Remembering Winter

February, Northern Wisconsin
. . . Am made whole, if just for this hour.
Pestered out of a dreamless sleep, I leave the sleeper berth and emerge into a frozen wilderness, on the edge of a clean, empty parking lot. Just imagine, as you walk the snow of the curb, bordering commerce and wildness. The snow sparkles under blinding security lights. Near the clearing into the woods, even the fall flowers, now frozen as if time stood still, gleam with points of light upon their empty seed-heads. Reaching into the woods where the white lights are still casting but are more appreciably subtle, suddenly a change. The entire wilderness before you glitters as you watch with a child's delight. Looking between the soft firs out into the heavens, what is snow particle and what is star particle becomes indeterminable, and what is near becomes far, and far near. Just as the expanse of the heavens, the trees wear a veil of dark and diamonds, woven by millions of chance miracles. You feel you could stand here with the trees indefinitely, drinking in the celestial beauty pouring into soul from both star and snow.

An Ode to Spring

What is it about a place, with its sights, smells, loves? It can bring out the best in a man or woman. I hadn't seen the lush languid flowing Lowcountry for quite some time, I realized, once I saw it last week. As bicycle passed over the Cosgrove bridge onto the Sam-Rittenburg peninsula, wild Anise perfumed the roadside, at the edge of the foolhardy sit-mower's recent path. Still offering its gift. A kind of treaty, gracefully perhaps, if only on account of nature's end. Grabbing handfuls of it, breathing deeply. . .

From April 2015

Feeling good on the farm. I need rest. I am so glad to have gotten hard work and good feelings. I can feel romance again. I am in love with nature. Today was a day of discovery on the farm. Pawing dense strawberry foliage spilling out of black plastic covering. Seeing "henbit," showing its flirtatious beauty with its wild fuschia blooms. Who knew such a plant existed! I marveled at swiss chard, tuscano kale, as well as countless soft tufts of wild greens that blanketed and healed the ground. Most call them weeds, but my co-worker pointed out "see that one is of the mint family, you can tell from the semi-circular leaves surrounding the stem. And that one is of the pea family." These are close cousins of the species that feed us directly. The drive there was unmistakably sunny. I had seen naught but full cloud cover for two weeks, so all this sunshine was ambrosial. My eyes sang and my heart rejoiced as I passed Charleston harbor -- the water was singing, sparkling again -- James Island, John's Island -- the trees luminesced once again. Fresh pines, wise old oaks, standing like apostles, meekly declaring God's humble magnificence -- all was graciously offered to my sight. In the air was the return of spring and I thought back to my time on the farm in October, picking squash and sometimes just stopping, looking up at the trees in the morning sun, all living matter glistening, every particle, air and ground, glowing, and [a man] thinking softly, "wow, this is something else. I get to be in the pulsating heart of nature every day. Truly, I must be blessed, to feel all of this"

. . . Later, I walk the soccer fields of my youth. The heat of the earth leaks back to the air. The grass breathes moisture into the air. The fog is thick. Lights filter through the trees, heavily creating a sense of place. Place and moment is comfortably drawn about me. The air takes on a special kind of mass. The dance of shadow and light is enveloping, entrancing in my eyes.
Slowly, methodically, feet move from dew-soaked earth, up, cold grass slipping in-between toes, gathering their moisture. Savoring the quiet coolness. Bathed from the thighs down in condensed heaven. 

Goodbye Charleston

Lovely smells, warm smells
cinnamon-y, pine
sultry spring mud smells
Goodbye Charleston, my heart says

Bicycling down new paths,
Seeing the Ravenel, Ashley, and Cosgrove bridges all from one just-built dock
Napping in a stranger's docked kayak. The moon-pulled brackish water cradles me gently one last time. I get up and move on
The warm air seems to carry me forward. All is as a dream
Just drinking in the beauty.

Graceful trees arching over quiet roads,
Honeysuckle, Gardenia smells bathe me
In my blithe procession through the lands of my childhood
I am carried and given a great gift.
Like water, tugged and pulled. Giving the most deliberate impression of purpose and course. Flowing. I want for nothing, just as the trees, grass, and flowers want for nought, thriving in the fairest days and most blustery fresh storms.

Back on Earth

And there were giants in the earth in those days - Genesis 6:4

Lone Rock is a unique formation in the Wahweap Bay of Lake Powell, located in Southern Utah. It rises some 300 feet from the Lake. I see it from the highway. I want a closer look. The descent is calm. Lake Heron, Roadrunner, and the crow reveal themselves. As I approach, it becomes more beautiful and seems to have something to say. As I catch the last down-hill stretch to the beach, it utters and stops me quick. I get off the bike, hearing it. It says. . . Nothing. I listen for a minute and hear.  . . Nothing. Another minute goes by as I let the silence soak into my skin, my muscles, my bones. Finally I hear a bird chirp as it flies by. Witnessing the hills and jagged peaks thrusting up near the horizon, the rockscape gleams yellow and gives way to red, mirrors the color of the sky, eventually fading into a deeper blue, all keeping remarkable peace. This quietness strongly, tenderly exhorts one to introspection. There is nothing to hear but your own breath, the throb of heart in the temples. Something seems important about this moment, I cannot say what. As I think of the difficulties of this life, the disenfranchisement, losses uncompensated for, they seem to carry with them a hardness of earth. They have a certain texture. The have. . . slope. Amid this silence I look out at the universe of rock beings regally exalted over the lowlands upon which I stood, I heard in my mind, "Climb . . ."
Later that day, I came upon Antelope Point, and delighted and reveled in the beautiful rock outcroppings. I couldn't just look. I ran down one section of red-and-white channels, falling in a zig-zag motion down the smooth channels in the rock until I reached the water. It was beyond dangerous, and my hidden vitality had taken over and blithely carried me like a child. I splashed water on my face and waltzed merrily across sections of rock until I came to rest upon one spot that afforded a place to lay back a little and rest my head. Total happiness. The geology here shatters the dull commonplace and brings the mind out of its comfort zone. Again,  I seem to love these stones in a strange way. I love their looks, their texture, even the sensation (somewhere between sound and touch) of their layers as I bring hands down upon them, gently climbing. Indeed, there may be a common thread in our humanity that draws us to these petrified sanctuaries, some of God's finest sculptures. I have read their stone scripture and ponder upon them often.

Have always felt this way since my first wanderings as a mere boy of 19 and today I made it so: Life is a playground. We all know it when we are kids, but along the way all of us forget it. We talk and talk, but Nature is ever there, offering the gift of regal stillness. Can you hear it?

Silence is our national security, our civil defense. By destroying silence, the legacy of our deserts, we leave no room for peace, the deep peace that elevates and stirs our souls. It is silence that rocks us and awakes us to the reality of our dreams - T. Tempest Williams

Here's to remembering