More Evidence - Part 1

1.

The grosbeak sings with a completely cherishable roughness..

With what words can I convince you of the casualness with which the white swans fly..

Do you give a thought now and again to the essential sparrow, the necessary toad?

Just as truly as the earth is ours, we belong to it. The tissue of our minds is made of it, and the soles of our feet, as fully as the tiger’s claw, the branch of the whitebark pine, the voices of the bird, the dog-tooth violet and the tooth of the dog….

This morning I took a hike with our ectourist group in Guyana up to some caves with bats. Along the way we walked through a forest teaming with thousands of species biting, singing, crawling, hooting, growing, and photosynthesizing.  I love the tropical forest and after days and days in one, I begin to know I belong, as do all beings.  However, I am guessing that for you, like me, there are certain special places in your life that more clearly and strongly say, “You belong.”  For me it is swimming in natural body of water.

After this hike I mentioned I jumped off a bank of a forest river into clear cool water.  With fish swimming all around me, I circled round to see a Pygmy Kingfisher perched on a branch and below him, my species washing their clothes.   Clothes, fur, feathers  no matter how roughly or finely we are clad, we are the skin of the earth emerging from the mixing of mud with water. 

Belonging is the first step, and a hard one to be sure. I believe there is more struggles before us all - knowing we are necessary, and also not.

Where do you gain your greatest sense of belonging?

Introduction to Thirst and Messenger

Abba Lot went to Abba Joseph and said to him, "Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do? Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, "If you will, you can become all flame."

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Did Mary mean to segue between books ending one with igniting and the other beginning with flame? How did she know that my blog from the day before would speak of being astonished into stillness? Mary, she's in my head and heart. She predicts my life. I have found a faithful companion that speaks of my life's true work - to love, and to speak love. Of course, if it is that basic, how could she not be with me always, as well as the clam and the wren? One quiet, one chattering, both me. All beloved.

What is your life's work?

What I Have Learned So Far - September 5, 2010

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of -- indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

So much like E. B. White is Mary this morning. He wrote, "If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." So like Mary, like E.B. White, we awake torn. So many plans are lit up with the first thought of sun's arising, and then the Barred Owl hoots or I recall a dream last night when two wild Scarlet Macaws flew down to me and invited me to hold them and to stroke their rainbow feathers. I am astonished into stillness, savoring each feeling and vision of that dream. I am in love. It burns. My soul flares with 5 more projects that spark from that dream. Is this what loves brings us to, crazy wild fires that take down the old forests and urge new seeds to grow? In my ignition, I am gone.

How do you balance saving and savoring?

Terns

Don’t think just now of the trudging forward of thought,

But of the wing-drive of unquestioning affirmation.

It’s summer, you never saw such a blue sky,

And here they are, those white birds with quick wings,

Sweeping over the waves, chattering and plunging,

Their thin beaks snapping, their hard eyes

Happy as little nails

The years to come-this is a promise-

Will grant you ample time

To try the difficult steps in the empire of thought

Where you seek for the shining proofs you think you must have.

But nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding,

Than this deepest affinity between your eyes and the world.

The flock thickens

Over the rolling, salt brightness. Listen,

Maybe such devotion, in which one holds the world

In the clasp of attention, isn’t the perfect prayer,

But it must be close, for the sorrow, whose name is doubt,

Is thus subdued, and not through the weaponry of reason,

But of pure submission. Tell me, what else

Could beauty be for? And now the tide

Is at its very crown,

The white birds =sprinkle down,

Gathering up the loose silver rising

As if weightless. It isn’t instruction, or parable.

It isn’t for any vanity or ambition

Except for the one allowed, to stay alive.

It’s only a nimble frolic

Over the waves. And you find, for hours,

You cannot even remember the questions

That weigh so in your mind.

I wonder what beauty is for? Why did we evolve with such a close affinity to what is beautiful in this world, or to make things of beauty? I have heard some say we move towards beauty so that we can stand to be in the world. Otherwise the pain and the loss would be too great. Some trigger needs to soothe the aching brain that must hold how harm is all around us, some of it performed by our very words and hands. This leads me to suggest indeed religion, or meditation, or nature walks, or whatever intentional practice you cultivate for the awareness of interconnection, is perhaps an opiate of the masses. We adhere ourselves to faith claims of interdependence so that we know we will always survive and all we see before us continues on in one form or another. Said another way, if we as isolated ego driven individuals never exist, how can we disappear?

Here I spin in the realm of doubt and thought, and right now, I see the sun filtering through the trees in the nearly fall like air. Soon I will be holding a cup of coffee graciously prepared by my hosts, and then have a walk down by Lake Erie before heading to a veterinary clinic to watch how people fumble with their love of birds and their draw towards their beauty. Perhaps my faith is misguided, but I know not what else to do but to submit to these blessings, this merger of life coming to me and through me. I am a tern going fishing.

What do you have faith in? Where do you doubt?