From My Nature Journal: Drama in the Woods?

Am up in the Northwoods for a short solitude retreat. There is quite a lot to think and pray through these crazy days, so, though the thought came up rather spontaneously, the decision has been a good one. Holing up at our little Upper Peninsula cabin, already closed for the winter, I’m hauling water indoors for utility, cleaning and cooking and hauling my body outdoors to use the outdoor plumbing, AKA our old ramshackle outhouse. Frankly, I’m glad the old thing is still there for such a time as this. 

Winter is still officially more than a month away, but one would hardly know it by looking outside. Yesterday brought blizzard conditions with several inches of snow and winds gusting over forty miles per hour. Temps are bottoming out overnight in the mid-teens and the lake is starting to freeze at its sheltered edges. But the little place is cozy and warm, and I feel blessed in a thousand ways. 

With the fresh snow on the ground, I took a detour from my daily outdoor walking circuit and cut into the woods on a slender four-wheeler trail, the snow of which had not been disturbed, not by humans at least, just to see what I could see. Am not here very often with new snow on the ground, and my friend Ed has told me of the delights of identifying animal tracks in fresh snow. I was not disappointed, far from it. 

I was first simply stunned by the amount of tracks there were to see, and all since the snow
stopped falling just last evening. These woods have been a busy place. There had been field mice and red squirrels. Fox tracks crisscrossed everywhere, following rabbit tracks that multiplied like, well, rabbits. Deer tracks were ubiquitous, large and small, then something I could only guess had been a porcupine. Several times I saw tracks of what might have been a small weasel or ermine. There was even a pile of bear scat in the middle of the trail as big as a dinner plate, but it must have been set down before the snow as there were no tracks nearby. Though I couldn’t be certain, it looked like a lone wolf had coursed through, but the paw prints were so blown over that it was hard to tell. The coolest track I came across was some kind of bird – Owl? Hawk? – that had hit the ground to snatch something and left its full wing imprints in the snow. Sure enough, I did a little checking and found from the right a set of rabbit tracks that met an abrupt ending, certainly that little creature’s ‘end of the trail.’ 

It was easy for me to imagine the drama that plays out right under our noses every single night and day in the woods. Just to find food amidst a harsh northern Michigan winter must be an incredible feat. But drama? I guess not. To truly call it drama would be to anthropomorphize it, because for animals, it is not drama at all, just the normal way of life. It only seems dramatic from my perspective. 

I am a steward of God’s creation, as are you, but I take joy knowing that God tends to the animals, who seem so very vulnerable to me:

Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. (Matthew 6:26). 

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. (Luke 12:6)

So since I find myself thinking today with an animal mind, I’m remembering a poem I saved long ago, and if I’m correct, I think it’s from a book of blessings by John O’Donahue called To Bless the Space Between Us. It had this piece in it, entitled “In Praise of Animal Being.”

Nearer to the earth’s heart,

Deeper within its silence:

Animals know this world

In a way we never will.

We who are ever

Distanced and distracted

By the parade of bright

Windows thought opens:

Their seamless presence 

Is not fractured thus.

Stranded between time

Gone and time emerging,

We manage seldom

To be where we are:

Whereas they are always

Looking out from

The here and now.

May we learn to return

And rest in the beauty

Of animal being,

Learn to lean low,

Leave our locked minds,

And with freed senses

Feel the earth

Breathing within us.

May we enter

Into lightness of spirit,

And slip frequently into

The feel of the wild.

Let the clear silence

Of our animal being

Cleanse our hearts

Of corrosive words.

May we learn to walk

Upon the earth

With all their confidence

And clear-eyed stillness

So that our minds

Might be baptized

In the name of [*God’s] wind

And [*God’s] light and rain. 

~~ RGM, November 16 2020

[*The parentheses are mine. I couldn’t resist.]

From My Nature Journal: Solstice and its Illogical Contradiction

(Today's blogpost is a repeat of one I've done in the past, as things are quite busy right now with work responsibilities and family gatherings. But I do think a lot about this concept this time of year, and it gives me joy. Merry Christmas!)

Today is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Though the day officially launches the season we call winter, it curiously also marks a seemingly contradictory turning point: as of this day in the earth’s annual trek around the sun, the Northern Hemisphere increases its direct angle toward the sun’s rays. Consequently, here in the north, daylight will begin to lengthen starting this very day, as will our hemisphere’s warming, and these two phenomena will continue for the next six months until the summer solstice in June similarly heralds a return to winter. Of course, the opposite of these are true in the Southern Hemisphere: today is their longest day of the year.

