Coming to Earth

There was a heavy frost over everything in sight yesterday just after sunrise, the roofs of the village houses spangled and glittering with ice crystals, the grass and tumbled leaves in the village crunching pleasingly underfoot on our early walk.

Spencer loves the sound the frost rimed leaves make under his dancing feet, and he runs through them at top speed to make them sing.

A brief snow, the first of the season, fell later in the day and disappeared at once.

Thin and papery at its verges, dry and rustling of texture at its heart and dappled with autumn wet, the last fallen leaf of my favorite red oak tree draped itself elegantly across an ash twig and waited for the north wind to carry it home to earth.

Friday Ramble - For Daido

Winding river, endless mountains—
the dark forest breathing mist.
There is no road into the sacred place.
It’s just that, the deeper you go,
the more wondrous it becomes.

John Daido Loori, Roshi

The verse above is taken from The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans, translated by John Daido Loori and Kazuaki Tanahashi, with commentary and verses by John Daido Loori. Abbot of the Zen Mountain Monastery (ZMM), founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order (MRO) in upstate New York and a reknowned photographer, Daido passed away last month from cancer.

I have been sitting here looking at this screen off and on since then, feeling a little lost and trying to figure out what to write about someone who has been a major influence on my mundane ramblings for years, and my wanderings in wild untrodden places with camera, notebook and brush too. Daido was an ardent advocate for the earth, and he saw the perfect workings of the dharma in every mountain, river, forest and limpid stream he encountered - he wrote passionately of the "inherent intelligence of wildness and wild places". I wanted more than anything to learn to see the world as he did, in all its beauty, suchness, transience and authenticity, and the news of his passing cut like a knife.

The best I can do methinks is to direct you to a post written three years ago about Daido's then recently published "The Zen of Creativity". That book still rests on my library table along with two other works on photography by Roshi, Making Love With Light and Seeing With the Ear, along with works by Freeman Patterson, Minor White, Kazuaki Tanahashi and Eugene Herrigel.

Visit the Mountains and Rivers Order (MRO) for Roshi's biography and an overview of his accomplishments as abbot and founder of MRO. Then visit his online portfolio to feast your eyes on some of the most superb photographic imagery ever created by one man and his camera in communion with the living world. I miss him, but I have no doubt whatsoever that he will be back, and as soon as his forty-nine days in the bardo are up - he loved the earth too much to stay away.

Thursday Poem - November Twilight

winter at twilight
rustling draperies are drawn
against the shadows

fireplaces all alight
their fragrant smoke going
straight up and away

in every doorway
icy drafts craving entrance
iron cold without

by themselves
yellow street lamps turning on
one by glowing one

Wordless Wednesday - Dewy

The Full Frosty Moon of November

Oh what a fine cold moon was this eleventh full moon of the calendar year. It came up through the bare trees of the village like a beacon, and in the high wind, one could not tell whether the moon herself was dancing or the trees were dancing to see her rise.

Now and then, skeins of geese flew across the night sky and the moon's face, bound for the river and the companionship of their fellows. Our northern rivers are beginning to freeze, and it will not be long until the geese fly south. One morning, they will look around the frosty stubble fields, exchange meaningful glances and then rise as one, bound for sunlight and warmer foraging places. The highlands always seem empty when they have departed.

