~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
May there be harmony.
May there be peace.
May we laugh sometimes.
May we accept what is,
welcoming everything
as our teacher.
May we know the serenity
of kindness.
May we forgive.
May our hearts be filled
with quiet, flowing joy.
May we walk in harmony.
May we walk in peace.
If you walk in this woods, amidst these pines,
these elders, with a request, sincerely made,
for clarity and peace, and nothing more,
if you walk softly, listening to the breathing
of all these living things—these leaves,
this bark, the silent,darting birds—
tasting the fragrance of the warm spring air,
observing the play of light and shadow,
a certain knowing will seep into your mind,
and your heart will be filled with deep peace.
When I saw the tiny maple leaves, just emerged from the tip of a branch, I thought about watching one of those time lapse movies. You know, the ones where you see a whole day sweep by from sunrise to dusk in a mere minute or two.
I imagined a little maple seed, the kind that twirls to the ground on helicopter wings, settling into the soil, sprouting, enduring a winter, coming back taller and stronger each spring until one day, it stood before me, a proud little sapling, unfolding its bright new leaves. Soon it will produce helicopter seeds of its own, and the story will go on and on.
The thought reminded me of an exercise I learned once where you traveled back through the history of something to appreciate all that contributed to its presence in your life. If you were eating an apple, for instance, you could trace it back to the store where you bought it and think about all the people who were involved in operating the store. Someone ordered it; someone sold it to the store; someone unpacked it from its crate and set it out for display.
Before that, it traveled on a truck that came from a distributor who bought it from an orchard. The truck had a driver, who worked for a company that bought produce and delivered it to stores. And the truck traveled over roads that were imagined and engineered and built and maintained.
The apple was one of many dozens that came from a tree that thrived in an orchard, soaking in a summer’s sun and rain. And before that it was a blossom, tended by bees, growing on the tree that produced the seed from which it grew. When it ripened, someone picked it and placed it in the crate that was loaded onto the truck.
And now it was in your hand, and you would bite it and taste what how delicious it was and how crisp and juicy and sweet its flesh. And it would nurture you. You were the whole reason it came to be. You and the workers in the orchard, and the builders of crates and trucks and roads and grocery stores.
It’s a worthwhile exercise. It broadens your sense of the connectedness of things and leads you to appreciate the wonder of life’s endless unfolding. And in the end, it leads you to the big questions: How did it all come to be? Where did it come from? Why am I, a tiny life form on a small speck of planet in the midst of a giant and dazzling universe, capable of wondering why? And how am I so lucky to be holding this apple right in my very own hand?
Wishing you a week of sweet wonders, my friends.
Warmly,
Susan
You may believe that no one sees you,
as hidden as you are, the bold leaves
of the trees that tower above you
soaking up all but this filtered green light.,
You may believe that you are alone,
a singular blossom, deep in the woods,
with no others of your kind in sight.
Still, the morning dew finds you
and decorates you with translucent pearls.
And although you can’t perceive it them,
beings from a dimension adjacent to your own
are gazing at your beauty right this very moment
and saying, “How precious! How sweet!”
And they see that you are brave
and they cherish your clear. tender song.
When you make wishes on a dandelion
you don’t care whether they will come true.
It’s magic enough that with one puff
you can send the wish-seeds flying
and watch the breezes carry them away.
Secretly, of course, you hope the seeds
that bear your wishes will sail as high
as it takes to catch the notice
of the Granter of Wishes, and that,
seeing yours, he will laugh and say,
“Why yes, my child. Just you wait.
Just you wait.” And something
inside you tells you that, one way
or another, all our best wishes
come true.
I heard the buzz of his wings
before I saw him, and I laughed
at the fact that he’d returned.
“Couldn’t resist, hey?” I say
as he settles on the little clump
of barely opened blossoms
“Nope,” I imagine him saying.
“And you were right about
the purple ones.”
The variegated hosta is in full swirl now,
the sight of it transporting me
back to my early childhood days
when I’d stretch out my arms,
toss back my head, and spin until I fell down,
the green of the trees spinning still,
until the scene finally came to rest.
And I would lay there in the fragrant, cool grass
watching the leaves of the cottonwoods
and poplars blow in the breeze from the bay,
and above them, white gulls soaring, their calls
cascading down through the luscious canopy
of May’s lacy unfolding green.
I climbed the southwestern slope this morning.
It’s slow going, strewn with hidden rocks
and roots and vines. Mostly I’m looking
for the next place to put my foot, not only
for my sake, but because the wild violets
and baby ferns are everywhere. I pause
with every step, marveling at the shapes
and shades of green rising from the earth,
at miniscule flowers, and tall ones dancing
on slim stems, and the tiny buds and
newborn leaves on the branches of vines
and trees. I am so immersed in it
that I forget I am there, that such a thing
as me exists at all.
Later in the day I found myself looking
at the slope from its base, at the fresh green
of it and at the way the afternoon light
dappled the hill. I saw the reality
of the trees and recalled how I could feel
their aliveness on my climb the way
you feel your cat curled on his chair
across the room even when you are
giving him no attention at all.
I got to see this, I said to myself.
I got to be here.
Well, hello, Mr. Bumblebee. I know you.
We met here at the pulmonaria
just yesterday. I wondered if you
were the very one I ferried from my kitchen
in a jar a couple days before. Remember?
Let’s believe, just for fun, it was you.
I would have returned here, too.
That’s the color of my favorite flavor.
But come back later for the purple ones.
I’ll watch for you. Come back. Feast well.
I’m so very happy to see you.
Dusk was beginning to move in
when I saw them bound across the road
and up the hill. Only their motion
let me know they were there, so well
did their colors blend with the trees
and the leaves not yet covered with green.
I had seen them last Monday, climbing
the same path up to old roadway that runs
east to west across the face of the hill.
They stopped to graze for a while.
Do deer, I wondered, eat violets?
One by one, they slowly passed,
alert and watching, ready to disappear
in seconds. And then they were gone.