Musings from Muir

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity...

(photo by Photo-John)

I got The Essential Muir for Christmas. This is a book I've wanted for a while. I've just wanted a little taste of the writings from this brilliant environmentalist. And I'm loving it. Probably many more to come, but for now...

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.

The Frost performs its ministry....

The Frost performs its ministry,

Unhelped by any wind....

...But thou... shalt wander like a breeze 

By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags

Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,

Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores

And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear

The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible

Of that eternal language, which thy God

Utters, who from eternity doth teach

Himself in all, and all things in himself.

Great universal Teacher! he shall mould

Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

 Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

Whether the summer clothe the general earth

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

-Frost at Midnight, by Samuel Coleridge

Christmas Bells

(photo by ali tse)

I don't think i knew all the verses to the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:


Christmas Bells


"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"


Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

"Every Word was Once a Poem"

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

(photo by alexey05)

I've been having a harder time sleeping lately. So I've been getting out the old books of poetry. I wish that I could weave words like those.

I find poetry so relate-able. It's all the things I've always wanted to say but never knew quite how. Some people think poetry is dumb. I get it - there are certain voices in writing that get on my nerves too - they are too dramatic or fluffy - not entirely honesty.  But not the poem. Poetry is honest.

I think my love for poetry is rooted in the same that holds my love for music. Don't you think that music and poetry are so similar? Not to mention the fact that poetry put to music is awesome - i'm thinking patty griffin and ani defranco here. but also, the way that simple individual notes are woven together to create something entirely new and honest - something that could touch you deeply forever. Words are that way too.

What power, what privilege to create such beauty with words or notes. These tiny creations that are such unique portraits of the author, outlasting time and fashion. It's amazing, really.

Take a minute today to read a poem. If you don't have books of poetry at home, here's a simple online resource. Or you can check out the "labels" on my side bar and click on the poetry category. You'll see past poems that i've posted here before.

Anna, my dear sister-in-law has introduced me to an incredible poet that both she and i (and probably some of you) will relate to. This one stirred me deeply:

Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives -
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, feel like?

Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?

Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over
the dark acorn of your heart!

No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint
that something is missing from your life!

Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?
Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?

Well, there is time left -
fields everywhere invite you into them.

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is
the mystery, which is death as well as life, and
not be afraid!

To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcome
with amazement!

To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine
god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,
nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the present hour,
to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth,
to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have opened in the night

To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

While the soul, after all, is only a window,

and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep.

Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe

I even heard a curl or tow of music, damp and rouge red,
hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.

For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!

A woman standing in the weeds.
A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming next
is coming with its own heave and grace.

Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?

And I would touch the faces of the daises,
and I would bow down
to think about it.

That was then, which hasn't ended yet.

Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean's edge.

I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.

by Mary Oliver

photo by Philipp Klinger

'O dreary life,' we cry, 'O dreary life!'
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle! Oceangirds
Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards
Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest trees
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory: O thou God of old,
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these!
But so much patience as a blade of grass
Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.

Patience Taught by Nature; Elizabeth Barrett Browining

The World is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. - Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

William Wordsworth
-my favorite of poets

i grew to love the Nature of god

God exists quietly.

When I sit still and contemplate
the breeze that moves upon me
I can hear Him.

For hours I would lay
flat upon the meadows
stare at the
endless field of blue sky
and revel in
the divine placement of all things.

I would walk alone
in the woods and let my mind wander
freely, stumble across theories
on the origins of myself
and all things...

I grew to love the
Nature of god.
I knew Him best not in churches, but
alone with the sun shining on me through the trees.

It birthed a space in me
that would continue to
crave the sacred
and demand sanctity
as my life took flight
and lit out to travel
the world.