We also know this moon as the All Gathered Moon, Beaver Moon, Bison Moon, Blood Moon, Buffalo Moon, Chrysanthemum Moon, Cold Begins Moon, Corn Harvest Moon, Dark Moon, Deer Rutting Moon, Eleventh Moon, Falling Leaves Moon, Fire Friend Moon, Fog Moon, Freezing Moon, Freezing River Maker Moon, Gardenia Moon, Geese Going Moon, Harvest Moon, Holy Frost Moon, Hunter's Moon, Jacaranda Moon, Large Tree Freeze Moon, Little Bear's Moon, Long Moon, Mad Moon, Moon of Cold, Moon of Fledgling Hawk, Moon of Freezing, Moon of Storms, Moon of the Falling Leaves, Moon of the Shaker Leaves, Moon of the Turkey and Feast, Moon the Rivers Begin to Freeze, Moon When All Is Gathered in, Moon When Deer Shed Antlers, Moon When Deer Shed Their Antlers, Moon When Horns Are Broken Off, Moon When the River Freezes, Moon When the Rivers Start to Freeze, Moon When the Water Is Black with Leaves, Mourning Moon, Mourning Moon, Moon of Much Poverty, Prunus Moon, Ring-finger Moon, Sacrifice Moon, Samoni Moon, Sassafras Moon, Snow Moon, Snow Moon, Snow Moon, Snowy Mountains in the Morning Moon, Summer’s End Moon, Trading Moon, Trading Moon, Trading Moon, Trail Moon, Tree Moon, White Frost on Grass & Ground Moon, White Moon, Whitefish Moon, Willow Moon, Winter Divided Moon and Yew Moon.

"Geese Going Moon" seems appropriate, and I have always liked "All Gathered Moon" too.

Artfully Nested

Alas, the leaves in our woodland have fallen for the most part. A few stalwart oaks in the gorge have retained their russet foliage, but our early November footfalls were muffled this weekend by the soothing presence of deep rustling drifts of fallen leaves in red, burgundy, lemony yellow and bronze. The sound the fallen leaves made as we pottered along through them was wonderful.

Yesterday, I wandered about looking up into the bare trees for nests, and here is the first one of the season, an exquisite vireo construction woven out of birch bark, small twigs, spider silk, the fibers of abandoned cocoons and strands of grass. This was probably the nest of a Red-eyed Vireo, a species known to use a lot of birch bark in building its nests and to favor younger trees for its creations. There were a number of these delicate birds residing in the Two Hundred Acre Wood this year, and their cheery whistling songs were delightful to hear. (One of my winter projects for this year is to learn more about the voices of the summer birds in our woods, so that I can identify them without seeing them.)

The nest was high in a small birch tree, and it was dancing about in the wind with great gusto. My photo does not begin to do the nest justice, but clicking on the image takes you to a larger image - one which gives a better idea of how elegant and complex these structures are. Vireos are splendid architects and truly artful builders, and every single nest I have ever found has been a wonder.

November Morning

Only on the threshold of winter may one perch in her window with tea in hand, reveling in morning skies like these.

The intense clouds of rose and violet and indigo are sumptuous beyond reckoning or description. Burnished with gold, they are anointed from time to time with exuberant stipplings of Canada geese flying away into the stubble corn fields and singing as they go.

Such mornings make one feel very small in the greater scheme of things and rich beyond all earthly measure.

Merry Samhain, Happy Halloween

Winter approaches with its chill breath. The harvest has been gathered, granaries and hay barns are full, and farm animals have been tucked into their barns for the long winter. Days are becoming shorter, and nights seem to last forever.

Native Americans call this the time of the Long Nights. Daylight is paler and more slanted, but these late October days have a translucent beauty of their very own. Foliage has already turned red, gold, brown and orange, and the brisk winds of autumn are scouring the hills and sweeping away the colored leaves. The air is spicy and carries the promise of cold days to come. Animals of field and forest are filling their pantries and preparing their burrows for winter.

Halloween or “Samhain”, as the ancient Celts called it, means “summer's end”. According to the old Celtic two-fold division of the year, summer was the interval from Beltane (May 1) to Samhain (October 31), and winter was the interval between Samhain and Beltane. This is (along with Beltane of course), is one of the most important days on the Wheel of the Year. The present year ends at sundown today, and a new year is inaugurated, the first day of the new year beginning in darkness just as the new year itself begins in the darkest time of the year.

