~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
You could easily walk past, your mind
registering “tree,” as if it were nothing more
than an obstacle to be avoided. Or,
if you were walking quietly enough,
you might feel the nudge, hear
the whispered invitation: Look.
And if you did, you might be led
into a secret gallery that displays
the art of trees, and find a jeweled flower
made of wood and time and weather,
right there, in a circle of bark.
You never know.
An invisible rod of some kind
pokes me in the ribs as a voice
I haven’t heard in ages commands
Get up! Get out!
It was She who must be Obeyed.
So I tied on my leather boots,
pulled on my thick jacket, my hat,
grabbed extra batteries and the camera
and got out. I knew why she had come.
(The knowing simply appeared.)
It was time to remember that winter
brings the opportunity to see
what’s here to see, now and only now.
Put everything else aside. See.
Be here, in these woods.
My boots walk on blankets of pine.
I notice crystallized sap on the bark of the tree,
the vine, green even in winter, climbing
up its side, the whole thing complete
and perfect. Amen, I whisper.
Hallelujah, amen.
The skies here stay overcast this time of year,
sometimes for 10-12 days in a row. It’s a test.
We’re a week in now with only partial sun due
next Sunday and Monday, then full clouds
return. Just this morning, it struck me this hunger
is for color. It’s a visceral longing, deep and growling.
I pull a memory of summer gardens from my mind
and bathe in it, and it refreshes and restores me.
Turning from the dream, I find myself gazing
at the scene outside my window, saying to myself,
“Still, there is this.”
Between snows, the winter floor
lays bare, a tapestry of fallen leaves,
pressed against the earth, protecting
her, dissolving into her, nourishing
her with their return. They’re soft
and giving beneath my boots,
their musky feminine fragrance
enveloping me as I walk, tasting
like that wondrous moment exactly
between death and birth.
The only tale the woods can tell is the moment’s truth.
There’s no pretense here. No fabrication.
No memory or longing.
Just the sheer isness of forest and snow:
Sunlight on tree bark, the punctuation of animal tracks
and long shadows, the call of a crow accentuating
the silence.
All of it breathing the shimmering Yes.
The week seems to have flown past, but I had a chance to relax over a cup of coffee this morning with my 80-some year old neighbor, Bob. He’s a colorful old codger who has worked as a farmer, mill electrician, and long-haul trucker. He’s a ham radio enthusiast and often tells me about flying his plane to Alaska one year to see if he could find a cousin’s grave..
He recently had a pacemaker installed and it’s taken him a few days to get his bearings. But today he was feeling great and was full of tales about his truck driving capabilities.
He told me about the time he asked Tom, the owner of a bridge painting company, why this big piece of equipment was sitting in the yard. “It’s too big to fit into the garage,” Tom told him. “Nobody can get it in.”
Bob looked at it and at the garage door, and back at the equipment. “Sure it can fit,” Bob said. “I’ll back it in there for you.” Tom said they had measured the thing. At its widest point, it was only two inches smaller than the door.
To everybody’s amazement, Bob hooked it up to his pick-up and backed it in, slick as a whistle. He grinned ear to ear as he told me the story, proud as he could be.
“Well,” I said, “You know what Henry Ford said, don’t you? ‘If you believe you can—or if you believe you can’t—you’re probably right.’”
Bob took that in and laughed, slapping his knees. “I never heard that one before! That’s pretty good.”
Have you ever accomplished something you weren’t quite sure you could do, but thought maybe you could if you tried? If you have, you understand Bob’s big grin. It’s a great feeling to have your faith in yourself validated, to stretch beyond what you know you can do into the untried and then succeed.
We all too often let fear of the unfamiliar get in our way. We worry about how we’ll look to others if we try something new and it doesn’t work out. But every effort is a learning experience; you gain knowledge about what works and what doesn’t. You expand your horizons. You build new skills; you learn how to work around limitations. Always, you can feel good about yourself for overcoming your doubt and hesitation, for trying something new.
And in most cases, if you really flub up, at least you have a good story to tell and, often, a chance to laugh at the mess you made of things.
We don’t often think of our daily challenges as requiring courage, but courage is exactly what you’re using when you dare to try something new. And as with any strength, you build it by using it. You gain confidence in yourself. You find yourself saying, “Sure I can!” or “I don’t know, but I’ll give it a try.” You start acting like “The Little Engine that Could,” chanting “I think I can; I think I can,” and making it all the way to the top of the big hill.
Thinking you can is the key. As old Henry Ford said, whether you believe that you can, or can’t, you’re probably right. The next time you’re facing a challenge, give it a try.
Wishing you a week brimming with confidence and success.
Warmly,
Susan
Image by Miriam Müller from Pixabay
All at once, a breather, a moment of respite
from the cold. Temperatures that in summer
would have chilled me feel so balmy to me now
that I go hatless and leave my mittens behind.
It won’t last. February snow is no surprise.
But today the sun is shining and I remember
the taste of spring, its sounds and fragrances.
The creek wears a layer of water over its ice.
And on its banks, even the trees are dancing.
Before they even slip into
their golden-yoked shells,
before their bodies even begin
to form bones and beaks and brains,
the spirits of birds dream of flying.
That is why they come here.
They come pushed by dreams
of sky rushing through feathers,
of gliding through air, of darting
among the branches of trees.
They dream of swooping and falling
and climbing again on strong wings,
of racing with clouds and drifting
on breezes. It will take effort,
this dream. But they hold to it
until it turns true and they find
themselves soaring and free.
The days have been dark with heavy skies.
Today, for most of the day, it rained.
But as I crossed the bridge from one side
of the river to the other, I noticed
that, beyond the fog, the clouds
were parting, a new light shining through.
And how alive the world seemed,
as if it were filled with newborn joy.
For as long as the lake could remember
the air had been cold. Day or night, whether
it danced as a breeze or blew with the force
of a gale, cold was its unrelenting story.
And the lake believed it and knew itself
to be ice, stretching from shore to shore,
strong enough to hold the weight of a deer
or of a man. Then, one January day,
the rays of the sun, warm as spring,
fell on its surface, gleaming with truth.
At first, the ice resisted. “I am ice,” it said.
But the light of the sun kept burning
with love, insisting, “You are more.
You are ice, but you are more.” And the lake
began melting and rippling with joy,
and at last it knew that it was liquid
and free.