Thank you for the reminder that nature provides us with such ineffable beauty and wonder. It is a gift for sure, but the gift we give ourselves is making the space and giving the attention to that wonder. Opening ourselves to it. I think so much of humanities problems today come from this separateness, All the while longing for wholeness.
"What seems easy for the universe is often hard for us."Robert Bly, American poet, author, and activist (1926–2021). And, so what if the world is indifferent to our dreams(good or nightmares)!
With my background of Catholicism, autumn’s shedding of leaves brings to mind that station of the crucifixion journey where Jesus is stripped of his garments. I wonder if being stripped forcibly, by gusting winds, by Roman soldiers, by the great challenges that occur in every life or by unbidden but unavoidable inner turmoil is a necessary part of every life journey. That maybe naked is how we need to stand, free of artifice, stripped of masks and of armor, open to the worst of whatever is thrown at us, that we might learn our strength, our resilience, and the grace of forces outside ourselves that keep us upright on our paths, facing forward into the worst that winter and life can throw at us.
What a beautiful web of connections. Reminds me of this Mary Oliver poem:
I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall ---
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.
The consciousness, voice and agency usually denied of the natural world in Western thinking. The gentle refusal of involvement in human strife.
But by granting the sea a “lovely voice”, Oliver creates a soft comfort in the realisation of powerlessness at the hand of nature. Renewed hope & revitalisation of purpose - we must all have ‘work’ to do.
For me, this poem has a much lighter tone & refers to much smaller scale personal miseries and tragedies (for which the constant rolling of the waves can provide steady reassurance to) than the deep ecological/social/political wounds that Twichell’s trees refuse witness to. For who would want to witness their own demise?
Lovely. The beginning of this poem reminds me of William Carlos Williams' "Winter Trees" (" All the complicated details/of the attiring and/the disattiring are completed!") but then goes in a very different direction.
Thank you for the reminder that nature provides us with such ineffable beauty and wonder. It is a gift for sure, but the gift we give ourselves is making the space and giving the attention to that wonder. Opening ourselves to it. I think so much of humanities problems today come from this separateness, All the while longing for wholeness.
Wonderfully said, John. Thanks for reading
"What seems easy for the universe is often hard for us."Robert Bly, American poet, author, and activist (1926–2021). And, so what if the world is indifferent to our dreams(good or nightmares)!
Thanks, as always.
With my background of Catholicism, autumn’s shedding of leaves brings to mind that station of the crucifixion journey where Jesus is stripped of his garments. I wonder if being stripped forcibly, by gusting winds, by Roman soldiers, by the great challenges that occur in every life or by unbidden but unavoidable inner turmoil is a necessary part of every life journey. That maybe naked is how we need to stand, free of artifice, stripped of masks and of armor, open to the worst of whatever is thrown at us, that we might learn our strength, our resilience, and the grace of forces outside ourselves that keep us upright on our paths, facing forward into the worst that winter and life can throw at us.
What a beautiful web of connections. Reminds me of this Mary Oliver poem:
I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall ---
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.
The consciousness, voice and agency usually denied of the natural world in Western thinking. The gentle refusal of involvement in human strife.
But by granting the sea a “lovely voice”, Oliver creates a soft comfort in the realisation of powerlessness at the hand of nature. Renewed hope & revitalisation of purpose - we must all have ‘work’ to do.
For me, this poem has a much lighter tone & refers to much smaller scale personal miseries and tragedies (for which the constant rolling of the waves can provide steady reassurance to) than the deep ecological/social/political wounds that Twichell’s trees refuse witness to. For who would want to witness their own demise?
Lovely. The beginning of this poem reminds me of William Carlos Williams' "Winter Trees" (" All the complicated details/of the attiring and/the disattiring are completed!") but then goes in a very different direction.