January 18, 2013

It's been awhile since I have heard the birds so early.  One lone mockingbird is singing a short run of song over and over, and one of the male cardinals is making the "swee, swee, swee, swee" sound every few minutes.  The sky has slowly faded through that beautiful indigo into a kind of baby blue, the sort of color you might chose for a newborn boy, smooth and fresh and young.  To the east there is a little fading, kind of lavender and rose.  High above I can hear a jet trailing its huge roar across the empty sky.  Trees still cling to the darkness, shadows are everywhere and only the faintest wash of light enters the yard.  The cat is up, and is patrolling the perimeter, stopping now and then to raise its head and look at the sky.  Two little wrens or sparrows flashi upward through the tree, the twigs shivering as they pass. Lighter and lighter it grows . . .

 

In reading through poems for this morning, I stopped at this one . . . I've sent it once before and remembered it fondly.  For me the daily things in life, the view out my window, routines, creative work and a lot of not so creative work, all make up the bones of my life.   I can dress the flesh how ever I want to but the bones still support everything else that goes on.  Though I am sure my old bones may be getting tired of the work, they still go on, as I do.

The Inner History of a Day 

No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws no attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.

John O’Donohue 

We do seldom notice how each day is a sacred place for the eucharist of the ordinary, the bread of daily life.  That the sacred is not relegated to places of worship set aside for holiness, but rather part of each day like bread, or the silence of early morning, or the thoughts we take for inspiration with the air we breathe.  I like to think we have more dignity than fear, that we are betrothed to the unknown, now there is an idea I find really appealing and full of wonder!  It takes a lot of the fear out of the concept of what is unknown or what cannot be known.  I am doing the secret work of trying to get the mind of the day to lend me enough wisdom so that I can learn from whatever I am doing, whatever the day brings. 

Today it brought several fields of frost and one field by the school of the smaller cattle egrets and grackles.  I think I noticed it because the egrets are so very white, but what was really peculiar was how the egrets had on portion of the field and the grackles another.  I am going to start carrying my new camera around in my purse because I was wishing I had it.  The stark black and white of the two flocks was softened by the muted frost and wisps of ground fog.  When I came out after class, the field was empty, the sun had melted both fog and frost, and . . . who knows, possibly the birds as well!