Little Singers in the Trees

An annual cicada's song is the quintessential music of August, a sonorous vocal offering from exquisite little jeweled beings who emerge from the ground, shed their nymph skins, climb high into the light-filled trees and sing for a handful of days before expiring and returning to earth. It's a joyful and ecstatic element in the slow irrevocable turning of one northern season into another.

Only male cicadas sing, but oh how they do sing, vibrating the complex abdominal membranes called tymbals over and over again to generate a raspy tune that will attract a mate. I have a lot to learn about identifying cicadas, but I think this one may be the bigger Linne's cicada rather than a Dog-day cicada. Whichever one it was, my little visitor was absolutely gorgeous.

I often find abandoned cicada shells on poplar trees in the woods, but always feel fortunate when I encounter a newborn in all its pastel green splendor, sometimes still clinging to its discarded self. Imagos (adults) darken as their new exoskeletons harden and wings expand, but there is a fair bit of variation in coloration. Some will retain greenish wings all the days of their lives.

For the last week or so, Beau and I have been rescuing cicadas from sidewalks, driveways and roadways and moving them to places where they will not be trampled by pedestrians or moving cars. On early morning walks, we usually encounter at least two or three before we return home. Evenings, I take my mug of tea out to the garden and listen to cicada serenades before the sun goes down, and I shall be sad when I go outside one night, and there are no cicada songs to be heard.

Call it "cicada mind" and cherish the notion. Our task is one of cultivating just this kind of patience, acceptance, rapt attention and unfettered Zen sensibility, of embracing our allotted days and singing wherever we happen to be, then dissolving effortlessly back into the fabric of the world when the time comes.

Thursday Poem - To Be Held

To be held
by the light
was what I wanted,
to be a tree drinking the rain,
no longer parched in this hot land.
To be roots in a tunnel growing
but also to be sheltering the inborn leaves
and the green slide of mineral
down the immense distances
into infinite comfort
and the land here, only clay,
still contains and consumes
the thirsty need
the way a tree always shelters the unborn life
waiting for the healing
after the storm
which has been our life.

Linda Hogan

Thursday Poem - Become Becoming

Wait for evening.

Then you'll be alone.

Wait for the playground to empty.

Then call out those companions from childhood:

The one who closed his eyes

and pretended to be invisible.

The one to whom you told every secret.

The one who made a world of any hiding place.

And don't forget the one who listened in silence

while you wondered out loud:

Is the universe an empty mirror? A flowering tree?

Is the universe the sleep of a woman?

Wait for the sky's last blue

(the color of your homesickness).

Then you'll know the answer.

Wait for the air's first gold (that color of Amen).

Then you'll spy the wind's barefoot steps.

Then you'll recall that story beginning

with a child who strays in the woods.

The search for him goes on in the growing

shadow of the clock.

And the face behind the clock's face

is not his father's face.

And the hands behind the clock's hands

are not his mother's hands.

All of Time began when you first answered

to the names your mother and father gave you.

Soon, those names will travel with the leaves.

Then, you can trade places with the wind.

Then you'll remember your life

as a book of candles,

each page read by the light of its own burning.

Li-Young Lee

(from Behind My Eyes)

Thursday Poem - The Other Kingdoms

Consider the other kingdoms. The
trees, for example, with their mellow-sounding
titles: oak, aspen, willow.
Or the snow, for which the peoples of the north
have dozens of words to describe its
different arrivals. Or the creatures, with their
thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze. Their
infallible sense of what their lives
are meant to be. Thus the world
grows rich, grows wild, and you too,
grow rich, grow sweetly wild, as you too

were born to be.

Mary Oliver

Thursday Poem - Come to Dust

Spirit, rehearse the journeys of the body
that are to come, the motions
of the matter that held you.

Rise up in the smoke of palo santo.
Fall to the earth in the falling rain.
Sink in, sink down to the farthest roots.
Mount slowly in the rising sap
to the branches, the crown, the leaf-tips.
Come down to earth as leaves in autumn
to lie in the patient rot of winter.
Rise again in spring’s green fountains.
Drift in sunlight with the sacred pollen
to fall in blessing.
                        All earth’s dust
has been life, held soul, is holy.

Ursula K. Leguin

Thursday Poem - Become Becoming

Wait for evening.

Then you'll be alone.

Wait for the playground to empty.

Then call out those companions from childhood:

The one who closed his eyes

and pretended to be invisible.

