I believe winter has arrived. It's as cold as it usually gets here, 36 degrees, and windy so that it feels like 27 . . . Brrrr! But I do believe this may turn the trick and convince the remaining trees that it's winter. My maple is looking decidedly yellow and frail this morning. When I went out to the airport this morning, it was full dark still and the moon was setting, a crescent moon cradling the pale disk of the whole moon. There was a bright a little above and to the left of it, bright enough so it might have been a planet, Venus, I think. It was fascinating to see, and I watched it until I had to turn and then couldn't see it any more. There is something deep about seeing an unusual vision of the moon, something connected to a more primitive place in us, a time when the season's ruled us in a way they do not now. It was lovely and fair trade for getting up so very early.
The sky is clear and pale, a winter sky, and the wind from the north keeps making the wind chimes sing. They make music in fits and starts because the wind has to be just right, so you keep listening for it, and noticing it, where if they played all the time you would soon tune them out without realizing it. The mind is good at, ignoring the commonplace, making sure you are not overwhelmed by too much "ordinary" input. I am always amazed at the adaptability of the human mind.
This morning the poem that appealed to me was about seeing . . .
Seeing, in Three Pieces
Somehow we must see
through the shimmering cloth
of daily life, its painted,
evasive facings of what to eat,
to wear? Which work
matters? Is a bird more
or less than a man?
*
There have been people
who helped the world. Named
or not named. They weren't interested
in what might matter,
doubled over as they were
with compassion. Laden
branches, bright rivers.
*
When a bulb burns out
we just change it--
it's not the bulb we love;
it's the light.
Kate Knapp
Yes, this morning it's by the light of that moon, that I could see the edge of brightness reflecting over the whole old moon, the way new lives reflect on ones gone before. All the ways of seeing, past the ordinary to the more than occasional beauty that inhabits the life we also inhabit, the sound of my chimes, the clear cold blue, the oceanic sound of the wind in the last of the leaves. Seeing something so lovely jolts me out of the ordinary round of routine, makes me glad to be part of it. No birds in the yard this morning, all sheltering someplace warmer and out of the wind, but on the way home, just as the sky lightened into its morning blue, a hawk, which had been sitting on a wire, took off as I got close and spreading its barred wings and beginning its morning search for food. I know that wherever it goes silence follows it, birds hush and small creatures hunker down waiting for it to disappear again. Both the hunter and the hunted belong in this morning world, each have their own lives, their own needs. I need the shelter that home gives me, in all the ways it shelters me, the furnace of warmth, the pick-me-up of coffee, and the window on the world, and a space of time to notice it all. It's not the house I love so much as the place it provides me to make it home, to make of it what I need, what I love, to discover the light of joy in all the ordinary and extra-ordinary things that make up the day.
'...accelerated urbanisation over the past century has distanced humanity from the very animal and plant sources of life itself. We are living in disharmony with the elements that comprise the universe, as if we too were not similarly formed, as if we were purely rational beings. We are disregarding the spiritual and instinctive qualities that until now have ensured our survival. We assume grave risks when we distance ourselves from our natural roots, roots which in the past always made us feel part of the whole.' Sebastião Salgado
ReplyDelete'...accelerated urbanisation over the past century has distanced humanity from the very animal and plant sources of life itself. We are living in disharmony with the elements that comprise the universe, as if we too were not similarly formed, as if we were purely rational beings. We are disregarding the spiritual and instinctive qualities that until now have ensured our survival. We assume grave risks when we distance ourselves from our natural roots, roots which in the past always made us feel part of the whole.' Sebastião Salgado
'...accelerated urbanisation over the past century has distanced humanity from the very animal and plant sources of life itself. We are living in disharmony with the elements that comprise the universe, as if we too were not similarly formed, as if we were purely rational beings. We are disregarding the spiritual and instinctive qualities that until now have ensured our survival. We assume grave risks when we distance ourselves from our natural roots, roots which in the past always made us feel part of the whole.' Sebastião Salgado '...accelerated urbanisation over the past century has distanced humanity from the very animal and plant sources of life itself. We are living in disharmony with the elements that comprise the universe, as if we too were not similarly formed, as if we were purely rational beings. We are disregarding the spiritual and instinctive qualities that until now have ensured our survival. We assume grave risks when we distance ourselves from our natural roots, roots which in the past always made us feel part of the whole.' Sebastião Salgado ♥♥♥
Thank you for sharing such positive beauty and thoughts Xx