Molting

Every fall she appears forlorn, bedraggled, 
with feathers missing and
bare patches on her rump,
surely cold and damp without her full plumage, 
which is yet to come.
A time to endure 
and hope for renewal.

Massive skeletons against the sky, 
they stand stripped, devoid of color,
foliage shed.
Perhaps it doesn't matter whether
by the gale's force or a gentle letting go;
The outcome is the same, 
entailing a long winter's wait 
for green and new growth 
to resume.

They float on the river, 
waterfowl bound to the earth 
for a season.
Unable to fly, 
they must bide their time and watch,
vulnerable, 
eyes on the sky they
cannot inhabit until 
new flight feathers emerge.

Browned and brittle,
stalks that were supple and green 
stand drying in the cold.
Goldenrods and asters, 
yellows and purples blanched to tan, 
holding pale, fuzzy seedheads 
soon to be 
dislodged by the breezes, 
sowing promise
of life to come.

Molting, Shedding, Waiting.
Emerging, Sowing, Hoping.

Believing.
Thanks be to God.

Wild Winds

O, blessed somber day of
ferocious winds and coming cold.
Color remnants hurled against the overcast sky
tug at my my unsettled soul.

Wistful day of
wild gales that strip away what was, 
time slipping through my fingers
as I grieve what is passing, 
not yet ready to embrace what will be...
as if I knew.

Rooted companions, the trees 
twist and writhe in the tumult,
trunks and branches whipped by forces 
beyond themselves. 
Responsively, they bow.
Their survival depends upon surrender.
And what of mine?

On this turbulent late-autumn day 
latent fears rise to the surface,
fears in the pit of my stomach,
fears of my own rigidity and
desire to cling.

And yet, where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your Presence?
It is enough.

If You Are Quiet You Can Hear the Leaves Fall

I haven't posted in a while but am reposting this, as it is as true today as it was a year ago.

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 companions
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....

In the Shadows of the Pin Oak

Sitting on the porch this morning, which feels like it could be the first morning, I am gleeful in the coolness, the return of spring after a brief incursion of summer. Enfolded in scents of honeysuckle flowers just opening and multiflora rose just fading I relish the greeness of trees swaying so lithely and supple, surrendered to the movement of the wind. 

Cardinals, chickadees, titmice, woodpeckers and the occasional rose-breasted grosbeak eat at the feeders and in the distance the ephemeral notes of a north-bound Swainson's thrush resting in our woodlands for a while. The warbler migration is almost finished, but the residents are busy with nest building and egg laying, still singing their individual sweet songs. 

A typical, if glorious, spring day...green of all that grows, blue of sky, golden sunlight falling in swaths upon the grass...and yet full of mystery and presence of the unseen. When looking into the clear, bright air they are invisible, but when looking into the backdrop of the pin oak across the road, thousands of moving particles are revealed as they reflect the light..pollen, dust, the fluff of sycamore seeds, tiny gnats and unidentified insects flitting through the air, far too many to begin to count. Everywhere but unseen unless gazing in exactly the right spot.

Life is all around, always, revealed by the Light even in the dark places. We are invited. Look for it.

Mary's Lark

This morning I bore witness to the waking of the day and to the participation of its heralds. I took my place on the porch at 5:30 am, just as the first cardinal began to sing, a half hour before dawn. A few minutes later a second one echoed each call and then, from further away, a third tuned up and the duet became a trio...like an avian version of the Wailin' Jennys' song, "One Voice." In time, a fourth and a fifth joined the ensemble and by 5:50, it sounded as if every cardinal in the world had awakened and joined the chorus.

At 5:52 a few Carolina chickadee and white-throated sparrow voices emerged amid the cardinal's raucous seranade and by 6:00, as the woodland and garden turned from grey to  green, the cardinals' song began to fade. Perhaps grudgingly giving up on further sleep, titmice and Carolina wrens accompanied the chickadees and white-throats, their collective melody punctuated now and then by Canada geese and barred owls' exclamations. The spring morning was in full swing!

Now it is evening and the order reverses and at some point, right around dusk, all the voices will fall silent for a few minutes, and then the cardinals' evening vespers will commence...not the exuberant exaltations of a new day, but the soft chipping of a lullaby, as though intent on lulling themselves to sleep.

Whenever I hear bird song, I think of this passage that was recorded by Alexander Carmichael, as he wandered through Scotland in the 1800's, attempting to set down the almost-lost Celtic prayers and blessings of centuries past.

"My mother would be asking us to sing our morning song to God down in the back-house, as Mary's lark was singing it up in the clouds, and as Christ's maven (song-thrush) was singing it yonder in the tree giving glory to God of the creatures for the repose of the night, for the light of the day, and for the joy of life. She would tell us that every creature on the earth here below and in the ocean beneath and in the air above was giving glory to the great God of the creatures and the worlds, of the virtues and the blessings, and would we be dumb."

God of the Creatures, thank you.

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/