It is curious to me that the first day of winter is also the first day of winter’s expiration, its demise. One would think winter’s opening day would portend more of the same with nothing to contradict it, nothing but cold, dark barrenness, bleakness, or as the poet says, earth standing “…cold as iron, water like a stone.” We don’t call it the ‘dead of winter’ for nothing.

But there it is, the illogical and illuminating contradiction: light. Its return mocks winter, scoffs at the cold, derides the bleakness. Each day that follows, the sun rises just a little earlier and sets just a little later. Winter anticipates spring, death foresees life, dark predestines light, cold envisages warmth: these are the paradoxes of the seasonal change we call the winter solstice.

So it is no coincidence that the early church chose to recognize the solstice as the most appropriate time to celebrate the birth of Christ. Now, in actual fact, Jesus’ birth likely took place some time during what we call October. I am not certain how that is surmised, but it has something to do with the timing of Jewish festivals and the typical season a census would have been called by Rome (see Luke 2:1-4), not likely the dead of winter.

But no. Indian Summer, beautiful as it is, just won’t do. To celebrate something as significant as the incarnation a time is needed that makes a statement, a time that belies its context, that refutes the cold, that calls out the stony spiritual stupor right in the midst of its bleak midwinter and long underwear. Solstice. Now there is an appropriate time to celebrate the Light of the world.

To celebrate something as significant as the incarnation, a

time is needed that makes a statement, a time that

belies its context, that refutes the cold, that calls

out the stony spiritual stupor right in the midst

of its bleak midwinter and long underwear.

And so we do. We know there is no life without light. Light begets being, a commonly known biological fact.

The same is true in the spirit world. St. John the Evangelist puts it this way: In him (Jesus) was life, and that life was the light for humanity. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:4-5). Or later, sharing the very words of Jesus himself, he writes, And Jesus spoke to them saying, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John 8:12).” Or take it all the way back to the prophet hundreds of years before Christ. Anticipating the coming Messiah, Isaiah foretold: 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 (Isaiah 9:2).

Light dispels darkness, not the other way 'round. Open a door into a dark closet and what happens? Does the darkness come creeping into the room in which you stand? No the opposite holds, and always will. Light outmaneuvers darkness.

So, solstice is here. I look forward to it not only because of Christmas but because it heralds the return of summer. Celebrate the light with me. Proclaim the truth of the Christmas carol:

          Light and life to all he brings,

          Ris'n with healing in His wings.

That's from Hark the Herald Angels Sing, by Charles Wesley, written in 1739. Or, if you prefer, fast forward to Bing Crosby (1963):

          The Child, the child, sleeping in the night,

          He will bring us goodness and light.

Let there be Light!

~~ RGM, From an 

Earlier Blog Entry

From My Nature Journal: Solstice and its Illogical Contradiction

Today is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Though the day officially launches the season we call winter, it curiously also marks a seemingly contradictory turning point: as of this day in the earth’s annual trek around the sun, the Northern Hemisphere increases its direct angle toward the sun’s rays. Consequently, here in the north, daylight will begin to lengthen starting this very day, as will our hemisphere’s warming, and these two phenomena will continue for the next six months until the summer solstice in June similarly heralds a return to winter. Of course, the opposite of these are true in the Southern Hemisphere: today is their longest day of the year.

It is curious to me that the first day of winter is also the first day of winter’s expiration, its demise. One would think winter’s opening day would portend more of the same with nothing to contradict it, nothing but cold, dark barrenness, bleakness, or as the poet says, earth standing “…cold as iron, water like a stone.” We don’t call it the ‘dead of winter’ for nothing.

But there it is, the illogical and illuminating contradiction: light. Its return mocks winter, scoffs at the cold, derides the bleakness. Each day that follows, the sun rises just a little earlier and sets just a little later. Winter anticipates spring, death foresees life, dark predestines light, cold envisages warmth: these are the paradoxes of the seasonal change we call the winter solstice.

So it is no coincidence that the early church chose to recognize the solstice as the most appropriate time to celebrate the birth of Christ. Now, in actual fact, Jesus’ birth likely took place some time during what we call October. I am not certain how that is surmised, but it has something to do with the timing of Jewish festivals and the typical season a census would have been called by Rome (see Luke 2:1-4), not likely the dead of winter.

