I came across this luminous passage this morning.
"Earth's crammed with heaven
And every common bush is afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
There is nothing wrong with plucking blackberries, of course. And do not even the most devout and attentive need to eat, and to get to where they are going, private ruminations and feet intact? And yet, this powerful invitation stops me in my metaphorical tracks, gives me pause and bids me ponder what, and Who, I am missing.
The red-shouldered hawks are calling, a pair of them, their strident, high-pitched piercing "kee-a, kee-a" ringing through the woodlands, brown plumage almost invisible against the leafless oaks. Standing immobilized, listening...watching...waiting...I am drawn into bordering-on-reverent fascination, wondering at the pull of these winged predators on my soul.
I pass beneath yellow poplars and chestnut oaks, giants birthed in another time, silent watchmen bearing witness to the unfolding of recent history. I pause, involuntarily responding yet again to the deepening sense of awe in their presence, the welling up of gratitude for being allowed to walk among them, the not unpleasant awareness of the fleeting years of my life, as compared to theirs and my small stature beneath their vastness.
"Earth is crammed with heaven and every common bush is afire with God." Is this very Presence not what draws me when I step outside my door or look out my window? Is not this Invitation, embodied in hawks and trees, who calls and bids me come? May I, indeed, learn more fully to see and in response, gladly and with abandon, take off my shoes. May we all.
Recently, a new friend asked me the meaning of the word "naturalist" and I began mentally reminiscing about the winding path that has brought me to this place of feeling confident about taking on that mantle for myself. The origins of the word "amateur" are from the Latin root amator, to love, and "naturalist" denotes one who "studies the natural world, or plants and animals as they live in nature." So, yes, somewhere along the line, I fell deeply in love with the natural world and it began to feel like my true home, its floral and faunal inhabitants an intimate part of my life and family.
As a child, though there was no one who named what I observed or taught me how to listen, there were myriad moments of awe that, over time, morphed into familiarity and kinship with the outdoors: buttercups in the grass behind the Air Force apartment building in Germany when I was four years old; a picture that my first grade art teacher passed around of an oak leaf that was definitely not a maple; many, many readings of Winnie the Pooh and his excursions into The Hundred Acre Wood; clandestine bicycle trips with my father and brother to gather and replant abandoned, rouge irises on an air base in New York when I was nine; uncountable hours spent playing house under a big old maple tree and dodging territorial blue jays, when playing too close to their nest; exploring our misty, moisty yard in Monterey, CA when I was 10, and finding snails, of all things, among the unfamiliar foliage beneath the live oak trees.
What wove all these random experiences together into a cohesive whole were our yearly family trips to my grandparents who lived in the Tug River valley in the eastern Kentucky Appalachian Mountains. There I went to sleep and awoke to the sounds of summer insects. I paid attention to the yellow jackets feasting on fallen apples as I walked barefoot through the grass. Along the roadsides I breathed in a spicy scent from an unknown source that only decades later I discovered to be one of the goldenrod species. In my grandparents' garden I picked beans and corn from plants that towered above me and got to feed what few meal scraps there were to their one black chicken, Susie.
Through the years, through all these experiences, the ways of the natural world seeped into my soul and formed me. I became ever more attentive to the large and small invitations to pay attention - from the caravan of ants at my feet, hurrying on their way to raid a rival ant colony to the startling whoosh of immense wings as a pair of bald eagles took flight from a branch, far above my head. In time, the outdoors became the place to which I turned when the rest of life became too much to bear. It became the place to ponder that which I did not understand, as well to give exuberant thanks for unexpected joys. In it and through it, I sensed God's whispers and opened my heart and soul in glad response.
And so, once again, as so I often write...the natural world offers this same welcoming invitation to all of us. As dusk falls you might go outside and listen for the loudly chirping cardinals that are bidding goodbye to the day. Or as first light dawns, listen for the recently arrived white-throated sparrows singing their clear "Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody" song. Or you might step out your door, allowing your eyes to feast upon the last few autumn colors, knowing they'll soon be gone. Or, if you live near trees, pause and close your eyes, catching the fragrance of the fallen leaves around you.
In all of these invitations and in so many more I wish you peace and an enfolding, tangible sense of the Presence that endows and imbues all things.
If you are very quiet you can hear the leaves fall,
following their twirling, swirling dance with your ears as well as your eyes, until they come to rest gently at your feet.
Even in the noisy tumult of the gales that loosen their grip,
Even amidst the strident tumult that rages in your mind,
If you stop, and if you will yourself to listen, you will hear their falling-gently-to-earth whispers, rustling through their comrades on their once-in-a-lifetime descent.
Background noise so fills our minds right now...
Outer noise of destruction, of greed, of power wielded wrongly.
Inner voices of fear, of sadness, of outrage, of powerlessness.
Noise that will surely drown us entirely if we let it and render us deaf, even to the Good.
We desperately need times of stillness.
We need to turn our attention to that which is beyond ourselves and all our thoughts.
Our heart and soul's very functioning depend upon them.
Grace breaks through as I gaze at reddening and yellowing trees,
standing and swaying in the autumn winds that strip their leaves.
I am renewed.
If you are very quiet, you can hear the leaves fall.
Listen....
