song, "Joanne," something I've written about previously. I was struck by his statement regarding Davy Jones' passing, which seems to mirror my own thoughts about this thing we call death. Michael Nesmith's statement:

"While it is jarring, and sometimes seems unjust, or strange, this transition we call dying and death is a constant in the mortal experience that we know almost nothing about. I am of the mind that it is a transition and I carry with me a certainty of the continuity of existence. While I don't exactly know what happens in these times, there is an ongoing sense of life that reaches in my mind out far beyond the near horizons of mortality and into the reaches of infinity. That David has stepped beyond my view causes me the sadness that it does many of you. I will miss him, but I won't abandon him to mortality. I will think of him as existing with the animating life that insures existence. I will think of him and his family with that gentle regard in spite of all the contrary appearances on the mortal plane. David's spirit and soul live well in my heart, among all the lovely people, who remember with me the good times, and the healing times, that were created for so many, including us. I have fond memories. I wish him safe travels."



Closely tied to this memory of dancing to "I'm a Believer," is another memory, a gift I received from my mother about the time of that school dance. There was a store in the small mid-western town I grew up near, just north of where I'm now living. It had a soda fountain with tourist items in front, along with some magazines and books. A gift area, with slightly higher-priced items, was towards the back. Occasionally, I would wander through that part of the shop and sometimes a particular object would catch my eye. It was on one such visit that a vase, sitting on a glass shelf, captured my attention. I recall standing in front of it, admiring it - the colors, the shape, its smooth hand-painted exterior - imagining how it would feel tucked into the crook of my arm, as though it might contain my secrets, my dreams, the things I held close to my heart. I came back to re-visit it more than once.

My mother knew the woman who owned the store (this was a very small town), and would herself shop there from time to time. Perhaps my mother asked her if there was something I had been admiring, perhaps this woman offered what she knew. Either way, it became my gift for my sixteenth birthday. That this woman would be paying attention and be able to offer this information to my mother, that she cared enough to do so, well, how wonderful is that?

I still have it, carefully packing it for every move that came my way in life. It now sits on an upper shelf of my bookcase where it might well remain for a very long time to come. For some reason, it's been crossing my mind lately, the memory associated with it, the love that my mother brought to her gift-giving, the care with which she selected each of them.

A few weeks back, I came across a poem by the 15th century Indian saint and mystic poet, Kabir. Although the clay jug is referring to the universal memories we all share and carry inside of us - the canyons and mountains, the stars and the oceans, the universe itself - I keep coming back to the vase my mother bought for me and what it means, this vase I can see but really lives here, inside of me.

"The Clay Jug"

Inside this clay jug
there are canyons and
pine mountains,
and the maker of canyons
and pine mountains!

All seven oceans are inside, and
hundreds of millions of stars.

The acid that tests gold is there, and
the one who judges jewels.

And the music
that comes from the strings
that no one touches,
and the source of all water.

If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:
Friend, listen: the God whom I love is inside.

~ Kabir







Thank you to Tony Zimnoch for introducing this poem to me through one of his posts: everton.blogspot.com