On this day

"Some days I felt an urgent responsibility to each change of light outside the sunporch windows. Who would remember any of it, any of this our time, and the wind thrashing the buckeye limbs outside? Somebody had to do it, somebody had to hang on to the days with teeth and fists, or the whole show had been in vain."

—An American Childhood, Annie Dillard

Or you can let the days run through your fingers like sweet water, like golden coins, the currency of your time on this earth. It would seem miserly to hoard them, even if we could, when they are given to us so generously, again and again. 

But remembering, yes. Let us remember. When I think of the thousands upon thousands of days I've been given, I feel grateful and almost a little ashamed. Grateful now for all the days I didn't have the grace to appreciate so much then, when I was so young and took for granted a lifetime of golden days in front of me. 

That is a beautiful thing about gaining these years, I think. I begin to see the many, many gifts I've been given, and at last begin to fully recognize their preciousness. I am grown larger, so my gratitude can be larger, too. 

And in recognizing the generosity extended to me, I am moved to offer gifts in reciprocity. To finally see the way of it...a circle.

The earth is so patient, waiting for us to recognize what's been here all along, if only we'd have the eyes (or the years) to see. 

That's how it feels to me today.  

One thing

One thing: October.

Every day a stone of honeyed amber, warmed by a constant sun.

Was it lovely for you? Was it a topaz jewel in your heart's crown?

Grasses, trees, sky, all hopelessly beautiful.

I say "hopeless" because it is now December, and thinking about October feels like coming across a picture of an exquisite dessert made for a king, by a master pastry chef who died before you were born. It is a dessert decorated with gold leaf and sugared violets, thick with cream—so bewitching that your mouth waters just looking at it.

But the receipt is lost, and winter has come. May our memories and a good fire keep us warm, though still we long for that lost taste.

Since I last wrote here, I've been growing flowers. 

Since I last wrote, I've been traveling.

I've gone walking on a floodplain island, where white-tailed deer run on pathways that weave in and out of the Otherworld and cottonwoods...and where two rivers meet.

I came home to watch goldfinches raiding my garden for hyssop seeds. The leaves of snowberry, juneberry and chokeberry glowed brighter and brighter, reflecting back the long hours of sunlight they'd collected all summer. Gladdening my heart.

In my memory, I spent days watching bees drink from asters.

My list of goals shrank. I let a lot of things slide. I had nothing to say.

Under a waxing moon, I wonder. Will a reading of the astrological transits cast some light on this sense of obstacles, unknown thresholds? Sometimes the mystery is too mysterious. Sometimes peace is sought, and sought. It is worth a try.