“It is a bleak sort of day, but I’m glad to be out walking.” Something like that was my thought as I set out on my creek path this morning. A white shape caught my eye, silently winging down the creek, and within two seconds it passed by me close enough to see that it was egret. Then, gone behind the trees.
I had read a poem by Wendell Berry about mud in January, and I looked at the muddy creek, stirred up and deep from recent rains. It wasn’t photogenic, but it was briefly captivating. Flowing streams are good to look at for a few minutes, but there is too much busyness there, and I get restless.
When I pulled my eyes away and to other things, I found an unusual depth to even the neutral colors, from all the leaves and bark and needles being entirely wetted. I have walked by these trees for almost 30 years now ! but this is the first time I noticed their massiveness. As I studied the chunky patterns on their trunks of pines, it took me a long time to notice another design style in the spider’s web.
I ran across a wide road to get nearer the fields, and on the faraway other side of those hayfields and pastures whiter clouds hung in drifts on the hillsides, below the gray sky. This is a day between rainy days; those clouds may be forming into bringers of rain by now, but then they were waiting and still…
Wherever redwood trees towered above me on the path, thousands of their little cones littered my path. How many are lying on the ground just in this neighborhood? And each one a wonder. I stuffed my pockets with them.
After my camera battery was spent, I watched fat robins bathing in the creek’s muddy overflow, their wings fluttering and splashing. Today some Orthodox are celebrating the Nativity of Christ, and yesterday was our (new calendar) feast of the Baptism of Christ. Water is the joyous theme, as it is a fundamental substance of our life, and a fitting symbol for all of creation. Christ baptizes the earth with His baptism, sanctifying it, filling it with Himself. The days on this earth can only be bleak inasmuch as I am not noticing the glory. Why do I forget this reality? I can’t remember ever finding a bleak day out of doors; even when my mood is low, the glory lifts it and comforts me.
This evening, water was sprinkled all over my house, as we walked around singing about our Lord’s baptism, by which he revealed Himself and the entire Holy Trinity. At the end, my priest surprised me when he reached up with the snuffed-out candle and painted a waxy cross on the ceiling near the front door. I had never seen this done before! It feels like a resurrectional form of the Israelites marking their lintels with blood. I am in awe.
The day has been a complete blessing.
These photographs are awe inspiring! I love the selection: each one carries with it the smell of dampness and the feel of freshness. This is simply a lovely post!
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Beautiful thoughts, from beginning to end. Thank you!
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We all came from the mud, thanks to God’s love, and here you were transformed by that same thing!
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I do like to go with you on your walks… it is like being in a small bit of your brain, and reading your thoughts. Good thoughts.
We have had the most rain in like a century this year. I do not mind, but it does make sunny days more sublime. Now in winter I hope the cold and wet will bring snow, which they said is expected this weekend…hard to imagine with the current temperature of 64 degrees! I am going for a walk as soon as I get off this computer. Blessings!
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Tree bark, spider webs, seed pods, clouds… always something in nature to look for ( and appreciate) as we go on our walks.
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You have a gift for finding the beauty in things that may seem mundane (a gray, rainy day for instance 🙂 )
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Love all this rain! A very warmish winter here. My bulbs are up over an inch. Would love to have some of that mulchy material in your pics to protect my tender shoots against the next freeze.
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Isn’t it wonderful how looking at the little picture, tightening your focus on a detail of beauty, is a window onto the glories of the “big picture”?
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such beautiful pictures!!! How neat about the Cross by your door!!! What a blessed day! I am so very glad for this special day of consolation for you! sending a HUG to you!
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I love the last photo with the cross burnt above the door on the molding. We were in Greece this summer and I have a picture of some houses with the same. May who enter and live in your home be blessed! Many Years!
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Victoria, thank you! The cross is on the painted plaster ceiling, not on the wood molding, which makes it more bold and permanent – amen!
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