The one to whom you told every secret.

The one who made a world

of any hiding place.

And don't forget the one who listened in

silence while you wondered out loud:

Is the universe an empty mirror?

A flowering tree? Is the universe

the sleep of a woman?

Wait for the sky's last blue

(the color of your homesickness).

Then you'll know the answer.

Wait for the air's first gold (that

(color of Amen). Then you'll spy

the wind's barefoot steps.

Then you'll recall that story beginning

with a child who strays in the woods.

The search for him goes on in the growing

shadow of the clock.

And the face behind the clock's face

is not his father's face.

And the hands behind the clock's hands

are not his mother's hands.

All of Time began when you first answered

to the names your mother and father

gave you.

Soon, those names will travel with the leaves.

Then, you can trade places with the wind.

Then you'll remember your life as a book

of candles, each page read by the light

of its own burning.

Li-Young Lee from Behind My Eyes

Little Singers in the Trees

An annual cicada's song is the quintessential music of August, the sonorous vocal offering of a tiny jeweled being that emerges from underground, sheds its nymph skin, climbs high into the light-filled trees and sings for a mere handful of days before expiring and returning to earth. It's a joyful and ecstatic element in the slow irrevocable turning of one season into another.

Only male cicadas sing, but oh how they do sing, vibrating the complex abdominal membranes called tymbals over and over again to generate a raspy tune that will attract a mate. I have a lot to learn about identifying cicadas, but I think this one may be the bigger Linne's cicada rather than a Dog-day cicada. Whichever one it was, my little visitor was absolutely gorgeous.

I often find abandoned cicada shells on poplar trees in the Two Hundred Acre Wood but always feel fortunate when I encounter a newborn in all its pastel green splendor, sometimes still clinging to its discarded exoskeleton. Imagos (adults) darken as their new exoskeletons harden and wings expand, but there is a fair bit of variation in coloration. Some will retain greenish wings all the days of their lives.

For the last week or two, Beau and I have been rescuing cicadas from sidewalks, driveways and roadways and moving them to safe perches in hedgerows and mature trees where they will not be trampled by pedestrians and moving cars. On early walks, we keep a eye out for them, and we always encounter at least two or three before we arrive home again. Evenings, I take my mug of tea out to the garden and listen to cicada serenades for a while before the sun goes down. I shall be sad when I go outside one night, and there are no cicada songs to be heard.

Call it "cicada mind" and cherish the notion. Our task is one of cultivating just this kind of patience, acceptance, rapt attention and unfettered Zen sensibility, of embracing our allotted days fully and singing wherever we happen to be, then dissolving effortlessly back into the fabric of the world when the time comes.

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.

Wordless Wednesday - The Shapes of Things to Come

Thursday Poem - Become Becoming

Wait for evening.

Then you'll be alone.

Wait for the playground to empty.

Then call out those companions from childhood:

The one who closed his eyes

and pretended to be invisible.

The one to whom you told every secret.

The one who made a world of any hiding place.

And don't forget the one who listened in silence

while you wondered out loud:

Is the universe an empty mirror? A flowering tree?

Is the universe the sleep of a woman?

Wait for the sky's last blue

(the color of your homesickness).

Then you'll know the answer.

Wait for the air's first gold (that color of Amen).

Then you'll spy the wind's barefoot steps.

Then you'll recall that story beginning

with a child who strays in the woods.

The search for him goes on in the growing

shadow of the clock.

And the face behind the clock's face

is not his father's face.

And the hands behind the clock's hands

are not his mother's hands.

All of Time began when you first answered

to the names your mother and father gave you.

Soon, those names will travel with the leaves.

Then, you can trade places with the wind.

Then you'll remember your life

as a book of candles,

each page read by the light of its own burning.

Li-Young Lee

(from Behind My Eyes)

Thursday Poem - Become Becoming

Wait for evening.

Then you'll be alone.

Wait for the playground to empty.

Then call out those companions from childhood:

The one who closed his eyes

and pretended to be invisible.

The one to whom you told every secret.

The one who made a world of any hiding place.

And don't forget the one who listened in silence

while you wondered out loud:

Is the universe an empty mirror? A flowering tree?

Is the universe the sleep of a woman?

Wait for the sky's last blue

(the color of your homesickness).

Then you'll know the answer.

Wait for the air's first gold (that color of Amen).

Then you'll spy the wind's barefoot steps.