But no. Indian Summer, beautiful as it is, just won’t do. To celebrate something as significant as the incarnation a time is needed that makes a statement, a time that belies its context, that refutes the cold, that calls out the stony spiritual stupor right in the midst of its bleak midwinter and long underwear. Solstice. Now there is an appropriate time to celebrate the Light of the world.

To celebrate something as significant as the incarnation, a

time is needed that makes a statement, a time that

belies its context, that refutes the cold, that calls

out the stony spiritual stupor right in the midst

of its bleak midwinter and long underwear.

And so we do. We know there is no life without light. Light begets being, a commonly known biological fact.

The same is true in the spirit world. St. John the Evangelist puts it this way: In him (Jesus) was life, and that life was the light for humanity. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:4-5). Or later, sharing the very words of Jesus himself, he writes, And Jesus spoke to them saying, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John 8:12).” Or take it all the way back to the prophet hundreds of years before Christ. Anticipating the coming Messiah, Isaiah foretold: 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 (Isaiah 9:2).

Light dispels darkness, not the other way 'round. Open a door into a dark closet and what happens? Does the darkness come creeping into the room in which you stand? No, the opposite holds, and always will. Light outmaneuvers darkness.

So, solstice is here, one of my favorite times of the year, not only because of Christmas but because it heralds the return of summer. Celebrate the Light with me. Proclaim the truth of the Christmas carol:

          Light and life to all He brings,

          Ris'n with healing in His wings.

That's from Charles Wesley's Hark the Herald Angels Sing, written in 1739. Or, if you prefer, fast forward to Bing Crosby, 1963, in Do You Hear what I Hear?

          The Child, the Child, sleeping in the night:

          He will bring us goodness and light.

Let there be light!

~~ RGM, from an earlier journal and blog

entry I wrote on December 21, 2012

From My Nature Journal: Soul Seasons

Lord of Creation, God of the universe,

You are not simply summer to my soul.

Yes, I do love You in the sensuousness of summer,

When leaves wax and fields are a riot of color and joy,

When Your sun warms my skin,

And Your cool water revives my strength,

And long days become a sabbath-season that allow space, grace and growth.

Yet I also love You in the melancholy of autumn,

When Your earth dies a blood-red blaze of glory

And trees rain back their yield to the ground,

When something in me saddens amid the late-season blessing,

And I come to terms with mortality and winter’s approach.

But I love You as well in the dead of winter,

When wind howls over barren earth

Both outside my window and sometimes inside my soul,

When the heart can freeze like ice, or can rest easy, asleep,

Like a garden, patiently waiting for Your beneficent, restoring touch.

Finally, I love You in the giddy burgeoning of springtime,

When quickened life bursts from somewhere deep and wonderful,

A resurrected earth mimicking a resurrected Lord,

And something also in me is embraced by resurrection,

As the cycle of life again begins its turning.

You are every season to my soul --

Summer, fall, winter, spring -- together.

You transcend them in a timeless time and space beyond Your good earth.

Grant me to walk fully awake through the seasons,

Never missing the slightest nuance of Your vast overture of love. Amen

~~ RGM, December 7, 2017 

POTM...*: Making Tracks

(*Photo of the Month)

OK, this photo will seem a little pedestrian to some, but I couldn’t help being drawn to take a photo of the animal tracks in our Castle Rock backyard while the sun was going down last night. The yard is mostly a monoculture, as far as I know, because the only things we’ve seen lately are cottontail rabbits. But they do make their presence known in all seasons – munching grass (green or brown), chewing select garden plants down to the nub, or leaving rabbit ‘duds’ scattered about to fertilize the lawn, which is generally more than I can say that I do for it. At other times we’ve seen a fox in the backyard, no doubt drawn to the cottontails, but the only one of those we’ve seen lately was out beyond the fence. (You can’t really see our fence, only the fence poles. It is just wire, and doesn’t block the views!)

Further out beyond the fence and in the field, this morning I can see not only the well-worn paths between burrows in an encroaching prairie dog colony, wondering when at last I am going to find a mound in my yard, but also the loping prints of coyotes come to check the cute little morsels out. No doubt they also make a tasty meal from time to time. Red-tailed hawks also hunt them from our yard, perched from a thirty-foot Ponderosa Pine just to the right of the photo view.

