finding the sacred in nature

"Mystical experience in nature—those moments when you sense your interconnection with all things—are more than just interesting encounters. They are invitations into relationship. Beyond caring for creation or stewarding Earth’s “resources,” it is entering into an actual relationship with particular places and beings of the living world that can provide an embodied, rooted foundation for transformation. The global shift necessary to actually survive the crises we’ve created depends on a deep inner change."

                                                    --Victoria Loorz, co-founder of the “Wild Church Network"

 

Little Tesuque Creek part 2

 where to begin

awake in the dark

a luminous aurora-like light dancing

along the skirt of the mountains

where to begin

the astonishing quiet

but for the shush of the Cottonwood trees

the creek

the top of the peak 

where

my heart burst open to the sky with joy

here

alone in this Place

my breath mingling with heaven

nothing between me and infinite space

where to begin

begin here

"How we love one thing is how we love everything."

                                        -Father Richard Rohr

to look well at the creek

 

Sometimes it is so hard to be present. Even alone on the Little Tesuque Creek Trail with the creek burbling beside me I find my head rushing forward in time. Stop. Be here with this moment. The shivering cottonwoods kept whispering “hello, hello” as I hiked by. I keep forgetting to acknowledge them, having decided after listening to the Secret Life of Trees how poplars speak to one another, protect one another, nurture each other. I recall how once both my sister and I found ourselves mysteriously called to stand on the back deck of our house in the middle of the summer. We just stood. We did not speak. And then. A 100-foot pecan tree fell completely over onto the back fence and the roof of an apartment building behind our house. She looked at me and said That was weird, and went back in the house. I think those may have been the only three words she spoke to me the whole year (the only year) we lived together our adult lives. When I think back I can only think that the tree had called us out of the house to bear witness, or maybe to keep us safe.

 

When I was at the ashram in the summer I was sitting by Little Bear Creek at dusk. The cicadas hummed in rhythm and the wind rustled the leaves of the trees along its banks. I suddenly had this deep realization that everything in nature is singing. The falling boulders—the roiling water of the rapids, the birds, the whales the frogs, everything participating in a symphony of sound that somehow makes sense to some listener—the Earth? Does she shiver with delight at the song?

These are odd times. If you are reading this then perhaps you are in the close-knit circle of readers who know I have not written in a very long while and will forgive me if anything I say here lends itself to a sense of tone-deafness. 

But since life has slowed down a lot, working from home, going almost nowhere except the grocery, and that only occasionally, I feel the need to say a few things about this time that we are experiencing. First, I hope that each one of us, in our albeit (hopefully) limited interactions with other members of our species, try to interact with each other in a way that leaves the other person better for that interaction. We should all be nice, love one another and have empathy for the fear each one of us may feel, the uncertainty and the recognition of the fragility that is this existence. My heart wants to burst that people are out there showing up for one another, whether they are front line emergency or medical care workers, or grocery checkers--there are some who are risking so much to keep things going along as normal as is possible. Thank you for this every day heroism of showing up. 

I have been walking more. Here there are Huisache and Redbud trees blooming, Mexican Buckeye and Dogwood, poppies, lantana and verbena. I will reiterate something Annie Dillard write that I have often quoted, advice that seems timely:

 

"My God, I look at the creek. It is the answer to Merton’s prayer, “Give us time!” It never stops. If I seek the senses and skill of children, the information of a thousand books, the innocence of puppies, even the insights of my own city past, I do so only, solely, and entirely that I might look well at the creek."

Now we have the time. I want to look well at the creek. Really see everything around me as if for the first time. 

I remind myself to pause and be thankful for this body that has worked so hard for me, carrying me over mountains and through childbirths, this body that has no choice but to go along wherever this brain wills it, regardless of how healthy the choice is. 

This world is a miracle, nothing less. We are blessed to walk a moment in its forests, swim in its oceans, laugh and love beneath its stars and sunsets. I hope if nothing else I learn from these difficult times to take nothing in this fleeting and exquisite life for granted. 

colorado

at 4am I cross the bridge

over the black water

the one that, like a vein, has carried

molecules of longing to our  hearts, 

etching the map of

our coming both together and apart,

winding east, then back upon itself as it carves

southward to the source

where water comes together with other water.

the wings of sand hill and whooping cranes

draw a line in the sky

tracing a path

from where we lay on our bellies

at secret beach, watching the fishing birds,

to the mouth of the bay

where at night the stars bore down

with fire

aching to be seen,

where once 

we beheld the slick backs of pilot whales

in the surf

illuminated by the moon.

here

is where I will always find you

searching for the wild part of yourself

that somehow remembers

what is was like breathing

the water.

lovesong at 6pm

it is just dusk

and my crazy heart is filled

with love for the flitting of birds about the yard

not noticing

me,
here in this chair

bursting with desire

the screech owl awoke me at 4am; I swooned.

over coffee the wren, concocting a plan

to build a tiny nest on the porch.

sun set the blue of the jay and the cardinal on reddish fire

who am I but some lovesick

schoolgirl

mad with longing for the settling light in the leaves

the barely perceptible breeze,

the birds,

the night

poem at 9pm

Roatan, 2013

the moon's slivered crescent

rises and the light puddles

 on the surface of the water

quiet except

for the breath

steady and calm and

comforting

 in the liquid ether

that is more home to me than air

why

can't I stay here

forever?

a mermaid

with tangled hair

and a mournful underwater song

trailing 

in a wake of sorrow

sometimes I miss you

but here in the deep cold

no one can see the tears