Category Archives: nature

The soft and white sand.

nature, travel, writing, , , , , ,

My church friend Ana and I flew to Florida last week for the Symbolic World Summit in Tarpon Springs, and returned on Sunday. I am still processing all the quite stimulating and encouraging lectures and discussions we heard; Ana and I also enjoyed the extended time together over five days to talk about our loves and lives, including many books and ideas. We attended services at St. Nicholas Greek Cathedral in town after the event.

In the paragraph above I notice that I effortlessly included six noun or adjective conjunctions; does that habit flow from my general tendency to the “Yes, And” point of view, I wonder? I hope you don’t mind, because I’m not in the mood for polishing up my writing skills right now. It could be that the Summit increased my leanings toward expansiveness… but it’s an effort I am always making to keep the conjoined words to only two.

Orthodox Lent is almost here! And there is plenty for me to focus on, of the sort of things that help us on our Journey to Pascha. A few of the speakers at the conference gave us their unique short list of “action points,” for going forward in our personal lives on the theme of the event. That theme was Reclaiming the Cosmic Image, which right there seems a very Lenten goal. Maybe I will share about it in future posts.

For now, I just wanted to document the Florida sands. I had never been in that part of the country before, or anywhere on the Gulf of Mexico. When we first walked from our car to the beach, the bright whiteness struck me first. And then, to walk barefoot on that soft, soft sand, everywhere full of broken pieces of shells, was such a different experience from California’s North Coast, which is my normal experience. We rarely see any but mussel shells on our beaches, but there in Florida intact shells were also in great abundance, and in places laid out in wide swaths. Of course, the air was balmy, but not hot.

Shells not yet made into sand, and therefore not soft.

We visited Sunset Beach on Friday (at sunset), and Honeymoon Island on our way to the airport Sunday. Both outings were fairly brief, because most of our weekend was at the conference venue.

We collected a few shells, and my purse collected a lot of the fine, glittery sand. I even carried a big handful back to the car, where Ana found a ziplock bag for me to put it in. I have been neglecting my sand collection in the last couple of years, but now I will get it going again, and will have added one little bottle of white sand to show that I truly was once upon a time in Florida.

It almost speaks to you.

my garden, nature, poetry, , ,

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period –
When March is scarcely here.

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope, you know
It almost speaks to you.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay –

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

-Emily Dickinson

Collards, March 2021

 

Excitement at dusk.

nature, smells, weather, , ,

The rain stopped this evening, just in time for me to walk on the bike path to the bridge. This wooden bridge spans two little creeks where they join and flow on westward through my patch of suburbia. I figured out that when I have a few more minutes available than it takes to walk around the block, I can go on this more woodsy walk to the middle of the bridge and still be back in less than 15 minutes.

What got me excited was just the utter freshness of the air after days of steady rain, and getting to see the creeks fuller than usual. It’s interesting how one is so much muddier than the other. Many wonderful plant scents were in the cool and damp air, underneath the bolder smell of wood smoke.

Between my house and that bike path, one of my neighbors has my favorite color of daffodils blooming right now. Their faces were heavy with rain, so I had to stoop down to get a good view of their happiness.

Let yourself get soaked.

nature, poetry, weather, , ,
“Rain Bird” woodblock by Hirokazu Fukuda

The poem below is part of a collection of “Himalaya Poems” on the “Asymptote” website, where that magazine’s name is explained like this:

“Asymptote is the premier site for world literature in translation. We take our name from the dotted line on a graph that a mathematical function may tend toward, but never reach. Similarly, a translated text may never fully replicate the effect of the original; it is its own creative act.”

I originally read the poem on a blog that didn’t tell what century the poet was writing in, so I had to hunt around to find out that he is a contemporary Korean. On his own website he writes something that I can relate to: “I long not to finish my life as a poet. In other words, I wish I could be a poem at the end of the poet.” 

If Ko Un does manage to set off and “walk on and on until the sun sets,” and not just write about that kind of activity, then I think he stands a good chance of turning into a poem. Especially if he gets drenched! Lately I have done a lot of walking in the rain myself, and I have begun to look forward to those wet outings. I keep wondering why that is…

One friend said something about “the ions,” and online I found numerous articles about the “health benefits” of walking in the rain. Every article counted a different number of benefits, ranging from four to nine, one number per article, and that coordinated numbering was the most interesting thing about them.

I try not to take an umbrella on my walks, because of the way an umbrella usually takes my attention from the wind and water assaulting me, and forces me to give my all to one more instance of wrestling with technology, especially if it’s the pop-up type. (However, umbrellas seem to add cheer to dark and rainy paintings.) If the day is very wet, I do merely a loop around a block or two, and change into dry clothes afterward. That’s not a pilgrimage, but it makes me feel that I am walking in a (short) poem.

YOUR PILGRIMAGE

A slower pace, a somewhat slower pace will do.
Of a sudden, should it start to rain,
let yourself get soaked.
An old friend, the rain.

One thing alone is beautiful: setting off.
The world’s too vast
to live in a single place,
or three or four.

Walk on and on
until the sun sets,
with your old accomplice,
shadow, late as ever.
If the day clouds over,
go on anyway
regardless.

-Ko Un

McGee Creek Trail in the Sierras