Category: Grandmother

Moon at High Noon

Science is not my forte, but a little bit of knowledge mixed with awe can realign my world. I have come to appreciate the power of observation, which seems to be an essential dimension of a scientific approach. When I create the time and space to pay attention to the world outside my usual frame of reference, I experience mystery and a question eventually emerges.

I’ve been moon watching. Four weeks ago my granddaughter and I sat for the first time on my new mountain-view deck and observed the waxing crescent moon hanging close to Jupiter just after sunset. The June moon was just four days old. We shared the excitement of being amateur backyard astronomers. For the next few nights the moon appeared a bit later, a bit fuller, and bit more to the east. We discovered that thin crescent first day moon we spied in the west was not rising, it was setting.

When my grand-joy returned home, I kept scanning the night sky to feel our connection and realized that without a moon chart, I could not quite predict just where and when it would appear. I began waiting and watching for the arrival of the full moon which would coincide with the June 20 solstice. The night of the solstice I drove to the top of our mountain road to see the bright strawberry moon and offer my gratitude for its reassuring appearances.

I am not sure why “knowing” about the patterns of the orbiting moon helps my appreciating, but I think it is about my becoming a more attentive participant in the mysteries of the universe. Reading the stargazer’s footnotes, I discovered that the convex, protruding moon that later appeared was called the waning gibbous moon, and I already knew that the light would eventually disappear from my night view.

I have been measuring the first month of my transition to a new location in incremental steps of rising and setting moments, at times feeling like I am spinning in the same place. The moon has been a signifier that in nature’s pattern, I can predict the appearance of light in darkness. My aha awareness increased near the end of the month. Sitting on the same deck peering into the midday sky, I unexpectedly saw the moon at high noon; light upon light. Who looks for a sign of constancy when the day is bright? Who celebrates such an appearance?

My vantage point changes, but the predictable sky companion does not. I have moved on my own orbital path this month, a bit further away from my grandchildren, but they are always in my universe. In fact the moon gives us a shared vantage point. In just a few days as we are standing on different grounds, looking from different angles, we can both sing “I see the moon and the moon sees me. God bless the moon and God bless me.” I like that thought.

If you are interested in moon gazing, this link provides a 12 month chart of the phases.

http://www.calendar-12.com/moon_phases/2016

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Mountain Dweller

I can condense the description of my natural world context into two sentences. Born near the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, my soul stirs with the sun, sand, and salted waves. Wandering in the Blue Ridge Mountains, hiking a path one footstep at a time, my spirit soars. For the past 32 years I have flourished in a location where I could easily access both.  However, my busy years of doing are slowly being transformed into a desire to find peace and satisfaction in just being in the here and now.  I have experienced a repeated nudge to attend to the inner life of the spirit, my mountain way of being.

In World Religions: A Guide to Our Wisdom Traditions Huston Smith writes that the differences in human nature call for a variety of paths towards life’s fulfillment. Just as Christianity examines the changing landscapes of spiritual life that intersect with human growth, Hinduism describes different stages of life that call for their own agendas. In the second half of life – defined as the time that grandchildren arrive – individuals may claim the license of age, withdrawing from obligations shouldered during earlier years. Huston summarizes the Hindu principle of this later stage in life. “Relief is in order lest life ends before we understand it.”

I find that in western culture it takes a certain courage and determination to claim these years for spiritual adventuring which Hindus refer as the time of the forest dweller. In reflection I am quite certain I am both interpreting and simplifying the Hindu world. However, Smith notes that forest dwellers are working a philosophy into a way of life, pulling up stakes unless things continue as they always have. He writes that in time one becomes inner directed to the point where it doesn’t matter where you are – market place, farming village, forest, or mountain, one reenters the world a different person, a truer self.

In these past months of labor and silence I have been furiously examining, evaluating, packing up the elements of my past life, honoring the memories and simplifying the possessions, yielding to a draw to quiet solitude that is just a breath away from vibrant community. I have learned much about our ultimate dying in the process, for letting go requires immense effort, the support of community, the embrace of multiple losses and the courage to trust in possibility. For months I have been making arrangements. Now I am embracing new life as a mountain dweller. How about that!

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Dawn Chorus

I awoke at dawn this morning to the amazing spring chorus of bird song. How can such a cacophony of notes create such beauty and harmony? Surely this is what the psalmist calls a morning of heavenly praise. “Give praise to the beloved O heavenly hosts, sing of Love’s glory and strength (psalm 29).”

The scientists refer to this occurrence as the dawn chorus. When the light is too dim for the birds to yet begin to forage, the feathered creatures find time for full-throated social interaction. “Listen,” sings the male, “I am strong and vital.” I am certain the 21st century female replies, “So am I. So am I.” For the most part I am cannot identify the birds’ signature songs, yet even the long drawn out lament of the mourning dove sounds hopeful.

