I began writing this column from my couch, but its subject matter soon urged me out into the fresh air. Knowing I ought not argue, I stashed computer and water bottle into my aged daypack, left a note for my husband, and quickly left the house.
I sit now upon the welcoming earth surrounded by wild grasses. Blades at their base are still green, yet slender stalks stretch above my head, teeming with seedpods in hues ranging from amber to ecru.
Autumn has arrived at long last. Mornings are blessedly cool and my husband no longer needs to set fans whirring in the night just to make our upstairs bearable in the heat of the day. The sun's arc across the sky has dropped toward the south and its light is softer, with none of the harsh glare of a few weeks ago.
It sinks now into the west, its honeyed light stretching across fields and reflecting off the waters of the lake below. The tree closest me is a mix of still~green leaves and those flashing a cheerful yellowy~orange. Soon the mountainsides will flame with golden aspen, trees that seem to store sunlight throughout the summer only to give it back in the fall.
All is quiet here, but for the rustling of the grasses that encircle me, their song rising and falling with the strength of the wind. But as I quiet myself, other sounds make themselves known. The clear notes of one bird...and another...and another. A lone cricket, diligently rubbing his forewings together in hopes of attracting a mate. A host of buzzing insects. No, this place is not silent at all. It is simply devoid of the noises of human activity.
With that thought, the simplicity of the poignant Wendell Berry poem comes to me. As I lay back now upon the Earth I, too, "come into the peace of wild things...(and) rest in the grace of the world."
There is certainly much that is not graceful in this world. It is woefully apparent when we tune into the news or observe the incivility so often present within human discourse these days. Yet as the Earth holds me this afternoon, I am reminded of the stillness that exists under it all. The metaphor that speaks to me most soulfully is that of an underground stream flowing beneath human busyness and strife. It is that stream we touch each time we quiet in sitting meditation or prayer, whenever we remember to open to it during a heated exchange, and as we "lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds."
Allowing ourselves to rest in that peace is a kindness we do ourselves. And tapping into that tranquility is both a kindness and a powerful act for the greater good as well. Author Sharon McElrlane uses another metaphor: "Each time you open to and feel the radiance of the Net of Light within yourself, you bless the world. By aligning yourself with light, you give light a place to live. You call it home to you and you hold it steady."
Those words are not an arrogant proclamation, but a recognition that we each play a role in creating this world. Every time we come into harmony, we give it a home from which it can move out into the world.
As I lay upon the Earth now, drinking in the serenity of this place, I know the items on my to~do list back home are not checking themselves off. But I find I don't care all that much. Okay, in this moment I care not at all. They will get done or not, but for now I will lay here and absorb the lusciousness of this day. What sweet pleasure it is, this simple act of stilling and absorbing peace.
And I remember a quote from a Netflix show my husband and I have fallen in love with, enchanted by its superb writing, brilliant acting, and storylines that grapple with topics of significance. At the close of an episode of Call the Midwife, Vanessa Redgrave speaks the following words in voiceover:
"Sometimes, there's a brightness and a richness in the moment. Ripeness that simply says, "Taste this!" And calls us to partake without fear...It is the fruit of our experience, and in its heart, it bears the seed of all our hopes. Take the joy. Take all it gives. Life is sweet, and it is ours. As is our right to love and relish every moment."
There is so much pain and heartache in the world that it seems a sacred act to balance it, to open to the joy that is also present. Yet, that is only the half of it. Once we fill with joy, we must do what we can to carry its light out into the world. Poet Dawna Markova vows "to live so that that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit." Yes, let's do it like that.
Happy blossoming, dear one. Drink in the sweetness. And then like the aspen and the seed~filled grasses gamboling in the breeze, pass it on.
Leia
Here's a link to Wendell Berry's poem, The Peace of Wild Things
And here's a link to the Dawna Markova poem, I Will Not Die An Unlived Life
Enjoy!
