“I dream of a world where the truth is what shapes people’s politics, rather than politics shaping what people think is true…”
Neil deGrasse Tyson
It is Wednesday evening. We have had overcast skies throughout the day, metaphor for the feel of our country’s woundedness. The wind has picked up and will blow into Friday with gusts up to 70 mph. Another metaphor for our troubling times. Sometimes we live in our heads more than in the world and therefore what we think we think we know, just ain’t so. Time for all of us to stay planted in our shoes. It’s the only place we can live.
“Only the blindness of habit convinces us that we continue to live in the same place, that we see the same landscape.”
John O’Donohue
Had an early meeting at Pineridge Natural Area with God, a few magpies, low clouds on the eastern horizon, silence and a cup of coffee to keep my hands warm. I watched nature put on a beautiful show of colors that helped keep me warm in the 15 degree cold. As O’Donohue suggests as long as I do not stay in a place of the blindness of my habits the landscape will provide something new for me to experience, and that is a gift. I stayed until the sun rose above the clouds and my hands and feet were cold. Have a great day and stay warm.
Sunbeams coming through clouds as night approaches
“Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day’s chalking.” Frederick Buechner
“We desperately need to retrieve our capacity for reverence. Each day that is given to you is full of the shy graciousness of divine tenderness. It is a lovely practice at night to spend a little time while revisiting the invisible sanctuaries of your lived day. Each day is a secret story woven around the radiant heart of wonder. We let our days fall away like empty shells and miss all the treasures.” John O’Donohue
Sorry for posting another sunset. I’m almost 70 and for as long as I can remember we seem to have one every day. Figured I might as well take advantage of them while I can. I just stood in awe and reverence this evening, taking in deep breaths, and grateful I didn’t miss this treasure.
For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.
Clouds, one of natures brushes it uses to create beautiful art.
“There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect’s wings. But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand. The clatter only seems to insult the ears.” Chief Seattle
