Speak to me of love...

Before Christmas my sister and I decided to make a "box" for each other as a Christmas gift. I'm finally getting around to showing you what she made for me.
Will you look at this...

She took a plain wood box and created this beautiful piece of art for me.
The most amazing thing about it is that she used one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver. It's called How I Go to the Woods. She knows me and understands how I feel about solitude.
She wrote the poem all the way around the sides of the box...

And the last amazing lines of the poem are on the top.

The box is covered with lace and shells.

A butterfly is watching from the corner.

In the moss... a small bird and a nest that she made, with pearl "eggs" in it.

There is a photo of us with a heart attached.

This is a very special gift.

Thanks Sis. I'm so lucky to have a sister like you.  I will always take you with me into the woods, because I love you very much.
Here is the poem by M. Oliver... one of many that speak to me.
Have a wonderful day.

How I go to the woods

Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.”

~Mary Oliver~

Revisiting a favorite poem

"This morning I watched the deer...

with beautiful lips touching the tips of the cranberries, setting their hooves down
in the dampness carelessly, isn't it after all
the carpet of their house, their home, whose roof
is the sky?

 Why, then, was I suddenly miserable?

 Well, this is nothing much.
this is the heaviness of the body watching the swallows
gliding just under that roof.

This is the wish that the deer would not lift their heads
and leap away, leaving me there alone.
This is the wish to touch their faces, their brown wrists
to sing some sparkling poem into
the folds of their ears,

then walk with them,
over the hills
and over the hills

and into the impossible trees."

I love this Mary Oliver poem and always wish that I could "...walk with them, over the hills..."
Does anyone else feel like this? 

Early Morning Brambles

August
When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend
all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking
of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body
accepts what it is.  In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among
the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.
Mary Oliver

 Above: Mary Jane reaching for the berries.
Below: the beautiful sky.

 My berries

 Mary Jane's berries.

 Mary Jane and I only spent a couple of hours picking berries across the river. This year the berries were not as plentiful or as big. Must be the dry, hot weather. But, there will be enough for a pie and a lovely Clafouti.

We arrived at about 7:00 a.m. and it was so beautiful. Cool and overcast...  clouds from the Monsoon weather in the southwest.  We could feel the humidity in the air. Later, it would be another hot day and humid... which is different for us.

 By 9:00 we were done. We went up to the owner's home, said hello and thanked her, then drove back over the Mokelumne River.

On the drive back to my house we saw a baby King snake stretched out in the middle of the road. We stopped and had a talk with him about being out there by himself and what happens to snakes who sunbathe on the road.
This little guy didn't seem impressed. It just shook its rattleless tail at us and got very agitated.

I followed it to the side of the road, where it raced up the hillside...

 and disappeared into a hole.

 "Mommy, mommy! Those humans are picking on me."

"Yes, well, little guy". I said as I watched him disappear, "You're safe for now and not this morning's buzzard food. Learn to look both ways before you cross the road and listen to your Mom. Someday you will be a big rattlesnake killer. You might be famous. You are a handsome snake."
He probably didn't hear me.


So I have blackberries in the fridge. Can't wait to bake something.
These berries will make for "... a happy tongue."

Living a Mary Oliver sunrise in the desert

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves..."

(Six o'clock a.m. on Tuesday morning... walking into the desert in Dayton, Nevada.)

'Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers."

(Even though I was still in the cold morning darkness, the hills to the west were accepting the suns rays.)


"Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again."

( I saw two geese flying across the landscape, heading north and speaking with their beautiful voices. But the mountain caught fire with sunlight and  my attention turned toward the beauty of the hills and away from the flying geese.)

"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,"

Then the sun rose over the eastern mountains and took my breath away. It was so cold and yet, for a moment, I was overwhelmed by the warmth of the sunrise.)

"...call to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting..."

(The sun lit the landscape with its magical, morning light, as if to say, "I did this especially for you... to let you know that you are part of this world and this is your gift for wanting to see my radiant performance.")

"...over and over..."

( I stood on the cold, desert floor and waiting....listening. I waited for the sounds of birds, then the noise of humanity... the click of my camera.  But mostly, in the early minutes, before anything else... the quiet.)

( No snakes or rabbits yet. Just the beautiful light... and me standing there. )

"...announcing your place
in the family of things.”
~Mary Oliver~

I left the house before anyone was awake. Quietly walking out the back door, through the fence and into the field behind the house. It was quiet and cold. No one was outside. As if, like a movie, where you wake up to find the town's people have all disappeared, I felt alone. For me this was a good feeling.
 Walking onto a land so hostile and dry, I wondered at the ability of this place to survive the onslaught of man. It's probably not surviving very well. But, one on one, man will not win. Man will not outlast this land. The plants that survive the heat and cold of this area. , greasewood, chaparral and sagebrush, are the true survivors in this hostile world.
But on this cold, April morning, with the golden light shinning across the field,

This was were I needed to be and the desert was providing nourishment.
 I was really cold. My fingers could hardly hold the camera and heavy lens. I took one more photo...of the wild horses on the distant hills.

and one more, of my shadow trying to be one with the sagebrush.

If the desert has memories, I hope it remembers that I was there.
I returned to a warm house and friends that were awake... fixing coffee and tea.
The warmth felt good.



 

Mindfulness at the top of the hill

Mindful

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?  

~ Mary Oliver ~

Why I love this poet.

Black Swallowtail

The caterpillar,
interesting but now exactly lovely,
humped along among the parsley leaves
eating, always eating. Then
one night it was gone and in its place
a small green confinement hung by two silk threads
on a parsley stem. I think it took nothing with it
except faith, and patience. And then one morning

it expressed itself into the most beautiful being.

( for Nina )

Wishing on a Poem

This Morning I Watched the Deer

This morning I watched the deer
with beautiful lips touching the tips
of the cranberries, setting their hooves down
in the dampness carelessly, isn't it after all
the carpet of their house, their home, whose roof
is the sky?

Why, then, was I suddenly miserable?


Well, this is nothing much.
This is the heaviness of the body watching the swallows
gliding just under that roof.


This is the wish that the deer would not lift their heads
and leap away, leaving me there alone.
This is the wish to touch their faces, their brown wrists---
to sing some sparkling poem into
the folds of their ears,


then walk with them,
over the hills
and over the hills

and into the impossible trees.

~Mary Oliver~