Tag Archives: Nature

Spring!

Oh, sweet Spring, welcome.

She brings her volatile mix of winds, snow, rain, gropple, melt, growth, buds, fawns, raven babies, and the bright greens of new grass in the meadow, aspens and larch.

Rebirth and sprouting and earth’s bounty are bubbling with heated passionate energy to be expressed.

Bring it! Bring it all!

May 10

“It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what.”
-John Galsworthy

Tree Silhouette

 

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Sunset from Somers

The Full Moon

Ah, the full moon pulling at the inner spaces with its questions and mystery.

Tugging the tides.

Illuminating the darkness.

Searching the soul.

Waking me from a sound sleep to come outside and feel the moonshine.

Now,

basking in the night’s light.

Here is profound simplicity infused with magic.

Here is wonder.

“This place of mine never is entered by humans for conversation.  Only by the mute moon’s light shaft which slip in between the trees.”

-Saigyo

Full Moon

Full Moon, January

 

 

 

 

 

“The moon stays bright when it doesn’t avoid the night”

-Rumi

Moon-Soft-Pastels-1038x576

“Watching the moon, at midnight, solitary, mid-sky, I knew myself completely, no part left out.”

-Izumi Shikibu

Moonrise-San-Juan-Island-Over-Victoria-1038x576

 

Dawn Comes After Night and Spring After Winter

 Nature’s peace and the knowing that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter, brings solace and serenity in all ways,

                        always…

 

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you Barn & Mountainas sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”

-John Muir

Mountains with Driftwood“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”

-Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

Swift Current at Sunset from Many Glacier

 

Holding on to Winter

It snowed all day today, March 10th.

This event was met with dismay by every other human that I know – but not by me!

Why can’t I get enough snow?  I’m not ready for winter to be over…

(I haven’t said this out loud to any other person).

Snow Caps in Pasture, MarchThe writer, Rick Bass
understands what snow can mean, does mean, to this human be-ing (me).  I was reading his Winter (notes from Montana) this afternoon as the big flakes fell steadily and silently down.

Continually. Rhythmically.  Silently. Magically.

Bass writes from his perspective as a native Texan of his first Montana winter and his immersion in snow:

“I’ll never get used to snow – how slowly it comes down, how the world seems to slow down, how time slows…                                       I don’t mind the cold. The beauty is worth it”.

“I watch individual flakes;  I peer up through the snow and see the blank infinity from which it comes;                                                    I listen to the special silence it creates.”

“I stand outside in the snow for long periods of time, in the middle of it, looking out:  I cannot believe I am so rich,              getting all this snow….                                                                        Everything’s so quiet.”

“It’s more like an afterlife.  I never dreamed I would live in a hard country away from people, with such quietness.”

Snow & Deck, March

Re-reading, then typing his words, helps me to understand why I’m hanging on to winter and to snow.  I crave more of that special silence, that feeling of richness, that comes in the sweetness of falling flakes and under the snow blanket they create.  Even with the slowing of time, the season went so quickly, too fast.

Spring will come and I will relish the unearthing and the rebirth all ‘round.  But not yet.  For a few more days let me feel all the depth, serenity and solitude of winter.

Exuberance (Joie de vivre!)

This precious life… can we live it with passion, fullness, exuberance, gratitude and grace?

and at transition’s time move forward with that same passion, fullness, exuberance, gratitude and grace?

“Exuberance is beauty.”

                                                                                      -William Blake

Flathead-Sled-Dog-Days-4-Close-Up1-685x576

 

“For all that has been,

Thank you.

For all that is to come,

Yes!”

-Dag Hammarskjold

January 6 Rainbow

“Oh Wow, Oh Wow, Oh Wow!”

-Steve Jobs (his last words)

Full Moon, Venus & Mars

 

Calm So Deep

“Here is calm so deep, grasses cease waving. . . .

Wonderful how completely everything in wild nature

fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us.

The sun shines not on us but in us.

The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling,

vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies,

making them glide and sing.

The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as

our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous

storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our

song, our very own, and sings our love.”

John Muir

Santa Rock

 

The Gift of the Trees

Night Sky, January

Out here in the woods, the tree dance brings a welcome, hearty, and ever changing song.

Season to season they stand in place and in witness of all of life’s wonder – a constant teaching.

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 “A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship.  But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.                      -John Muir

 

February 7

“Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive.  When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is  truly important becomes whole and sound again.  When men reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Every Time I’m in the Woods

“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.
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.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
Mary Oliver

Every Time I'm in the Woods

Animal Wonders – A Gallery of Photos

“If all the beasts were gone,
men would die
from a great loneliness of spirit,
for whatever happens to the beasts
also happens to the man.
All things are connected.
Whatever befalls the Earth
befalls the sons of the Earth.”
― Chief Seattle