You never know what opportunity is going to travel to you, or through you.
Once a friend game me a small pine cone-one of a few he found in the scat
of a grizzly in Utah maybe, or Wyoming. I took it home
and did what I supposed he was sure I would do-
I ate it, thinking
how it had traveled through that rough and holy body. It was crisp and sweet.
It was almost a prayer without words. My gratitude to you, Tom Dancer,
for this gift of the world I adore so much and want to belong to. And thank you too, great bear.
I often aspire to be like Mary Oliver, but in today's poem she surpasses who I ever imagined myself to be. She ate seeds from bear scat.
Really? Did she really? Does she really do this and all the other things in her poems, or does she write poems from her imagination?
Who knows the truth of magic in our modern day shamans, but surely her power comes from somewhere. So why not through the leavings of bears?
As a veterinarian I think of disease transmission and imagine her boiling the heck out of that pine cone before ingesting it.
But perhaps I over estimate the need for sterility in this procedure, or in any other I undertake today.
Maybe, just maybe, I will roll around in some shit today left behind from some wild being in the woods, smelling like I belong to the family of things, smiling like I know it.
What would you take in from the wild as food for your soul?
Dear sister, LoraKim,
ReplyDeleteMay the Lord give you peace and joy! (Traditional blessing of St. Francis of Assisi)
Let me introduce myself, my name is Father Larry Gosselin, OFM, I am a Franciscan Catholic Priest living and ministering in Santa Barbara, California. First, of all, I want to say, that I stumbled upon your blog site, and am deeply grateful that I was led to find this wonderful place of your creation and inspiration. I consider myself also a great lover of poetry and especially Mary Oliver is a inspirational source of creativity and prayer for me. I had the joy and opportunity of personally meeting Mary Oliver after one of her poetry readings, and I must say, meeting her is a great inspiring gift that I hold and cherish as a lingering inspiration. Through Mary Oliver's poetry I have felt the creativity to put into words prayers and poetry of the heart. And so recently, a book of my poetry was published and this is a great joy for me. It is entitled "Hidden Sweetness" taken from the inspiration of a quote from St. Clare of Assisi, where he writes, "Taste the hidden sweetness that lies within your heart, which God has kept for those whose lives are tender within." My book received the endorsement of some wonderful people whom I greatly admire, such as Peggy Rosenthal, Franciscan Frs. Richard Rohr, Murray Bodo, Paula D'Arcy, Paula Huston, and others. Thank you for your
beautiful and personally reflection on this poem of Mary Oliver, "Tom
Dancer's gift of the whitebark pine cone." You have given me much food for thought, and thought for food, in your appreciation of this wonderful poem. I would like to give you my e-mail address if you care to contact me: frlarry@saintbarbaraparish.org
Thank you for your inspiration and ministry of enrichment of this precious gift. Fraternally, Larry Gosselin, ofm