THE FOUR AGES OF MAN
He with body waged a fight,
But body won; it walks upright.
Then he struggled with the heart;
Innocence and peace depart.
Then he struggled with the mind;
His proud heart he left behind.
Now his wars on God begin;
At stroke of midnight God shall win.
-William Butler Yeats
THE WITHERED LEAF
Oh! mark the withered leaves that fall
In silence to the ground;
Upon the human heart they call,
And preach without a sound.
They say, So passes man’s brief year!
To-day, his green leaves wave;
To-morrow, changed by time and sere,
He drops into the grave.
Let Wisdom be our sole concern,
Since life’s green days are brief!
And faith and heavenly hope shall learn
A lesson from the leaf.
-William Lisle Bowles
Having time and strength to do my housework properly is a great luxury. I felt that so much the last couple of days, when there were no other duties calling, and nothing urgent to distract me. First I worked at sweeping and organizing my garage. The question remains: Will I ever be able to fit my car in there?
It would be nice, but having no attic, basement, laundry room, pantry or storage shed, I use my garage for everything from firewood and kindling to beach toys and line-drying clothes; lots of gardening tools are stored there, and big pots that don’t fit anywhere in my kitchen. If I have many more days of focused thinking, maybe I will figure out how to arrange the stuff more efficiently. It could happen!
Today, more rich gifts were mine. I mostly cooked and worked in the kitchen, with the door open to the rain outside. Bliss. Eventually I put a large batch of experimental flax crackers into the dehydrator. We will see how they come out tomorrow, after 24 hours of dessication. I was trying to replicate the crackers sold under the Flackers brand, that have cinnamon and currants in them. But then I added three other kinds of seeds: sesame, chia and pumpkin.
Can you see the Thanksgiving cactus in the background, beginning to bloom?
I had already taken a morning walk, with very light rain falling on me off and on. The extravagant blessing of the heavens all around me, wetting everything and making us shine.
One thing nice about using the dehydrator for crackers is, I could go off and leave them in there, which I couldn’t have done if they were baking in the oven. So I put on my rain jacket again, and took a second walk about 4:00.
The skies were clearing. I walked westward that time, and saw different sights. Like the cleanest eucalyptus leaves ever:
Rain is not in the forecast for tomorrow, but housework is. Truly it’s neverending, and I hope my feeling of leisure will hold out for another day, while I prepare for a visit from my older son, whom I call Pathfinder. Last time he was here he helped me make progress with the Garage Project, but I’m happily looking forward to whatever we do together. Rain or not, I expect showers of blessing.
“The world thinks that when someone becomes a monk in a monastery, he leaves society and becomes wild. They say this because they are unaware that monks are the most sociable of human beings. You should know that no one can become a monk if he is not sociable, that is, if he cannot communicate and deal openly and directly with all the difficulties encountered in a life shared with others. If a man has had difficulties in marrying or establishing a family, chances are he won’t be a good monk. He must feel secure in his life. Monasteries are not places of refuge. Consequently, a monk is someone who may have formerly attained success in such relationships, and loved them, too, and thus he doesn’t reject them, he doesn’t condemn them, he doesn’t despise them, but rather prefers something superior for himself.”
-Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra, in The Church at Prayer: The Mystical Liturgy of the Heart
Gladsome Lights 