Grateful for a blessing at the start of my day, I listened from my bed perch for most of an hour imagining the tree tops all through my neighborhood filled with song. I pictured a wave of dawning light moving around the earth accompanied by a chorus. Just as the volume began to diminish, a single crow swooped in with his raucous attempt to stake his own claim on the day. Close behind came the rushing sounds of tires as the world stirred into action.

On the first Sunday in May the United Kingdom celebrated International Dawn Chorus Day, and encouraged people to rise in the early hours of the morning, to step outside and to listen to this awesome performance. We missed the date, but if you seek out “dawn chorus” online, you will find many recordings of this phenomena – not quite the same as rising early in the morning, but inspiring none the less.

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Fooling with Words: Celebrate Poetry

The days of the month slip from April to May. I want to do my share to celebrate poetry and applaud poets who gift me with words. While I am a literature lover, it was late in life when I fell in love with poetry. Though I have always enjoyed the familiar Dickinson or Frost, and laughed with my children through Shel Silverstein’s play land of words, for too, too long I approach the work of poets as ingenious expressions that I needed to analyze, dissect, or diagram in order to take away the meaning. And if I didn’t “get it”, well that was my fault, not the poet’s.

Bill Moyers’ Fooling with Words introduced me to another world of poets, and I began to feel the way words slip across my tongue, creating life-giving harmonies; producing words, lines, phrases that resonated within my soul – like “Yikes!” “Yippee!” “Oh yes!” “Oh my!” I discovered words expressing beliefs, values, experiences that direct my path; painting pictures I can step into; making more evident the mysteries of life; celebrating the universe; praising the divine.

Any list I make would be incomplete, but over the years I have been smitten with Coleman Barks, Jane Hirshfield, Marge Piercy, Maya Angelou, Wendell Berry, Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes, Bill Collins, Mary Oliver, Denise Levertov . . . I have poetry of the lesser known but equally gifted writers, some of whom I have met in my writing groups.

Earlier this month, I scanned the library poetry display for a new read and picked up Denise Levertov’s The Great Unknowing. The title and cover told me there was something to be discovered in its pages. These forty poems were finished but unpublished at the time of her death. At the age of 74, Denise Levertov left behind a half century of twenty volumes of poetry.

I gasp with delight as I read  “Aware”.

“When I opened the door

I found the vine leaves

speaking among themselves in abundant

whispers

My presence made

them hush their green breath,

embarrassed; . . .”

In “a Clearing” she takes us to the end of an enticing country road arriving at a

“paradise of cedars . . .

an expanse of sky where trees and sky

together protect the clearing.

One is sheltered here

from the assaulted world . . .

It is a paradise and paradise

is a kind of poem, it has

a poem’s characteristics:

inspiration, starting with the given;

unexpected harmonies; revelation.

It’s rare among

the worlds one finds

at the end of enticing driveways.”

Keeping company with the poets is like sitting with kinfolk or the best of friends, sharing ordinary wisdom or fooling with words. Delightful afternoon with a cup of tea.

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World Within Worlds

Words are another wow factor in my life. Since childhood I have opened the pages of my dictionary with the wonder of discovery – the origin, variants of meaning, pronunciation, uses in a sentence, synonyms, and antonyms. I was clearing off a bookshelf last week, and discovered the Merriam Webster I had used since college days – its worn blue cover, the binding pulling away from the spine at the corners. Inside the cover I had at one time begun to make a list of the words I had looked up – harridan (scolding old woman), insouciant (lighthearted unconcern)….I don’t often use its pages these days because my fingers more immediately type the word in Google search and open up whole new worlds of information.

This past week I stumbled into an expanding universe of new words, and developed an enormous admiration for those that have explored the heavens as astronomers, despite odds I could not have fathomed. In the novel, The Stargazer’s Sister, Carrie Brown recreates from the nineteenth century the story of Carolina Herschel, sister of composer and astronomer William Hershel. At a very early age “Lina” falls under the influence of her brilliant brother, twelve years her senior, as he opens her mind and imagination to a world beyond what we see.

Animalcules – that’s the word that first grabbed my imagination. William delights in giving Lina vivid images of the discovery of animalcules. I immediately liked the way this unfamiliar word slipped across my tongue, and formed images of microscopic animals. I needed to know more. Animalcules – Dutchman Anton va Leeuwenhoeck’s name for the little swimmers he discovered in his microscope. After her introduction to the microscopic world, Lina begins to draw animalcules with tails and horns.. When William points out that these animalcules are “worlds within worlds”, Lina began to see in each raindrop that ran down the glass window a whole city with “its minarets and towers, its bustling populace” (17).

Herschel, captivated by the stars, had already begun his own quest to build a telescope of mighty proportions, in order to see the hidden world in the night skies. I am not sure why I was caught off guard to discover that the prevailing attitude of the times created barriers in his efforts, for he was tampering with God’s territory. We do seem to fear whatever challenges the world as we know it. I know I don’t want to ever lose the wonder of our universe, and miss seeing the “worlds within worlds.” It’s rather tied to a realization that I am not ever alone or totally on my own. There it is again -that immense web of relationships that forms every aspect of our universe.

