Category: Autumn’s Song 2003

It doesn’t matter that everyone else
has shed their leaves. Someone needs
to carry joy flags into the winter.
Let it be you.

Sing, even though the choir has gone silent.
Be brilliantly awake while everyone else
Is lost in dreams. Skip when the walkers shuffle.
Dance when the fearful ones lean against the wall.
Believe in Yes even when all around you
are lost in the illusion of No.
Let your heart brim with gratitude
and with praise for life even when the world
seems drenched in sorrow.

Someone needs to carry joy flags into the winter.
Why not let it be you?

I have a card on my desk with words
hand-printed: lines, form, textures, colors,
rhythm, patterns, motion. I say them
to myself as if they were a mantra,
to train myself to pay attention.
Everything has something to say.
I’m driving through cornfields
on my usual Wednesday trip, and today
the fields boast only stubby stalks.
The harvest is in. I note the color,
the texture. I turn onto the main road,
two-lane, decently paved, and watch
late autumn flow past me. A mile
or so down the road, I pull off to stop
to see the wetlands on this fine day
in mid-November, and as I step
from my car the sky grabs me
and my mind is shouting like a child:
Lines! Form! Texture! Colors!
Rhythm! Patterns! Motion!
And that child-self twirls in the grass
as I take pictures.

Simply ask, then be at ease
and go about your way
knowing that, in its perfect time,
your request will be granted.
Keep your heart light, your mind
open, your trust a matter
of course. Then surrender,
and go where you are led.
Believe this. The earth is filled
with goodness, and jewels gleam
everywhere.

We try to make sense of things,
to find something familiar,
something we can name.
So words come – reptile, bird –
and they wind themselves
into stories large as legend,
their meanings rolling down
through mists of time. I see.
These lines and patterns
and textures and hues
are for gazing, mandalas
to mirror your mind.

The first assignment on the first day
of the second year of winter studies
was to look around and see what
what I could see and as a subset
of this, perhaps to notice how
I was experiencing the experience.
It was all, I can tell you, far richer
than I expected. Take for instance
the way I felt drawn to this tree,
to this cut section of it that I’ve watched
for a couple years now. It was deep
in shadow, but even so, the colors
of its resin ran down its surface as if
they were made from melted crayons.
I held my breath as I photographed it,
feeling honored to be allowed.
This is a ceremonial vision drum.
As I gaze into its smoky depths
I imagine dancers silhouetted
before a great bonfire and hear
the rhythm of their drums.
Then I blink, and think, laughing,
that this is only Day One.

The woods were still dark, the morning sun
only now rising on the sleeping scene,
the branches bare, the revelry over,
the previous night’s rain having washed
to the ground the bits of what remained.

Except for the flaming scarlet song floating
down the hillside through the night’s debris,
I might have missed her altogether,
there, at the crest of the hill, her leaves alone
remaining. She sang as one deep in reverie,
uttering a last, personal blessing over all
that she had witnessed here since spring,
humbled perhaps at the realization
that she got to be the final witness of it all.
Imagine that. The last one.

The night before I came across
this water-washed sculpture
made of the roots of a tree
and time and weather,
I watched a great buck
with a multi-pointed crown
slowly climb the western hill,
listening, watching, the first
I’ve seen this season.

“A deer.” The word sprang
to my mind the moment
I saw this graceful figure,
hewn from a tree, here by the creek.
I stepped closer, taking in
the creation’s lines and texture
and colors, the sorts of things
I learned to notice last winter
when that was all that was left
to see. And now the season
of such seeing begins again
and something eager rises
within me.

Getting there is one thing.
The destination’s the main reason
for the journey, I suppose.
But it’s not everything, and maybe
not even the most important.
Once you reach it, after all, another
soon takes its place. Always
there is more to see and do.
Just maybe it’s the journey itself
that matters most, the times
you paused along the way to look around,
to feel yourself being, alive, savoring
the company, the day’s fine view.

Blessed are we when we have a companion
who lingers by our sides as we travel our days,
someone whose heart holds our own gently,
who flows with our moods without judgment,
who understands our thoughts and ways,
someone who makes the days of peace
more lovely, and the days of darkness
easier to bear, who lends strength
when we are weak, and who applauds
us when we’re strong, someone whose
smile is as warm as sunshine, and whose
love lets us know that our life is worthwhile.

They don’t settle down right away.
Like children tucked into bed
after an exciting day, the trees
take some time to sink into silence.
First, they must whisper stories
to each other, to giggle and tease.
They must wiggle a bit and ease
themselves into just the right
position before the winter dreams
will come, floating in like clouds
on a snowy evening. But then,
what stillness! And beneath it,
what stupendous dreams they dream!