It has grounded me
and held me steady
in the strong winds
that have carried me
so far from
where i have been...

written by Jewel, God Exists Quietly


I keep thinking about the sadness i felt as we drove east on I-70 Monday. I realized we were reaching the edge of the mountains - the trees were changing from lodge-pole pines to ponderosa-pines and were no longer snow-covered. I bid the mountains good-bye (i think i even said it out loud!) and held back tears. As we departed the foothills and looked at the mountains behind us, Landon remarked on the beauty of the clouds. You know the ones - that are so dark that they look almost purple with the sun shining behind them, but are made magnificent by the gold lining. And i said, "it looks like we're leaving heaven". and that's exactly how i felt.


we skiied 4.5 miles sunday afternoon to a hut in the middle of trees and mountains - nothing else. and while i was there, i was so incredibly happy. i felt SO FREE. and i felt God there. I too easily disregard him in my busy hum drum daily life here in illinois (so easily, that i hardly even realize it!). well, i make it that way - my fault. i'm crazy-distracted and quite honestly, burdened. when i am not working, i think of work all the time. i have difficulty enjoying my down-time because i know that i could be working. After all, i AM sitting at my desk with student profiles sitting beneath my book of poetry, and i still have word documents that i was composing for sponsors open behind my internet browser and even though it's Saturday and i spent the first 8 hours of my day running around like a crazy woman at Starbucks, i really should be working anyway. the boundaries are confusing.

but when i was up there - there was nothing but me, the mountains, god, and family (well, and chicken parmesan with red wine). and life was made SO simple, and SO beautiful. and i just wish i could live life like that more. i wish i could see God in every moment, as he most definitely is. I wish that i could cherish the most important things about life with my whole heart and REALLY soak them in and understand them and praise God for them instead of compromising them with a brush-over so that i can get just a bit more done before the end of the day.

snow

photo by Chris Andersen

It sifts from leaden Sieves -
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road -

It makes an Even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain -
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again -

It reaches to the Fence -
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces -
It deals Celestial Vail

To Stump, and Stack - and Stem -
A Summer's empty Room -
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them -

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen -
Then stills its Artisans - like Ghosts -
Denying they have been -

Emily Dickinson (c. 1862)

she smelled like trees

(photo by Philipp Klinger)

She smelled like trees. In the corner it was dark, but I could see the window. I squatted there, holding the slipper. I couldn't see it, but my hands saw it, and I could hear it getting night, and my hands saw the slipper but I couldn't see myself, but my hands could see the slipper, and I squatted there, hearing it getting dark.

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

a light has dawned

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the
shadow of death
a light has dawned...
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his
shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:2,6

The Sound of Trees

I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when i watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I will be gone.

"The Sound of Trees" - Robert Frost

colorado "fever"

...I go into the desert
Thistle, till I'm stopped
Like an obsidian statue.
The slow rise of below
Sea level to the Rockies,
Where I sleepwalk among
Headshops with false doors
Outside Red Rocks. I weigh my life
Against the evening sky
Orange as dinosaur dung
In scraggly ravines,
Before putting an ear to Cheyenne Mountain
To divide Ute horses,
Chief Joseph.
...Some nights I lie
Awake, staring into a promised land.
A cold wind out of Wyoming
Works my mind, like waves
Against stone, sand and willpower.
I don't know if I can ride
Out the slack, can just float
Along a precipice of indifference.
I can't trust my hands with loved ones,
The drum under my skin
Driven by a burning field. Trees
Stand like a death squad
Hemmed in by juniper and yucca.
Wanderlust, beds where
Unhealing is a religion.
I pray for those who work
Earth down to a blank stare
Up at the Colorado sky...

excerpts of "Fever" - Yusef Komunyakaa

where reason fails...

"Lord, how great is our dilemma! In they Presence silence best becomes us, but love inflames our hearts and constrains us to speak. Were we to hold our peace the stones would cry out; yet if we speak, what shall we say? Teach us to know that we cannot know, for the thing of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Let faith support us where reason fails, and we shall think because we believe, not in order that we may believe." - A prayer by A.W. Tozer

This is something that i have been reading over in my prayers these last few weeks. Sort of where i am right now - trying to understand God in light of his incomprehensibility. As a Christian, i know that all i am is who God has made me and what God chooses to do with me in light of Him. So, these last few years as my idea of God as been uprooted and i have been so desperately searching the being and character of God, my own understanding of myself has been uprooted also and i have been living so unsure of who i am. Not that i seek God in order to understand my own self, but i am truly lost without him.