Sunday, March 17, 2024

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World


Whatever has happened, whatever is going to happen in the world, it is the living moment that contains the sum of the excitement, this moment in which we touch life and all the energy of the past and future. Here is all the developing greatness of the dream of the world, the pure flash of momentary imagination, the vision of life lived outside of triumph or defeat, in continual triumph and defeat, in the present, alive. All the crafts of subtlety, all the effort, all the loneliness and death, the thin and blazing threads of reason, the spill of blessing, the passion behind these silences — all the invention turns to one end: the fertilizing of the moment, so that there may be more life.

Muriel Rukeyser

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Friday, March 15, 2024

Friday Ramble - Entelechy


This week's word is entelechy, and a lovely springtime word it is. Word and concept were coined by Aristotle, springing from the Ancient Greek  entelékheia, a combination of entelēs meaning "complete, finished, perfect” and télos meaning “end, fruition, accomplishment”, plus ékhō meaning simply "to have".

Aristotle defined entelechy as "having one's end within", and he used the word to describe the conditions and processes by which all things attain their highest and most complete expression. French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest, renowned paleontologist, geologist and physicist, described entelechy as having "something inside you like a butterfly is inside the caterpillar".

Think of entelechy as the prime motivation or dynamic purpose within something, the potential within a nut or acorn to grow into a tree (have always had a "thing" about acorns and oak trees). It is the directive within a bulb to sprout after a long cold winter and burst into flower, the desire within a lotus seed sleeping in the silty depths of a pond to awaken and make its way to the surface, blooming when it comes into the presence of light.

A possibility is encoded within each of us at birth to become fully and completely ourselves, whatever shape that journey may take for us as individuals. In my own mind, I think of entelechy as being the instruction to "go forth and bloom". 

Some of us have a long way to go (thinking of myself here), but we are on our way, and all along the winding trail before us are nuggets of wisdom, wild knowing and shy discernment. To use the words of Emily Dickinson, we "dwell in Possibility", although we manage to forget it most of the time.

It is a seed of truth about which I need a nudge now and again, a gentle reminder. The requirement for such things makes me crotchety and impatient, but that is all right, and it is part of the process too. My exquisite little beech seedling says it all.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Tobar Phadraic (for St. Patrick's Day)


Turn sideways into the light as they say
the old ones did and disappear
into the originality of it all.

Be impatient with easy explanations
and teach that part of the mind
that wants to know everything
not to begin questions it cannot answer.

Walk the green road above the bay
and the low glinting fields
toward the evening sun, let that Atlantic
gleam be ahead of you and the gray light
of the bay below you, until you catch,
down on your left, the break in the wall,
for just above in the shadows
you’ll find it hidden, a curved arm
of rock holding the water close to the mountain,
a just-lit surface smoothing a scattering of coins,
and in the niche above, notes to the dead
and supplications for those who still live.

But for now, you are alone with the transfiguration
and ask no healing for your own
but look down as if looking through time,
as if through a rent veil from the other
side of the question you’ve refused to ask.

And you remember now, that clear stream
of generosity from which you drank,
how as a child your arms could rise and your palms
turn out to take the blessing of the world.

David Whyte (from River Flow)

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Little By Little, Returning

And so the dance begins, a pair of geese, not a skein or a flock or a "v", just two magnificent Canadas paddling in a pool of melted river in the sunlight. It continues with a Sharp-shinned Hawk etching wide circles in the sky over the same stretch of river and emitting a short, sharp, joyous cry now and then.

A drowsy groundhog perches on a fence post near the gate of the Two Hundred Acre Wood and looks around in disbelief. No doubt he (or she) is considering returning to the den and going back to sleep. There is bark and twiggy stuff to dine on, but only a few withered berries remain from last year, and it will be a while before dandelions and coltsfoot, their favorite spring nosh, appear. As for timothy, alfalfa and clover, it will be some time before such tender, juicy forages are up and "munchable". 

In a nearby spinney, three glossy deer (young bucks) shuffle their feet and drink in the morning, their breath sending up clouds of steam in the cold air. Only a few feet away, several young male turkeys (jakes) strut their stuff and proclaim their superiority, gobbling at each other, puffing up their feathers, spreading their tails and dragging their wings. Their antics are absolutely hilarious.

