March 4, 2012

A clear bright morning, one that has the birds out singing almost before it is light, but not quite.  A mockingbird is singing a long string of songs, each repeated three times before he goes on to the next, hope he impresses some lady mockingbird as much as he impresses me!  The pine trees have started blooming and you can see it coating everything in fine yellow dust.  Either we have more pine trees in the area or they just are sexier than most other trees because they certainly do produce a blizzard of pollen!  Not only is it getting light much earlier now, but I notice more how it has moved since earlier in the year, the light slanting in at a much different angle, more light at the end of the yard less light near the house at this hour.  Now it takes awhile before the morning light reaches the crepe myrtles, their smooth trunks still in shadow.  Only the cane is getting sun this early, stripes of it making the new cane shoots glow like white flame shooting up through the older stalks.  It's odd to look out and see drifts of brown leaves on the bright new grass, but that oak has about shed all its old leaves now, in just a day or two.  Each new leaf bud pushing off the old dark green leaf, which turns brown on the ground in a few hours, so that there is a little patch of fall now in the backyard, one tree's worth.

I just saw one of the little owls flutter by and wonder where it will sleep.  The crows, and I hear several out this morning, like to chase the owls from their roost.  And with the leaves still not as thick as they will be later, I suppose they have an easier time spotting the owls as they sleep.  I often wonder about that in the winter, but rarely see the owls then, usually only in the spring and summer, even late fall.  Perhaps they move farther inland over the winter.  Now there are competing mockingbirds singing over each other.  The ladies must be out early this morning.  I found out what bird makes that monkey hooting kind of call, the big pileated woodpeckers.  It's one of their calls, they seem to have quite a few very different sounding calls.

It's the day for the blessing, and this gorgeous morning seems to be one reason to feel so blessed.  The weather has been so dreadful for a lot of the country, that our early spring here, quiet and lovely, seems all the more a blessing to be grateful for.  We have our own dangers, summers of tropical storms and hurricanes, but seem to be spared a lot of the truly violent weather that spring brings to the great plains.  And for us, we usually can see our weather coming from a long way off, storms and hurricanes tracked for days, even weeks.  We get the occasional tornado but they never seem to be very strong, and often hard to tell from just really strong straight line winds in some storms.  Mostly we just get heat and humidity for people to complain about, and last year the exceptional drought, which seems to have moderated a lot with the rain we have been having.  It seems to me a morning to be grateful.

Prayer for the Great Family

Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day—
        and to her soil: rich, rare and sweet
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing, light-changing leaf
        and fine root-hairs; standing still through wind
        and rain; their dance is in the flowering spiral grain
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and silent
        Owl at dawn. Breath of our song
        clear spirit breeze
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets,
        freedoms, and ways; who share with us their milk;
        self-complete, brave and aware
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;
        holding or releasing; streaming through all
        our bodies salty seas
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through
        trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where
        bears and snakes sleep— he who wakes us—
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Great Sky
        who holds billions of stars— and goes yet beyond that—
        beyond all powers, and thoughts
        and yet is within us—
        Grandfather Space.
        The Mind is his Wife.
                            so be it.
                                                        after a Mohawk prayerGary Snyder

So many things to be grateful for, all connected, all part of the great creation, the Great Sky, where come the rain and sun we so depend on.  Is it any wonder we think of God as above us from where all that is essential for life resides, air, water, fire, only earth beneath our feet, solid and comforting, everything else above us?  Here is the thought that God is beyond all powers and thought yet within us, that vast and slow infinite love we can encompass and share. I like thinking of all the ways we are connected to creation, all the ways we can think of the Creator, all the ways of worship.