“In the roundel of seasons there is never more than a pause. …Nature moves into high gear and the towering light moves us toward physical optimum, carrying our spirits along on the One Breath that animates everything.” By Marv & Nancy Hiles (The Almanac of the Soul)
I remember a reading a Buddhist author comment on the topic of impermanence, “About the only thing that doesn’t change, is that everything is pretty much going to change.” I’ve remembered that phrase often as my life keeps unfolding in all kinds of intentional and unexpected ways. I understand intellectually that change is as natural and inevitable as the turn of the seasons. I actually love the change of seasons, the shifting of colors, the quality of light, the way certain birds only visit my feeders in the winter and the blessed coolness of the pond in the summer. But as I’ve gotten older the endless summers of my childhood seem to have gotten shorter as each glowing autumn ends a little too soon, every spring waves goodbye before I’m ready.
Perhaps that is the way of things, as children we know nothing of endings, because we are new and as my friend Parker J. Palmer wrote in his book “On The Brink of Everything”. As adults we understand the passing of things - a summer vacation ends and school begins, autumn fades and the snow falls, a job we loved no longer fits, our daily relationship with someone we love transforms as they pass from this mystery to the next.
Yes, perhaps that is one of the gifts of having more days behind then there will be ahead—everything takes on a vibrancy, a beautiful potency, a sense of gratitude and grace. I have known many that transitioned from this life to the next too soon, due to accident or illness or the body finally wearing down as body and bones will do. When I think of all the close calls in my life—like the night when I fell asleep while driving home at 2am from a gig and waking up in a ditch just a few meters from where a major drop off into a ravine began. There are so many things that might have happened and did not, things that needed to happen and thankfully did.
So what do we do with this gift of being here, right now in the fullness of summer ? How do I embrace with all my heart the life that is here and now? This morning I got up and took my dogs for a walk before the heat index was too brutal. It had rained a little the evening before and the vegetation here is as thick as a rainforest, green and humid and growing with all its might. A cardinal was calling “cheeeeer cheeeer cheeeer-birdie birdie birdie” over to my left somewhere high in the trees. I had one of those moments when time seems to slow down, and my heart expanded with every breath. I stopped and actually sank to my knees right there on the path and touched my forehead to the earth. Thank you, for this day, for this ground, for the fact that I’m actually still here when it could have easily been otherwise.
The world is facing so many challenges, and there is so much good work to be done, and yet I find that taking time to “be” with what I love, to sink into the arms of what is so good in my life, is what helps bring me energy and courage for whatever I need to face next. Happiness comes in fleeting moments, it is dependent upon shifting circumstances. But Joy is always to be found— in the autumn passing too soon, in the springtime that waves goodbye before I’m ready, in the way the bird come and go, their songs filling the air, in the presence of people I love, in a new poem waiting to be born, in the dirt on my grateful knees and forehead, in the knowledge that we are a gathered community of care and kindness in a time of decisions.
About the only thing that doesn’t change, is that everything is pretty much going to change….so let us embrace what is here and now, what is lasting and changing, what is waiting for us to pay attention, for the summer growing and winter sleeping - let us embrace it all in Joy. Then step into the next challenge buoyed and refreshed and grounded.
-Carrie
Here’s a poem about noticing what is miraculous and joyous in the course of an ordinary day.
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Miracles There are so many of them, I start to lose count There are too many to hold in my two hands So I just keep dropping them like acorns into a basket hiked up on my hip. The revelation of light, filtered through rain A sky so pregnant it weeps with the joy of it. The circular wonder Of a big bite of darkness That keeps chasing and catching and releasing the moon. Not to mention all the ordinary magic, That cat will be cat And dog will be dog And chickens will do Pretty much what chickens have always done. In addition to the miracles that are brief and strange, A flash of blue from the corner of the eye. Or the bare and beautiful confession we missed When checking our email on the sly. All these and more, Day after day Dropping like stones And sending out ripples In a smooth and glassy pond. Carrie Newcomer - From The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems & Lyrics
Did this post or poem bring up anything for you. Have you ever had a moment of awe and wonder that literally made you want to kneel on the path in gratitude?
Since it’s summer…. This is little song I did about county fairs. I actually researched county fair in Indiana…so these fairs are the real thing. I wrote it to accompany and essay written by by my friend Philip Gulley.
This is a Rosy Maple Moth. I found it lounging on my garage door. It’s colors are extraordinary and I really love its fuzziness and its wild antenna.
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