The brood of young great horned owls being raised in the old oak tree a mile back in the woods is already half grown, and their attentive parents look both proud and haggard. Feeding young "hornies" is hard work.

In spite of the cold and the wind, it appears that springtime is on its way at last. 

Monday, March 11, 2024

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World


I build a platform, and live upon it, and think my thoughts, and aim high. To rise, I must have a field to rise from. To deepen, I must have bedrock from which to descend. The constancy of the physical world, under its green and blue dyes, draws me toward a better, richer self, call it elevation (there is hardly an adequate word), where I might ascend a little -- where a gloss of spirit would mirror itself in worldly action. I don't mean just mild goodness. I mean feistiness too, the fires of human energy stoked; I mean a gladness vivacious enough to disarrange the sorrows of the world into something better.

It is one of the great perils of our so-called civilized age that we do not acknowledge enough, or cherish enough, this connection between soul and landscape—between our own best possibilities, and the view from our own windows. We need the world as much as it needs us, and we need it in privacy, intimacy, and surety.

Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

Saturday, March 09, 2024

And Away We Go...

In the sunny, protected alcove of a neighbor's garden in the village, the first "daffies" of the season are already putting up fragile green leaves. We (Beau and I) were surprised to see them on a morning walk a day or two ago.

In our own garden, there are no signs of daffodils, tulips, snowdrops, crocus, bloodroot, or any other spring bloomers for that matter. Is this a hopeful sign or what?

Friday, March 08, 2024

Friday Ramble - Homecoming

Jubilant skeins of of geese fly in from the south, and they sing their return in noisy unison. The congregations headed further north are so high they are almost invisible among the clouds, their voices only faint honkings on the wind.

Mallard ducks were the first returnees, and they splash about in the open coves of local rivers and ponds, their shiny green heads visible from a distance. In our favorite lake, rafts of diving ducks like scaup and goldeneye bob like corks in the current, and there are a few mergansers about. Ditches and roadside puddles are full of happy quackers voicing their pleasure at being home again.

A solitary heron perches on the shore at the lake and wonders why on earth she has come home so early in the season. Trumpeter swans and loons have more sense, and they return later, waiting until there is enough open water for their outsize landing gear.

In the woods, there are larks and killdeer, beaky snipe and woodcock, grosbeaks, spring warblers and flycatchers. Above them, the graceful "v" shapes (dihedrals) of turkey vultures soar majestically over the countryside, rocking effortlessly back and forth in flight. From below, the light catches their silvery flight feathers and dark wing linings, and the great birds are as magnificent as any eagle.

A solitary goshawk perches in a bare tree on the hill, and a pair of harriers describe perfect, languid circles over the western field. All three are hungry, and they train their fierce yellow eyes on the field below, ardently scanning the ground for a good meal.

This morning, a male cardinal is singing his heart out in the ash tree in the garden, and an unidentified sparrow lifts its voice somewhere in the chilly darkness. Even the weather foretold for the next few days will be a friend. After an unseasonably warm winter and scant snowfall, we need rain, lots and lots of rain.

Thursday, March 07, 2024

Thursday Poem - Return


Through the weeks of deep snow
we walked above the ground
on fallen sky, as though we did
not come of root and leaf, as though
we had only air and weather
for our difficult home.
But now
as March warms, and the rivulets
run like birdsong on the slopes,
and the branches of light sing in the hills,
slowly we return to earth.

Wendell Berry

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Tuesday, March 05, 2024

Rumors of Spring


Now and then, there are balmy, brilliant blue days in early March, but mostly, we lurch along between winter and spring, blue skies and grey skies, scudding clouds and no clouds at all. Temperatures are up, down and all over the place, and we (Beau and I) are never sure what to wear when we set out in the morning for our first walk, a light, waterproof jacket one day, a warm parka the next.

Wonder of wonders, a gnarly old willow down by the creek was putting up lovely furry catkins a few days ago and the tiny icicles suspended below cradled tiny branches and fragile scraps of green. The little stream at my feet was running free and singing, its waters dark and glossy and filled with possibility. Willow, song and flow are still percolating in my thoughts this morning, a day or two later.

