In just a few days (June 21), it will be the summer solstice. I’ve spent the entire springtime this year immersed in the more-than-human world via:
hikes and walks, and sitting absolutely still as Sparrow warbles his song from the
fencepost
creating landscape collages inspired by my photographs of sojourns in wild and
natural places on seven continents over decades
painting using a spiritual process that draws forth ancient, ancestral, alchemical
images of the cosmos, leaf veins, tide patterns, tree branches, caves and stones, and a universe of
archetypal forms within and with-out
walking barefoot in the sea moss for hours during low tide and watching Bald Eagle
at close range as she forages for a seafood feast
marbling paper, after strolling the nature reserve photographing “signs of welcome,”
then turning that paper and those nature images into books, a diptych, and
botanical prints
making beautiful flowery burials for Mole, Wasp, Bald-Faced Hornet, Robin, Deer
Mouse
guiding an international classroom of human adults through Spiritual Ecology
values, practices, rituals, intentions, commitments
mentoring the first-comers embarking with me on the year-long Spiritual Ecology
training program of deepening intimacy with the more-than-humans
learning to paint water cascading down a treesy hill, bordered by boulders, settling
in a refreshing teal pool below
bearing witness to two hundred pairs of mating damselflies on one small pond
during my ten-minute rest on the grass
At the very beginning of spring, I wrote a journal entry entitled Praise For. It continued over several days, like this:
Winter Wren, high up in that bush, singing his heart’s desire
Woodpecker, likely Pileated, whose thunderous strike is but a reverberation at this
long distance
the frost on grass and chill that creeps up my bare foot
the hint of fog that wafts itself into oblivion
gray clouds, thin and spread like wide ribbons across the sky – now lit into pink fluff
by the rising sun
the droplets, fat and fresh that nourish things before tunneling down into food for
soil
pale light
a smell of wet Earth
that same darting Junco from yesterday
a ferry horn
Swallow and kin, violet-green, countable in twos and always dancing through the air
as they go about their tasks
solitary Coyote who stands at the edge of the yard, howls twice into the chilled early air, and then saunters off to Wherever
this glorious spring morning greeting me as I bow in reverence and gratitude
Two themes to this spring season, this year: a series of reveries and a series of creative immersions. I close my eyes for a moment’s pause, to express gratefulness for the gifts - by grace - of presence and breath and nimble bending knee.
And I slowly turn into the sun of summer…