Today’s language for what can be seen under the microscope or at the end of telescopes creates a vocabulary well beyond my claim for knowledge. Animacules – now that’s something I can get my head around. Little swimmers invisible to the naked eye, but essential to my world, mysteries to unfold. Cause for gratitude for the unseen life that makes my own existence possible.

 

Taking Another Look

In A Whole New Life, Reynolds Price describes returning to New York City for the first time confined to a life in wheelchair and gaining a new eye level perspective of those who lived on the streets. Listening to Price recount this story in 1994 at a book reading was a pivotal moment that left a sensitive mark in my own awareness – there are so many ways to see the world. To see through new eyes, to understand a new perspective is not only a privilege but an essential view of a world marked with diversity.

I spent just such an eye-opening day during spring break with my granddaughter. The day began in her back yard where we visited the world of inch-worms dangling from threads, doing pushups on the stone path, or inching their way along every visible surface. “Look here,” she says, “this one is posing for a picture. Did you know that male inchworms have black stripes?” I could hardly stifle my response, “How about that!”

When she took my hand to help me across the street for an excursion in the neighborhood park, I knew I was a very special somebody about to be introduced to marvels I would otherwise miss in my “push through, get it done” approach to life. She pointed out blue-faced forget me nots, the polished yellow gold of buttercups, fields of violets, and first appearances of dandelions, along with numerous tiny white, pink, or purples flecks of wildflowers smaller than her petite fingertip.

We collected specimens for further viewing in plastic baggies – lichen and bark scraped from fallen limbs, new sprouts of wild green onions, variegated flower petals falling from shrubs and trees. But we left the moss in place for it “would take another decade for even the smallest patch to be replaced.”

We ended the excursion in a field of clover, looking for the lucky four-leafed specimens, making clover-chain crowns and necklaces. She picked a small bunch of wildflowers to carry home, but not before spontaneously thanking Mother Nature for providing us with these gifts. What wonder to see through the eyes of a child, to celebrate the richness of a splendidly diverse world, to take a walk in slow-motion with no other agenda than to discover the hidden beauties I could so easily overlook.

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Be Amazed!

I live in a bio-region near the east coast that pulses with changes in seasons. I gather in a faith community which follows liturgical seasons with amazing parallels to the changes in deciduous trees (not that I am discounting the evergreens – the hope symbol, reminder that Life is ever present).. Deciduous – tending to fall off. Maple helicopters, the winged seeds, drop off just before the leaves fall on sun-shortened days.

In the Catholic Church, fall portends the beginning of seasons – advent, vigil, waiting in darkness for the coming of light. The dormant season will spring into life about the time we celebrate resurrection. Whether I find myself naturally falling into these familiar patterns, or nature magnetically draws me into its cycles, the seasons speak to me.

That’s why it’s only natural that Easter springs into my days and I find myself standing in front of an empty tomb in amazement. The new greening, the dandelions and dogwood flowers, spring blooming azaleas provide an encouraging, life-giving background; just what I need to make a leap of faith and ask the big questions. Where are the surprises, the unpredictable places in life that leave me speechless and unknowing where to turn? Who are the messengers telling me “don’t be afraid; be amazed.” Look for resurrection, reawakening, rebirth with new eyes; listen with new ears. Can’t you hear the evergreens, shimmering with joy, welcoming back their old friends? Bending a bit closer they whisper “Nice new leaves you’re wearing; you’ve added a bit of girth.”100_1210

March Winds, April Showers

April showers bring May flowers but March winds – well that’s the portent of change. In the 1970’s, living a back-to-earth lifestyle on a 150 acres farm in Kentucky, my husband and I quickly learned to pay attention to the lessons given by all of creation – the trees, plants, animals, insects, soil, clouds, sun, the long-time farmers and the Cooperative Extension agents.

Winter 1978 was particularly brutal for us. Packed snow and ice covered fields and pathways from December well into March. When the melting began, our half-mile drive to the paved road became a mud slide. I fretted over how the fields could possibly dry in time for spring planting. Just then the March winds stirred and like a miracle, an intentional one, the fields began to dry overnight. Still blustery March winds can bite and mask spring’s attempt to bring warmth.

Why March winds? The field guide for amateur meteorologists would say something like this: high barometric pressure of lingering cold masses and low pressure of the increasingly sunny days make for a bit of a blow. I often find parallels between nature and my interior self. In fact there are indeed times in my life when competing pressures lead to a big blow and the need for a refreshing change in atmosphere. Clear blue skies to follow.

In my North Carolina habitat I am surrounded by tall, long needled pines. Today I listened as March winds brushed the tops of trees and  joined the birds’ backyard symphony with gusto. Rushing winds made me slow down and listen and that has the ring of a paradox. I felt their presence, turned my head skyward to watch the trees tops dance about and thought about the Breath of Life.