To the ancient Celts, time was cyclical and their cross quarter observances represented pivotal cosmic points beyond time, intervals when the natural universal order dissolved back into primordial chaos before regenerating itself. Thus, Samhain is a magical night beyond the confines of time, and on such nights, one may be able to view other points in time using tarot cards, runes or tea leaves.

Two themes are intertwined at Samhain, divining the future and honoring the dead of one's tribe or clan. It was once believed that the hallowed dead returned to the land of the living on Samhain night to feast and celebrate with their clans and family members. The great burial mounds of Ireland (sidh mounds) were opened up and lighted by torches so that the honored dead could find their way back to their homes. Extra places were set at family tables and extra chairs placed near the hearth - food and drink were put out for loved ones who had passed beyond the fields we know. Old stories tell of Irish heroes making daring raids on the Underworld as the gates of Faery stood open on this night, but both the living and dead had to return to their appointed realms and stations by cock-crow or sunrise.

This is one of the most magical nights in the whole turning year, a night full of jack-o-lanterns, costumes, scarecrows, trick or treating, goblins, ghost stories, divination and scrying. It would be wise for us to remember however, that Samhain is also a night of great power and a night when the veil which separates our world from the spirit world is gossamer thin. Strange creatures are abroad on this night, and uncanny events may befall us if we are not prudent and cautious.

Tonight, as I give out candy to little goblins on the threshold, I shall be reflecting on the past year and entertaining good thoughts about the future. I shall be remembering that death is a natural part of earthly existence and that it should not be feared, whether that death be physical death, the end of a trend or pattern, emotional closure, or merely the settling of issues which need to be laid to rest. Life is a continuous cycle of death and rebirth, and Samhain accepts and celebrates this magnificent never-ending cosmic cycle.

Call it Samhain, Halloween, Hallowmas or any one of its many other beautiful names - it is my favorite day of the turning year. Blessing to you and yours on this day. May your jack-o-lanterns glow brightly this Samhain, and may there be many small guests on your threshold this evening. May your home be a place of warmth and light, and may your hearth be protected from things which go bump in the night.

Happy Samhain and Happy Halloween, and Happy New Year too!

Friday Ramble - Humble

"Be humble for you are made of dung. Be noble for you are made of stars."
(Serbian proverb)

"We are the light, released over and over again."
Martha Glessing (Windcloud)

Humility and nobility rest easily together in the old Serbian proverb which knits things up so nicely, and the late Martha Glessing's words are never far from mind. Both quotes are tacked to the bulletin board in my studio, a potent reminder that we are all transient beings and (in essence) recycled creatures - we are entities spun over and over again out of the essential matter of the cosmos in which we find ourselves. We occasionally lose ourselves here too, and I am never very sure whether I am in the process of finding myself or losing myself, but that is quite all right.

The quotes remind me that I have a profound causal relationship with everything on this dear little blue planet where I reside, and with everything around me: the bright autumn foliage of trees and hedgerows, the fragrant earth in which they grow, the contents of the recycling bin in my garden, the clumps of dark friable dung adorning the paddocks and woodlands through which I have been wandering all this past golden summer. They remind me too that when I look up at the heavens an hour or two before sunrise on these late October mornings, I should remember that I am part of that as well, a true natural-born child of the stars.

"I am all that," I say as I gaze upward wide eyed and open mouthed, and it's all good. The humble dung in the depths of the cauldron of bronze chrysanthemums on my threshold grants nourishment. It confers an earthy blessing on the exuberant floral display above, and it is joined in its undertaking by the benediction of morning light from on high. So it is with us - we are creatures both humble and noble, forged from earth and spun from light too. Need I say that I am still working on the humble part of the equation? I need all the poignant reminders I can get.

A gift copy of Diane Ackerman's gorgeous "DAWN LIGHT Dancing with Cranes and other Ways to Greet the Day" graces my library table at the moment, and it has made me very happy to discover that she too is an ardent observer of the star spangled hours before dawn and predawn mysteries. She (however) sings their praises more eloquently than I ever could.