Empty Branch in the Orchard

To have loved is everything. I loved, once

A hummingbird who came every afternoon-the freedom loving male-

Who flew by himself to sample the sweets of the garden

To sit on a high, leafless branch with his red throat gleaming.

And then, he came no more. And I’m still waiting for him, ten years later,

To come back, and he will, or he will not.

There is a certain commitment

That each of us is given, that has to do with another world

If there is one.  I remember you, hummingbird. I think of you every day

Even as I am still here, soaked in color, waiting, year after honey-rich year.

What is this other world of which Mary speaks?  Is it heaven? The beloved community?  A science fiction adventure where we discover new planets and species?

I wonder if it this other place isn’t already here, within and without us.  Perhaps it is a commitment to love and hence be bathed in all the colors of the rainbow. We promise to do this even knowing that one day the light will fade from our eyes and we will no longer see the sign of life’s covenant with us. 

After death we either will come back to life, or we will not.

But what if we came back to life this day with the sun’s rising?

What or who will you love today?

This is the One

The bear who shuffles over the hillsides filling himself

With berries until his tongue is purple (which remember, is a royal color)

The bear who circles the cabin, who will not steal the honey, who will not rifle the knapsack

Of the sleeping camper-the one who sits by himself by the river,

Who sings to himself the secret song ho one has ever heard-the bear

Who yawns with the cavernous mouth of a shaggy god-who, when he sees me

Is solidly silent and rises on the mass of his legs, disdainful and free

As anything on earth could ever be-this is the bear I want to see.

We came out of Africa and out of the wilderness, but we have not wavered from the gods of our fearful focus.  Just like the snake a few days’ blog ago, we wake up when we see a bear.  Having lived in Alaska, nothing brings me more to full attention over a campfire that is luring me into sleepiness, than this sentence “When I was on the trail and ran into a grizzly…”  Truly though if we had lost limb, life, or love to snake, shark, or bear, would we truly prefer the wild one and not the beaten down old bear in a circus? 

I remember the story of a young woman who was attached by coyotes a year ago in Eastern Canada. She had been out on her own when the pack attacked and killed her.  Her mother, surely bereaved, did not blame the wild canines and did not want them hunted down for their actions.  She believed that we always need wildness, and that wilderness tracts are not human’s home alone, but the home of many.  We take our risks to see that which is free.

How much risk are you willing to take?

What risks are you willing to take?

Climbing Pinnacle

It is only a small mountain

as mountains go,

too stubby for any map.

But still, in my boots,

I climbed and climbed until at last there was nothing

but the blue sky

and a single final pasture

and a few not-very -tall trees-

and from under these came running

a fawn on its tumbly legs,

the sound of its wanting falling

from its pink, pursed mouth.

But I knew the rule:

Don't touch it, or the doe

might never come back!

So what could I do? It almost

reached me

before I slung myself into a tree.

And there I was

higher even than the mountain,

perched for hours

while beauty held me tightly...

I didn't move

until the doe came back,

angry and snorting

and she and the fawn tiptoed away.

And so I was free.

And there was nothing to do,

as there is never anything to do,

after rapture,

but to swing down

bough after bough-

to hurry down, field after field,

through the pale twilight,

to be greeted by the people

who loved me, far below.

I read recently in a book about wildlife that humans evolved to focus on wildlife - either responding in fear or awe. We did so because we needed to run away or to hunt, so it behooves us to be caught up in other life. Perhaps also we evolved to be caught by wildlife so that we might cooperate - paying attention to life helps life. For instance, in this same book, "Who Cares About Wildlife," there are studies that show it is nearly impossible to keep people from feeding the wildlife. The authors suggest that we evolved to care for wildlife.

Mary in the tree is our wild heart - caring, hunting, and fearing. She, like us, is caught by our evolved natures. She, like us, is also freed by our evolved natures and our intention. For we may constantly strive to remember that there is never anything better to do than to be in rapture and to love and to be loved. We can bring ourselves into this possibility by climbing each our own kind of mountain, be it small or looming impossibly high. With the sun squeaking through my back yard pines, oaks, and magnolias I set my sight on climbing this day so that I, by day's end, may greet the sunset with love.

What mountain do you climb?

The River Styx, Ohio - January 24, 2010

We drove through October, Grandmother pointing at cows,

Mother, bifocaled, squinting at maps for a crossroad

We came instead to the River Styx, Ohio...

...We hope for magic; mystery endures.

We look for freedom, but the measure's set.

There was a graveyard, but we saw no people.

We went back to the car.

...On the wheel

I tensed my knuckles, felt the first stab of pain.

With her family, Mary comes upon a desolated area of bankrupted farms, perhaps expecting the river to open up some understanding that life is more than a future of aimless pursuits to pass the time (Grandmother counting cows), or worrying to exhaustion to see what best decisions to make while missing the moments of the journey (Mother pouring over the maps). Instead this river is the river Styx of old story and mythology, that it is the boundary between earth and hell, and upon it you descend into the pits of eternal suffering. She escapes the river, though does not - the pain endures, the path of being ever so human like her mother and grandmother is ever with her.

Farms, seen from the road, seem like places of lazy indifference to me. The diversity and wildness of this life, of the natural habitat has been tamed and the boredom of what is left shows in every fence line, wandering cow, and discarded machine in the pasture. Through the manure laden fields and rumpled rows of corn run a river of tears of what once was. It is so hard for me to see mystery and freedom in humanity scrambling for mere existence, when there are heavenly fields of beauty that beckon us to play with joy. Pain comes from the cross roads we never clearly find, where we can make the choice for freedom and magic or for the wastelands.

Where in your life do you feel the pain of hopelessness? What choices might you make instead to grow with liberating joy?