A hodgepodge of seasonal images and motifs perhaps, but not unusual for one of my favorite corners in the great wide world, and I am quite all right with it. There is light in dwindling icicles, in thawing streams and fuzzy little willow buds, and perhaps springtime is not far off. I cling to the thought and turn my collar up against the north wind.

On we go, paw in paw, light flickering through the trees, scraps of green in the landscape around us, geese in the sky above. The slowly awakening world is a symphony written in sound and light, and even our footsteps have a part to play in the performance.

Monday, March 04, 2024

Sunday, March 03, 2024

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World


One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring. A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges. A March morning is only as drab as he who walks in it without a glance skyward, ear cocked for geese.

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

Saturday, March 02, 2024

Friday, March 01, 2024

Friday Ramble - Written in the Trees

Paper birch, also called White birch and Canoe birch
(Betula papyrifera)

Here we are on the cusp between winter and springtime, weary of ice and snowdrifts, craving light and warmth. It is still below freezing much of the time, an icy wind scouring the bare trees and making the branches ring like old iron bells.

Perhaps that is to be expected, for springtime is a puckish wight this far north, and after making a brief appearance, she sometimes disappears for days and weeks at a time, fickle lass that she is.  After several days of milder weather, dwindling snowdrifts and happy pottering, temperatures plummeted yesterday, and there was a bitter north wind, but the sky was blue, and there was sunshine. Winter (alas) is not over yet.

For all the seasonal toing and froing, late winter days in the woods have a wonderful way of quieting one's thoughts and breathing patterns, bringing her back to a still and reflective space in the heart of the living world.

I sat on a log in the woods a few days ago, watching as tattered scraps of birch bark fluttered back and forth in the north wind. The lines etched in the tree's parchment were words written in a language I could almost understand when my breath slowed and my mind became still. When the morning sun slipped out from behind the clouds, rays of sunlight passed through the blowing strands and turned them golden and translucent, for all the world like elemental stained glass.

When I touched the old tree in greeting, my fingers came away with a dry springtime sweetness on them that lingered for hours. I tucked a thin folio of bark in the pocket of my parka and inhaled its fragrance all the way home.

Happy March, everyone! 

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Thursday Poem - For the Children


The rising hills,
the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
The steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together,
learn the flowers,
go light.

Gary Snyder, from Turtle Island

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Small Openings


We have rung every possible seasonal weather change in recent days, the pendulum oscillating from snow and bitter cold to a rain and temperatures above zero. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth we go.

What to do? A walk on an overcast day is the ticket, dressing warmly and keeping to the area around the creek sheltered by tall old trees. The temperature hovers around zero, but there is a bitter north wind, and our fingers and toes tingle as we (Beau and I) potter along. There are footprints in the snow along the creek's verges, the tracks of birds and field mice, cottontail rabbits, now and then a raccoon. This morning, there are also the prints of a weasel (or ermine as it is known in winter when its fur turns white). Not surprising as the little creature is a fierce and very proficient mouser.

A few days ago, the little waterway was starting to open, but it was cold overnight, and the channel has iced up again except for an opening near the bend where the water flows a little faster. In that small and hopeful aperture, the icy water sparkles, holding clouds and light and whiskery branches. It sings blithely of springtime and green things emerging from the earth, of wildflowers blooming and geese coming home. It counsels patience. Soon, it says, very, very soon. Please, Mama, let it be so.

Monday, February 26, 2024

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World


I want to write my way from the margins to the center. I want to speak the language of the grasses, rooted yet soft and supple in the presence of wind before a storm. I want to write in the form of migrating geese like an arrow pointing south toward a direction of safety. I want to keep my words wild so that even if the land and everything we hold dear is destroyed by shortsightedness and greed, there is a record of participation by those who saw what was coming. Listen. Below us. Above us. Inside us. Come. This is all there is.

Terry Tempest Williams, from Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Friday, February 23, 2024

Friday Ramble - How Sweet It Is

It is one of my favorite intervals in the whole turning year - the handful of cold sunny days in late winter when the north gears up for the maple syrup season. The Lanark highlands are filled with the courting songs of the sugar bird (saw-whet owl). Clouds of steam rise from sugar shacks tucked here and there among the old trees, and the aroma of boiling maple sap fills the air. The woods are realms of smoke and sweetness.