Then you'll recall that story beginning

with a child who strays in the woods.

The search for him goes on in the growing

shadow of the clock.

And the face behind the clock's face

is not his father's face.

And the hands behind the clock's hands

are not his mother's hands.

All of Time began when you first answered

to the names your mother and father gave you.

Soon, those names will travel with the leaves.

Then, you can trade places with the wind.

Then you'll remember your life

as a book of candles,

each page read by the light of its own burning.

Li-Young Lee 

(from Behind My Eyes)

Thursday Poem - Come to Dust

Spirit, rehearse the journeys of the body

that are to come, the motions

of the matter that held you.

Rise up in the smoke of palo santo.

Fall to the earth in the falling rain.

Sink in, sink down to the farthest roots.

Mount slowly in the rising sap

to the branches, the crown, the leaf-tips.

Come down to earth as leaves in autumn

to lie in the patient rot of winter.

Rise again in spring’s green fountains.

Drift in sunlight with the sacred pollen

to fall in blessing.

                             All earth’s dust

has been life, held soul, is holy.

Ursula K. Le Guin, from So Far So Good

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

Thursday Poem - Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

Sunday - Saying Yes to the World

What hope is there for individual reality or authenticity when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and bombs and manipulated public opinion make it impossible for us to be authentic and fulfilled human beings?

The only hope is in the creation of alternative values, alternative realities. The only hope is in daring to redream one's place in the world - a beautiful act of imagination, and a sustained act of self becoming. Which is to say that in some way or another we breach and confound the accepted frontiers of things.

Ben Okri, from A Way of Being Free

Sunday - Saying Yes to the World

What hope is there for individual reality or authenticity, when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and bombs and manipulated public opinion make it impossible for us to be authentic and fulfilled human beings?

The only hope, is in the creation of alternative values, alternative realities. The only hope is in daring to redream one's place in the world -- a beautiful act of imagination, and a sustained act of self becoming. Which is to say that in some way or another we breach and confound the accepted frontiers of things.

Ben Okri

Thursday Poem - Come to Dust

Spirit, rehearse the journeys of the body
that are to come, the motions
of the matter that held you.

Rise up in the smoke of palo santo.
Fall to the earth in the falling rain.
Sink in, sink down to the farthest roots.
Mount slowly in the rising sap
to the branches, the crown, the leaf-tips.
Come down to earth as leaves in autumn
to lie in the patient rot of winter.
Rise again in spring’s green fountains.
Drift in sunlight with the sacred pollen
to fall in blessing.
                             All earth’s dust
has been life, held soul, is holy.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Friday Ramble - Entelechy

Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis)

This week's word is entelechy, and a lovely springtime word it is. Word and concept were coined by Aristotle, springing from the Late Latin entelecheia, thence the Greek entélos 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", using 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 "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), 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.  It is the possibility encoded in each of us at birth to become fully and completely ourselves and reach enlightenment, whatever form that enlightenment might take for us as individuals. In my own mind, I think of entelechy as the instruction to "go forth and bloom".

OK, the enlightenment may not come in this lifetime, and some of us have a long way to go (thinking of myself here), but we are on our way, and 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's another one of those seeds of truth about which I need reminding now and again. My forgetfulness and constant need for reminders makes me crotchety and impatient, but that is part of the process too.

Thursday Poem - Become Becoming

Wait for evening.
Then you'll be alone.

Wait for the playground to empty.
Then call out those companions from childhood:

The one who closed his eyes
and pretended to be invisible.
The one to whom you told every secret.
The one who made a world of any hiding place.

And don't forget the one who listened in silence
while you wondered out loud:

Is the universe an empty mirror? A flowering tree?
Is the universe the sleep of a woman?

Wait for the sky's last blue
(the color of your homesickness).

Then you'll know the answer.

Wait for the air's first gold (that color of Amen).
Then you'll spy the wind's barefoot steps.

Then you'll recall that story beginning
with a child who strays in the woods.

The search for him goes on in the growing
shadow of the clock.

And the face behind the clock's face
is not his father's face.

And the hands behind the clock's hands
are not his mother's hands.

All of Time began when you first answered
to the names your mother and father gave you.

Soon, those names will travel with the leaves.
Then, you can trade places with the wind.

Then you'll remember your life
as a book of candles,
each page read by the light of its own burning.

Li-Young Lee
(from Behind My Eyes)

Treasure Within

\