(above, from top to bottom: moose, cottontail, raccoon and sea turtle tracks)

One of the lovely things about hiking in winter is the ability to see tracks of animals in the snow. Tracks are so very much more subtle when the ground is clear that one can be lulled into thinking there’s not much going on. Yet animals are persistently present, just simply not easily seen. By contrast, even the smallest winter snowcover allows us to see the plethora of activity that constantly takes place when we are not looking. Out in the Pike National Forest just to the west from our Colorado home, or in the Michigan woods we haunt so much, the tracks are profuse during winter, from large elk or deer hooves, as they migrate from yard to yard where surface is exposed, to the tiniest feet of field mice darting quickly to avoid the attention of watchful owls. The latter, of course, and the other tiny critters, make most of their pathways under the snow in a habitat called subnivean; this word is taken from the Latin ‘under snow,’ and the environment that develops there, only as snow grows deeper, not only provides much greater warmth, even in far northern climes south of the permafrost belt, but also greater protection from predators and easy access to food sources. One can sometimes even see these hidden trails in spring when the snow finally melts.

God is present to us, too, in spite of our difficulty seeing him at times. He is not only constantly present, but constantly attentive to our circumstances. Wouldn’t it be great if we could see his footprints daily attending in our direction? Yet God’s ways are mystery, infinitely more so than that of furtive animals, so that one can be tempted to think he is absent. But do not believe that for a moment. They may not be easy to see, yet even God leaves tracks… “This is what the Lord says – he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters… I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness… (Isaiah 43:16, 19)”

~~RGM, March 4, 2015

QOTM...*: Mark Buchanan

(*Quote of the Month)

All living things thrive only by an

ample measure of stillness.

                  ~~Mark Buchanan

We’re ‘back home again’ for a few days in John Denver’s Colorado. And though the late January ground is free of snow (except for some very small remnants in heavily shaded places from a modest blast a couple weeks ago), the forecasters say we will get a bit tonight. That’s great. It IS winter after all.

There’s something about snow that settles me. Granted, I dislike clearing a foot or more of it off my driveway, but that doesn’t happen often so I’ll gladly take the bitter with the sweet. But back to that settling impression. I don’t know if it’s the deadening of sound that falling snow or a fresh blanket produces. Or maybe it’s the paling and blanching of winter’s stark lines – the bare tree branches, the blunt edges of rocks, the sharp angles of other land features -- or the purifying whitening of drab, brown ground. Perhaps it’s the near hypnotic effect of watching the flakes come down, like being before some panoramic, big-as-the-horizon lava lamp. Or maybe it has something to do with the forced care of driving, or even walking, that a blanket of fresh snow requires. As I said, I don’t know what it is, but these combined effects always still me deeper than a snowfall stills a southern city. They still me physically, mentally and emotionally, even spiritually. My spirit slows, temporarily more reflective. The only other natural vista that comes close to giving me this blessed impression is being before a body of water.

At any rate, looking forward to the snow tonight has turned my thoughts toward stillness today and its occasional dearth in my life, but its general famine in our culture. Surrounding ourselves as we do with a greater cacophony of sound and flurry of activity than is healthy, we do well to slow down. Our need for generous amounts of still moments is why God gave us sabbath.

I recently read again Mark Buchanan’s The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath. It is winsomely written, and though lacking the philosophical and theological depth of a classic like Abraham Heschel’s The Sabbath, I find it an enjoyable and motivating read. Here is the full Buchanan quote, from a chapter called In God’s Time: Stopping to See God’s Bigness:

The root idea of Sabbath is simple as rain falling, basic as breathing. It’s that all living things -- and many nonliving things too -- thrive only by an ample measure of stillness. A bird flying, never nesting, is soon plummeting. Grass trampled, day after day, scalps down to the hard bone of earth. Fruit constantly inspected bruises, blights. This is true of other things as well: a saw used without relenting -- its teeth never filed, its blade never cooled -- grows dull and brittle; a motor never shut off gums with residue or fatigues from thinness of oil -- it sputters, it stalls, it seizes. Even companionship languishes without seasons of apartness.

I need to hear this.

More than that, I need to heed its admonishment, both daily and at other special moments. So we’ll get up into the mountains over the next few days and enjoy the fresh powder. Sure, we’ll hike or snowshoe, doing something active, but I also hope we’ll have a warm enough day that Gail and I can pull out our sling chairs, find a nice place to just sit in the sun, take in the beauty, and be still.

~~RGM, January 31, 2015