The sylvan alchemy at work is wild and enchanting stuff, and the metaphor of the cauldron, maple syrup kettle, or cooking pot has always resonated with me. I still have the battered Dutch oven I carried while rambling the continent many years ago, stirring soups, potions and stews by starlight and watching as sparks went spiraling into the inky sky over the rim of my old pot. The motes of light rising from its depths were stars too, perfect counterpoint to the constellations dancing over my head. I cherish that old cast iron vessel, and I keep it well seasoned.

These days, there is a stockpot bubbling away on my stove, a rice cooker, a bean crock and clay tagine, a three-legged incense bowl on the table in my study. In late February and early March, there are the sugar camps of friends in the Lanark Highlands, miles of collecting hose strung from maple to maple, evaporators sending fragrant plumes into the air, tin sap buckets fixed to trees. Antique syrup cauldrons boil over open fires near their sugar shacks to show visitors how maple syrup was made in times past.

The word cauldron comes from the Middle English cauderon, thence the Anglo-Norman caudiere and Latin caldāria, the latter meaning “cooking pot” and rooted in calidus meaning warm or “suitable for warming”. At the end of the trail is the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root kelə meaning simply “warm”. Words such as caldera, calorie, caudle, chauffeur, chowder and scald are kin.

The night that gifts us with stars and enfolds us gently when the sun goes down is a vast cauldron or bowl. Somewhere in the darkness up there, Cerridwen is stirring up a heady cosmic brew of knowledge, creativity and rebirth, her magical kettle simmering over a mystic cook fire. From her vessel, the bard Taliesin once partook of a single drop and awakened into wisdom and song.

We're all vessels, and one of the best motifs for this life is surely a pot or cauldron, one battered, dented and well traveled, but useful and happy to be so, bubbling and crackling away in the background (sometimes in the foreground), making happy musics and occasionally sending bright motes up into the air.

So it is with this old hen when her favorite wild places begin to awaken. Notions of alchemy bubble away; sparks fly upward, pots and cauldrons cosmic and domestic whirl about in her thoughts. I simply could not (and would not) be anywhere else.

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Thursday Poem - The Peace of Wild Things


When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life
and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake 
rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives
with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world
and am free.

Wendell Berry, from Collected Poems

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Puddles and Windy Doings


Temperatures were well below zero overnight. As I looked through the bedroom window from my pillow in the wee hours, I could see the old trees in the back yard yard blowing about, hear the north wind dancing across the roof and through the eaves.

Ancient Greeks called the north wind Boreas, and to the Inuit of the Yu'pik tribe, the spirit is Negafook, or more poetically, "the spirit who likes cold and stormy weather." Whatever one calls him, the old guy was in ebullient mode last night and rampaging through the sleeping garden with gusto. The weather vane on my neighbor's roof groaned. The wooden fence along the perimeter creaked, and there was the constant snap, crackle, pop of frozen twigs being liberated from their moorings, the susurrus of nearby evergreens swaying in unison and talking among themselves. No doubt about it, winter plans to hang around for some time to come.

On an icy morning in late February, one is grateful for small things, the aroma of freshly ground coffee beans, the sputtering of the Di'Longhi espresso machine in a corner of the kitchen, the square of blue sky seen through a window, the warmth of a coffee mug cradled in one’s gnarly paws as she looks out across the garden.

Strange as it may seem, even the deep blue snow beyond the windows merits a little gratitude, such graceful curls and waves and billows, so many shades from pastel to indigo, such eye grabbing sculptured shadows.

It is too cold to walk Beau for any distance today, but while we were out a while ago, we paused in a brief splotch of sunlight to watch the sun nibble delicately at the edges of a frozen puddle. As cold as the morning was, there was a little melting going on, and the evolving pool was a work of art in progress.

Monday, February 19, 2024

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Sunday, Saying Yes to the World


Magic doesn't sweep you away; it gathers you up into the body of the present moment so thoroughly that all your explanations fall away: the ordinary, in all its plain and simple outrageousness, begins to shine -- to become luminously, impossibly so. Every facet of the world is awake, and you within it.

David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology