Own Who You Are

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Some time ago, a spiritual director spoke those words to my husband..."Own who you are!"  But what to do when we don't remember very clearly, when forces beyond our control cause us to forget? These little plants don't look like much at first glance, perhaps. But for me, they were the needed gift. They were what led me back to myself this morning.

It is 39 degrees and windy outside. The landscape is still mostly brown. The March malaise is upon me, the long weariness of winter, frustration at the teasing days of warmth, only to be plunged back into freezing temperatures and muddy ground. The suffering of the globe feels particularly heavy these days...the emotional and physical turmoil of the nation, the farms and cattle and soil that have all been washed away, the loss of people's lives and livelihood, worldwide.

Suffice to say I am not at my best in March. I am tired of grackles and red-winged blackbirds dominating my feeders. I am tired of going out to look for blooming spring garden flowers that I know full well are barely up out of the ground. I long for the blue jay's squeaky, raspy cry to be replaced by the melodies of wood thrush and warblers. Sometimes all that is in me wants to cry out, "How long?"

March is the almost-but-not-quite season. It is the season I begin to forget who I am because, deep down, much of who I am involves the green and growing world and my participation in it. Never mind that there are trays of young lettuce, kale, cabbage, onions, chives, dill, and calendula growing upstairs under lights, or pots of orchids and foliage plants growing happily in my study.  My soul longs for the awakening of the earth and the plants that no one has planted. 

And that brings me to my walk out into the woods behind our house this morning and my rediscovery of the cutleaf toothwort populations carpeting the ground. Flowers that no one planted intentionally, flowers that are some of the very first to support early bees and butterflies, flowers that declare unequivocally that there is order and assurance built into the natural world, if we but wait for it. 

I know that I am connected to the One who mysteriously (and I imagine, joyously) splashed the toothwort across the wooded landscape. But sometimes I forget. This morning was a reminder that participation with the Holy sometimes means waiting and bearing with the longings of the world and, at the same time, there are moments of relief, moments that anchor us, not just in God, but in our deepest selves, as well. 

Soon the toothworts will all be blooming.

Waiting for Woodcocks

I heard them over the fields last week, their twittering, whistling calls punctuating their seemingly reckless descent towards earth from far above the tree line. In the gathering dusk they fly, and at dawn, males hoping to out-do all other rivals for their ladies' favor. I have heard them just a handful of times so far, as they do not like to fly in snow or rain or wind or extreme cold. But they are patient and they wait, as they do every year, knowing the winter will not last forever.

They fly as harbingers of early spring where wet woodlands meet wild fields dressed in the brown stubble of last year's grasses. As darkness settles in, as the cardinals cease their evening song and spring peepers begin theirs, these comical little birds with their large eyes and long beaks waddle from the woods into the fields, positioning themselves for the moment when, as the light fades, their longings launch them skyward in an wide arc above the earth, exuberant in the mating flights that only happen this time of year.

The woodcocks are surely more patient than I am. At least there is no indication that they are fretting at the grayness of the sky or the browns and tans of the landscape. They spend their solitary days probing the soft, wet earth for worms and attending to survival. And then, as the days slowly lengthen, their brains and bodies respond to the onset of mating hormones, and the males begin to fly in what seems such glad abandon, earthbound no longer, suddenly free from the confines of the largely terrestrial life they lead most of the year.

It has been cold again the last few days, too cold for the woodcock's song and sky dance but, soon enough, the temperatures will warm and I will again hear the nasal "peeent" from across the road, declaring that spring, though slow to arrive, will not tarry forever. It is me who needs to learn to wait patiently, not trying to hurry along that over which I have no control or becoming despondent that the winter has seemingly dragged on for so long. Being attentive to the signs I recognize, like the woodcocks flight or the spring peeper's tentative calls, enable me to open myself to what is, even in the midst of grumpy moments. And for this I am exceedingly grateful.

If you would like to know more about American Woodcocks, you can go to this link from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Woodcock/

Telling Time Without a Calendar

Have you heard them? Shrill, clear whistling from the tree tops, sometimes one alone and sometimes a chorus. Spring peepers' last hurrah as they begin to prepare for winter, no longer in the marshes but clinging to trunks and branches high above us all. Or, how about the raucous raspy strident calls of migrating blue jays that descend upon us in late September, hungry for the acorns that our woodland oaks provide. Or the soft and muffled "wick, wick, wicka" at dusk of restless wood thrushes preparing for their long journey to central America, any day now. 

Have you seen them yet? The white-throated sparrows, who arrive every mid-October and the juncos who arrive soon after. Or, perhaps the purple finches who have chosen to feed in this area of southern Maryland for now. Bright red-purple males and grey females with a distinctive white eyebrow stripe, unlike our resident house finches, have come down from the far north to spend time with us, and whether they will stay the winter or ultimately move on is not for us to know. 

Have you noticed their absence?  The antagonistic migrating hummingbird numbers abruptly decreased overnight a few nights ago, and now I see only solitary individuals, dawdling at flowers and feeders until somehow recognizing when their bodies carry enough fat to sustain them on their journey. A few cricket species still sing on, but the true katydids and cicadas are silent, no longer calling from their summer perches in the trees, their breeding season accomplished. The lovely wood warblers, flycatchers and vireos who arrived last spring to bear and raise their families are gone now, excepting a few stragglers, and already I miss the melodies that were my constant companions these last few months.

And what of the changes in the plant life around us?  The winterberry and dogwoods's berries that were still green a couple of weeks ago are now bright red, signaling their nutrients to passing birds. The last flowers of the season, New England and aromatic aster, orange coneflower, and the ever present white frost aster, continue to bloom in riotous color, signaling nectar and pollen to late season bees and butterflies like the buckeye, and clouded sulfur and monarchs, all still searching for food. 

As we notice these changes, even if we haven't really realized that we have noticed them, we are being invited into a knowing that goes beyond what our busy, technological society deems important. Every day, every season, every moment, we are invited into wonder yet again, and into appreciation and into love for that which surrounds and sustains us. And, in so doing, we come to realize that we don't really need calendars to know what time it is, after all.

The Renewal of Wonder

As a nation, we are in the midst of a difficult season-socially, politically, culturally, environmentally, physically and spiritually. In fact, at the moment, I can't think of a single component of our corporate life that isn't being challenged or threatened or compromised, somehow. No wonder I feel on edge, concerned about facets of national life that I have absolutely no ability to change. 

Even when I go walking, of late, I have difficulty letting go of the dismay, the sense of helplessness and, yes, sometimes the anger that hangs over the DC area these days. While I do not want to give in to these feelings or allow them to consume me, I find that I need tangible and effective means to deter and deflect them. I need something more powerful than my self-righteous indignation. I need wonder.

The healing of wonder lies in its surprise, moments of unexpected grace. Such was the case when, after a weary day with family reuniting after my mother-in-law's funeral, I looked up from the northern Virginia suburban back yard to see a  mass of migrating broad-winged hawks, kettling way up high, directly above my head. Or when, the day after, as I sat on my front porch, idly watching the birds and soaking in the silence, I noticed a commotion in the black locust tree across the road. It turns out that goldfinches eat black locust seeds, opening the stiff pods with their beaks and extracting the seeds one by one, something I had not seen or known before. I had happened to be in the right place at the right time to notice and all thought of commotions in the larger world vanished.

Wonder beckons when I peer into a bouquet of my own flowers, or pursue the insect making its long, high-pitched trill in the house and find a tiny, long-antennaed katydid no bigger than my fingernail. Or when I step out onto the back porch at night and narrowly miss the resident toad making his nightly hunting rounds. Or find a patch of bright pink torenia that, unbeknownst to me, self-seeded into my garden from the hanging basket where it grew last year. Or, glancing at the feeder and find that we are hosting several female rose-breasted grosbeaks on their southward migration.

Each of these gratifying, unexpected moments are gifts that keep me humble and, once again, remind me of how much more there is to this world than the concerns and fears that sometimes consume me. God speaks to me in wonder, and in this moment I can rest...for a while, anyway.

Life and Death and Orange Jewels

My husband's 94 year old mother died last week, a sad and difficult woman in life and in death. I am weary and so this morning I needed the woodland's embrace and there I found the refreshment and the solace I knew were waiting for me. I went looking for life, life in all its fullness, life of the forest floor - creatures, plants, fungi...all of it. 

On the short bank beside the woodland road, I came across a colony of tiny, bright orange mushrooms, themselves feeding on decaying matter...matter that is no longer alive, but giving life to these jewels of the forest. 

And in the distance, stood what first appeared to be a lone white mushroom... 

... standing like a single sentry guarding its place in the leaf litter. 

However, upon closer inspection, I realized that I had almost stepped on its nearly invisible companion of a different species, a couple of feet away. 

Two different species of fungi, quietly going about the work they were given to do, decomposing fallen leaves and branches, returning nutrients to the soil. Perhaps their mychorriza mysteriously co-mingle beneath the duff as they coil around tree roots, providing the giants greater access to needed water and minerals and a means of communication, tree to tree.

I have been thinking about death during these last few weeks and about its effect on those who are left behind, for death is never a solitary event. If we give ourselves to its effect, even in our agitation and deep sense of loss, over time we will be deepened and made acutely aware of and sensitive to that which is still alive...still alive in us, in those we care about, in the order of the natural world. I find the encouragement of God in the life of the fungi, strange as that might seem at first glance. They demonstrate that there is far more to each individual than what might be visibly recognized. Though their above-ground fruiting bodies wither away in due time, their life continues on in mystery, hidden away in where they can no longer be seen. And, because of fungi's role, though individual plants and creatures die, their life is never completely ended, for it is always recycled for the well being of another.  

In this season of coming face to face, again, with the reality of death I am reminded, again, of the abundance of life and my grateful participation in it. 

Walking as Spiritual Practice

A couple of weeks ago, a friend asked me what my spiritual practices have been lately. I was caught off guard and mumbled something about reading and contemplative prayer but, at the same time, I felt like I was forgetting something important. I was. I was forgetting what has been a practice for the last several decades, though I would not have termed it as such until relatively recently.

In the last few years I have become acquainted with the importance of living and being in the moment- not fixated on the future or the past, not entertaining the myriad distracting thoughts that pass through my weary brain, not giving in to fears or irritations or even wants, but noticing what is right in front of and all around me, taking it in, paying attention, acknowledging God's presence. Do I live this way through most of my days? No. Does being aware and awake to what transpires in the real world come naturally? No. Do I even remember that I want to experience this restorative focus on the present? Not very often. 

And so, I walk. And in the walking, I am captivated by my surroundings and I slip into noticing without effort. This morning my walk took me through woodlands and along an overgrown field, and the songs of cicadas, crickets, and katydids of all species were my constant companions. I passed bright orange fungi on the shaded roadside, a spike buck who watched me warily through the trees, and a single Acadian flycatcher calling from overhead. Such are the findings I expect to encounter when I set out early in the morning. 

Today, however, there was a message woven into my wanderings. As often happens, my walking took me past an old abandoned pasture filled with tall grasses and forbs, the  sun low behind me, casting the scene in a golden glow. The insect chorus was in full swing, though the singers remained invisible among the grasses and, in fact, I could not see any animal life there at all. When I reached the end of the field, I turned around to head back home, and the scene had been transformed. With sun backlighting the pasture, every drop of dew stood out, glistening in relief. And, in what had appeared to be an empty field, shone hundreds, or maybe thousands, of spider webs, sunlight glinting off each delicate strand. 

As I stood in awe, I realized how little I had really seen on my first pass by the pasture. All these creatures, all this life had been right in front of me and I had missed them. It was as if they had been hiding in plain sight all along. I wondered then, how often do I miss understanding others' perspectives, so intent am I in seeing things from just one direction, the one in which I am heading. How often have I assumed I am right because my vantage is the only one I can see? 

