Like snow.

Like Snow

By Wendell Berry, Leavings

Suppose we did our work
like the snow, quietly, quietly,
leaving nothing out.

Is my soul asleep.

Found this one on the deep basement shelf of Von's. 
Is your soul asleep?

Is My Soul Asleep?

Is my soul asleep?
Have those beehives that work
in the night stopped? And the water-
wheel of thought, is it
going around now, cups
empty, carrying only shadows?

No, my soul is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
It neither sleeps nor dreams, but watches,
its eyes wide open
far-off things, and listens
at the shores of the great silence.

Antonio Machado

Ascents

There is a beauty in the quiet lenten moments.

 The white arcetecture of winter beings to run clear- a moveable, pliable prizim of color- trickling, dripping off the edge of the roof, and I am reminded of a earlier age.   

Lent is here, it's February and "Aslan is on the move."

An ashen smudge above my brow,  reminding me of my heritage with the ground. I came from that ground, now covered with snow. "Remember, O man, dust thou art..." 

I'll return just as soon.  

Lent, a liturgy to keep time with.

A space created for new things to grow. 

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
    my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
    too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
    like a weaned child with its mother;
    like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord
    from this time forth and forevermore.

                                                                                                      Psalm 131

Hope in God, well wintered soul. 

Like a lake

I've been holding these images on my desktop for sometime now. 

Sometimes you have to distance yourself from something to see it's value. 

My sister Emily and I went camping a while back last year. 

(When I say a while back, I mean October.)

The plan was to drive up north- cell phones off. Do real camping by a real lake, make a real fire and sleep on real[ly] hard ground under the post meridian sky. 

That sky that stole my words to describe it- that certain shade, pitch with a drop of navy ink. A plenum of  black and blue stealing the breath required to form my inadequate nouns and adjectives. Descriptive words.

Grammar never could do Creation justice. The mumbles of my descriptions and the scratches and scribbles of my pen never could compare to a single groan in wait for the Day. I'll never forget that sky. 

They say that camping is good for the soul. You know, spending a good night plastered to a hard ground somehow makes you more aware that you are on a planet spinning 6,000 miles an hour. I could almost feel the centrifugal force sticking me to the planet.Holding me there, in my sleeping bag, making certain I wouldn't float off into oblivion. It was remarkable.

While setting up camp on those stony shores of Lake Superior there was a certain song running through my head. 

I sang it as we watched the birches move the golden token leaves against the reflected sky. 

I sang it as we hiked along the paths and pitched (somewhat haphazardly) our little un-insulated tent in the midst of a big patch of glory that disguised its self as flat ground.   

I sang the line again, skipping rocks across the rocking waves near Splitrock, half singing, half praying:

"I will lay my heart wide open"

 I sang hushed, "like the surface of a lake

 wide open like lake."

A post long past, enjoy. 

"I will lay my heart wide open
like the surface of a lake

wide open like a lake." -Sara Groves 

"Go camping."
"But it's winter!"
"Go anyways."


Go camping by a lake.