October haiku

This morning I heard
the first bird call out to me--
morning is now here.

***

Infused golden hues
create October landscapes--
hidden until now.

***

How did I miss the
elderberries that still hang
in late October?

***

My son thinks the Moon
is the Sun rising out of
the North Sea tonight.

Full Moon Rising

Is it really true?

Deep inside, hidden from my own eyes (and the world too),

You,

perfectly misshapen, craters and all,

pull your gravity?

Swirling tidal messages sent from another universe,

my blood carries your one word:

beauty.

ode to apple cider vinegar

Collaborating with Nature,

Truth and Beauty,

inseparable, 

rise out of golden honey water:

the pure breath of Autumn.

A fountain of youth for the old to sip slowly,

very very slowly,

so they can remember how the young live:

with wonder, 

in season,

ripe, yet still becoming,

full, but never complete.

Her essence changes form:

at ease with this liminal space,

the ritual bath signals

the spark of new creation.

To October

Everything holds a poem:

the dew that decorates barley,

a day, a moment, a single sunbeam.

Everything holds a poem.

Everything holds a poem:

an ordinary walk, 

the place you call home,

my child's tiny fingers.

Yes, everything holds a poem.

And you, golden October,

just the way you catch me,

you too hold a poem.

a haiku walk along the river

An old universe
rises on a blade of grass--
a droplet of dew.



How does the river
hold the trees, the sky, and me?
I will never know.


Three river otters
casting concentric ripples
play and dive and splash.




Wire fences, cobwebs--
boundaries between here and there
collect morning dew.



New lambs being born--
things I am not meant to see
along the river's bank.



I heard the soil say,
"when will you rain, for I am
so thirsty and dry."

of light and shadows

I think I know about the cycles of nature.  How the birds greet morning.  Where the moon rises and falls.  I watch trees grow leaves and daffodils bloom.  I pay attention to the coming and going of tides and how the air currents sound in trees with and without leaves.  In the past few years, this paying attention to nature's cycles has become my private spiritual practice--one that is really more about being aware than doing anything; it is a way of being not an act of doing.  I have known this way of being since I was a child, but school and culture and religion sort of beat it out of me.

As I sit and wait for the signs of the new moon to cross in front of the sun, I fill with giddiness about this moment.  This excitement fills my whole being; something rare is about to happen. I have felt this way before, mostly in spring and in autumn, when nature's treasures bloom and harvest.  It is the tangible, material things that matter. They focus our attention on something else while casting cyclical shadows of long light onto the soul.

When I step outside, I am surprised by how the light feels on my skin and how long shadows form on the grass. The air seems to have changed her movement, the temperature drops, and the birds seem to think it is morning again. I realize how little I really know about nature and her cycles. The natural world seems better equipped to read her signs.  I drag my children outside just as the moon falls upon the sun's face. I want them to feel the difference in the light.  They assure me they can but look at me strangely.  "Look at those long shadows," I tell them. Another strange look.

The difference between the spirit and soul is that the spirit is born of the soul. The spirit lives in the outer world, collecting images, experiences, and takes it back to the soul.  My giddiness is a spirit giddiness; I am collecting the polarized light from the solar eclipse, sending long shadows all the way down to my soul. 

     

pinecone pockets

Six years ago, I worked my way through  The Artist's Way. I have journals full of daily writing pages that I rarely visit, but folded in my pocket is a list of my touchstones:

sunrise
the smell of lavender
the colour of the sea
the sound of skylarks
bird nests
discovery apples
blood oranges
the smell of my child's hair
spotting a seal
geese overhead
Thoreau
a black and white photograph taken by my father
Van Gogh's blue
chocolate
a knitted blanket
1290
birthing
the roar of wind
deep friendship
purple sunsets
full moon walking.

Today my pocket is full of pinecones. My three year old daughter danced her way through the forest by the sea, collecting pinecone after pinecone to stick in my pocket.  I wonder, are pinecones on her not-even-written touchstone list?  Maybe practicing this ancient behavior--all this collecting--has a purpose. Is it the dance of art? Is it the walk of creativity? The path of connection?  The site of beauty?

My daughter shows me how to approach a simple ordinary object as if it were the most unique object in the world.

With wonder and with awe, she chases beauty.