Contemplation, or living with God fully in the moment, is most powerful when we allow the present to seep into our souls. Sometimes the noticing alone is enough to fill us and we are content. Sometimes, like this morning, there is a message that deepens and changes us, if we but accept it. I find that, for me, walking is one of the most natural means of being open to the present moment. Walking as spiritual practice.
                                                                                 

Noticing

Now and then, various people have commented that I seem to notice happenings in the natural world that they feel like they miss. From what sounds like wistfulness in their voices, I sometimes wonder whether they feel as though I have been granted some secret ability, not available to them. While it is true that I am now innately tuned to the life occurring around me (sometimes to the detriment of conversations with people!) such has not always been the case and, actually, I am not accomplished at noticing visual detail in general.

Certainly, affection for a subject predisposes us to be more sensitive to its presence (as so aptly demonstrated by my young grandsons, who immediately drop what they are doing and look up and into the sky at the sound of an airplane or helicopter,) but the relationship between affection and knowing is a circular one. The more we appreciate something, the more likely we are to want to know more about it, and the more we know about something, the more likely we are to notice and appreciate it.

With that in mind, I’d like to offer some thoughts to consider and questions that you might ask yourselves if you are longing to become more intimately acquainted with the Creation in which you live. Sometimes, all we need is a nudge in the right direction, and our curiosity takes over from there.

Are there still leaves on the trees, where you live? What color are they? What hues of those colors do you see? Which trees turn what colors?

Watch the individual leaves fall for a few moments…stop what you were doing and really watch and savor the wonder. How do they move in their freefall? Notice the differences in the ways that different leaf species twist and turn in the air? Do they tend to land right side up or upside down?

Fall is in the very air, not just in the colors of the leaves.  What does your air smell like? If you come across a fallen log or branch that has started to decay, pull off some bark or some of the wood and smell it.  What does it smell like? Or pick up a handful of leaf litter, feeling its softness and taking in its autumn aroma. Stop and appreciate the fragrances of this fleeting season.

When you go outside to the mailbox, or to your car or for some other reason, pause a moment…what do you see? In the trees and shrubs, what do you see? In any flower beds or weedy patches or your lawn, what is happening in the moment?  What do you hear, when you stop and listen? Insects? Wind in the trees? Crunching of your feet on dry leaves? Nearby birds? What…?

Are there oaks nearby? How long has it been since you really appreciated acorns, that currency of childhood imagination? How long since you stuffed your pockets with them, or just held them in your hand and marveled at their shiny roundness? Maybe now would be a good time to re-experience that delight.

These are just a few ideas to get you started and, if you enjoy the discovery, you have a lifetime before you to pay attention and grow in familiarity and wonder at the world in which you live. And as you notice, greet the creatures, greet even the plants, with whom you come in contact. Greet them as fellow inhabitants of this space we share, greet them respectfully, kindly, lovingly.

As written by Maltbie Babcock, a 19^th century Presbyterian minister who loved God and the land, an obscure verse in the hymn, This is My Father’s World, reads “For dear to God is the earth Christ trod. No place is but holy ground.” Take some time getting to know this “holy ground” a little better. You will be richly rewarded, indeed. 

Sacred Spaces

Do you have sacred spaces, where you meet yourself and Him who breathed the world into being? Spaces in which you find refuge or comfort, exuberance or vitality? On this wild and windy autumn day, I have been thinking back to those spaces that have welcomed me, taken my mind off of myself and garnered my full attention for a time.

Spaces like the yard I nudged towards abundance when we lived in Pennsylvania.

Or the marsh that lies between us and the Potomac River, as day breaks and I watch and listen in the day.

Or a patch of leaves in the grass, so arresting that all I can do is stop and sigh a prayer of thanksgiving for the momentary gift of beauty.

And then there was Trail Wood, where my days were filled with noticing and reflection and a kinship with those who had gone before. The following is a piece that came out of that week, in deep appreciation for Edwin and Nellie Teale and the land they stewarded and loved.

Beneficence

I have been brought to this sacred space, for sacred it has become to me who has never been here before. Perhaps a pilgrimage, I have come to watch for fireflies over the fields by night, swallows by day…to listen to crickets and katydids, to late summer bird song and, if I’m lucky, rain on the roof of the old house. I have come to be a small piece of the history of this place, whose future is yet to be written.

 I spend my days outside, a solitary audience, eager to witness the unfolding dramas of this refuge. They come as unexpected gifts, barely audible echoes from Eden, fulfillment of a life time’s longings.

She walks close behind me, as I sit at the picnic table, the mama turkey, murmuring softly to her seven, worried-looking babies strung out behind her, trying to keep up.
Again I sit, and a red-shouldered hawk drops into the nearby catalpa tree, steadily watching me watching him. Does he, as do I, sense communion, as we stare into one another’s eyes?

I wonder at the young rabbits grazing along the driveway, watchful, but not overly concerned with my coming and going. And, in the meadow, downy woodpeckers forage on mullein stalks, gazing steadily as I pass by. Do wild creatures know when they are welcomed?

 “A magic place?” he asked me. A Beatrix Potter kind of place, it would seem.
If there be magic, it comes not by accident, but by the many long years of beneficence towards this land. A living invitation by one who loved the wild for its own sake, who equated ownership with stewardship, who was at home with the untamed inhabitants of this farm.

There is holiness here, born of gratitude for what has been given, where man is but a participant in the life around him and an observer of that into which he cannot enter. Long years of kindliness have fostered fellowship between the wild ones who have flourished within these bounds and the humans who have lived alongside them. I pray that, far into the future, when we who love this land are gone, the kinship between man and creature will persist and this sanctuary, birthed and rooted in peaceful coexistence, will live on.

Where are your own sacred spaces? 

Comes the Day

Some of my favorite summer sounds – green frogs, and field and woodland katydids are echoing together in the darkness. “Do they sing all night?” I wonder.
Yes and no, I find, as I am awakened by a pair of barred owls calling in the wee hours of the morning. The katydids are quiet, but the green frogs sing on.

The woods are almost silent in the blackness. Except for intermittent rustles in the underbrush, I hear nothing on my way to the bench beside Beaver Pond. Hidden from my eyes, tiny creatures go about their nocturnal business. Do they see me pass by?

Eastern wood peewees are the first to awaken, as the last star disappears into the dawn. Faint chip notes at first, as though the birds are stretching and slowly opening their eyes, not quite ready for the morning. And then, the full peewee song from somewhere on my right, only the one. Soon, another calls from across the water. In answer or just coincidence? Long before others begin to sing in the day, these two converse, on and on. “What is their story?” I muse.

The stillness is broken by a loud unseen splash, followed again by stillness. I am resigned to how often I miss seeing the event that produces pond noise. Usually, I see ripples but the principle player is gone. This time, a beaver emerges from the mist, on a zigzag path towards its dam, mouth full of…what? He heaves himself onto the dam’s slope and disgorges his heavy load of mud and plant matter, carefully patting it into place. Otter-like, he slides back into the water and with a quiet “kerplunk”, dives for another load. How long into the daylight will he work?

I wondered when they would show up. “So, soon?” I sigh.  At least their buzzy droning, closer and closer to my face and ears, holds promise that the phoebes and eastern kingbirds might soon break their fast and eat well. Even for this irritating swarm, I give thanks.

A momentary lull in the morning’s progression invites more questions. What causes that “clacking” sound, seemingly coming from a patch of water lilies? What are those tiny dust-like particles that cover the pond’s surface, seen only at first light? Those two shapes on far-off logs appear to be green herons. Did they sleep there through the night?

As the water now reflects the surrounding trees, the full chorus begins. Robins squabbling, belted kingfishers rattling, catbirds mewing, chickadees chattering, kingbirds’ staccato calls and goldfinches’ musical ones, all in a shared litany of recognition that the work of survival is about to begin, yet again. The kingfishers are the first to fly in and noisily take their positions, except that they don’t seem to know which positions to take and fly repeatedly, and loudly, from branch to branch. Do they really go through this ritual every morning?

Finally, the chittering of barn swallows! Four of them appear, seemingly from nowhere. Just these four, for a few minutes the pond all to themselves. Suddenly, the air space is full of zipping and diving silhouettes as the rough-winged and tree swallows begin their aerial foraging, twittering on the wing. Gliding and dipping, as in an intricate dance, they avoid collision. What sense guides their movements?

What have I missed while studying the swallows? Young Baltimore orioles feeding in the autumn olive above the beaver dam, warbling vireos singing out their melodies across the way, the two green herons croaking and chasing one another from log to log, vying for the best fishing spot and, “Yes!”, now most of the pond’s perches host the phoebes, kingbirds and peewees who have been waiting for just the right moment to commence their breakfast search.

Now, an hour into daylight, the mingled voices of an avian choir echoing from above, the beaver makes a final trip to the dam, pats down its last bit of earth, turns and swims purposefully away. Another day has fully come to Beaver Pond.

Much Needed Respite

I wrote this piece some time ago, but, in honor of a friend who has just put down one of her best friends of the last 12 years, I am posting it again. As I have read the words, I realize how true they are for me, yet again, in these corporate days of uncertainty, as well as private wrestlings. May they bless you, as well. What I write of the garden, is also abundantly true of spending time anywhere in the natural world.

Pollinators, pollinators everywhere in the yard! Bees of all shapes and sizes, butterflies and hummingbirds...Everywhere I look there is buzzing, humming and the fluttering of wings...swamp milkweed, green-headed coneflower, ironweed, joe-pye weed, cardinal flower, garden phlox all playing host to our tiny native wildlife… I feel like a shepherdess winding through the plantings, keeping watch over her flock, ensuring that what they need for life and health is provided.

I have spent much of my day outside today, longing for peace and respite from the upheaval and concern of these tumultuous times. Sometimes I go into the garden as a scientist, to watch and observe the biological interactions. Sometimes I go for the joy of myriad colors, fragrances and bounty of life. But sometimes I wander into the garden because I am troubled, and it becomes a place of sanctuary, a place of refuge for me as much as for wildlife.

The longer we live, the longer we love people and pets, places and endeavors, the greater the loss when they are gone. Over the years, loss upon loss changes us and makes us more tender or more hardened, more pliable or more rigid. We either cooperate with such painful formation or we resist it. 

Stepping into my backyard, where the wild comes to live alongside me, does not remove the fears or losses of my life, but it provides a space large enough to hold the accompanying emotions and ensures comfort as no other place can. The life found there pries my eyes off myself and points them to something, and Someone, greater than my worries. I am reminded that there are seasons and cycles to life and that calm really does return after storms.  I am reminded that life goes on. The garden that was created to be a home for wildlife has also become home to me. It has become a habitat for all.

Not Yet

The black gums have begun to turn, a mottled orange haze against a still-green canopy.
"Nooo!!!" a part of me cries,
Time, like sand, slipping through my fingers.
"I am not ready! Don't go....not yet," I whimper.

Scattered sassafras and tulip trees yellowing, the odd red maple and woodbine coloring crimson.
The wood thrush's song, slower, more wistful sounding,
 a song of soon-leaving rather than just-arrived.
Are they readying to move on?

Why no sadness at the hummingbird migration?
With feeders and plantings, do I feel like a benefactor in their journey, as if that gives some semblance of control?
My planted landscape colors in autumn - reds, yellows, oranges, purples...another illusion of control, in a look I have designed?

But, the black gum leaves...unexpected, entirely on their own schedule.
So like my body, getting on in years, signs of the of the senescence that will surely come in its own time.
Is this at root in the autumn melancholy? The whisper of advancing age, of endings?

Contemplative practice invites the acceptance of what is, not what I wish were.
Acceptance, the opposite of striving, of holding on.
Will I ever learn?