The World About to Turn

I wrote this the day before Ivy was born. I could feel the change coming, and the heavens seemed to reflect this sense of being "in-between" one reality and another. 

~

7 am, and I am alone in the quiet downstairs at dawn. I woke to the subtle glow of pink in the east, and over the river’s source the sun will soon rise. All this I will welcome from the dining room window. Yet in the kitchen and in the west, the beautiful full moon still lingers, suspended round and gold, but whose glory will soon fade and fall beyond the pines on the hill. 

I don’t know where to look. At the fullness of this moon which I will not see again, which lingers as if to bid me farewell and keep me a few minutes longer in its power, or at the changing colours of a sky awakening to new light.

I am in the in-between. Between the setting of the moon and the rising of the sun. Between the calm beauty of winter and the ruddy rush of spring. Present in a world where the two are meeting, yet I cannot see their coming together. I can only look west or east.

Softly now I pace the floor, not wanting to miss either wonder. The moon is falling fast, and soon I will have no choice.

And yet…

It is, after all, the same light which draws me to both. The beautiful fullness of all that has been, now quietly sinking, is lit by the energy of what lies ahead. They are not opposites. Their dance is part of this greater turning, the “marvel” of our blue-green sphere. 

I pause at the kitchen window. The moon is barely visible behind one of the great pines, who will brush it with a final kiss and tuck it behind the horizon. Good night, moon. Well have you shone.

And now the dining room fire is crackling, and another row of pines is shocked into silhouette by a bright patch of light, and I am sitting by the window, waiting, waiting, for the sky to break wide and the sun to fling its beams into the valley.

There are these brief moments in which I can see neither moon nor sun. And yet there is light. There is beauty in this hush of in-between, in the being of waiting.

I am held here, in just the right place, till just the right time.

Ah, here it comes . . . a fire so bright I cannot look, only be seen . . . the day has come. 

~lg

Build with Kindness

Out in the roar of March’s winter prowl, it is still too cold for the sparrow to think of nesting. This is the tempestuous tugging between winter and spring, and March will have no clear winner. New life is either hiding or biding its time. Yet the sun is warming, and this patch of the world is turning steadily toward lengthening days.

Sparrow, my time will come before yours. I am nesting now. I am preparing a place for my not-so-hidden new life. The sun’s warmth spreads over me with an urgency as the days till Easter Sunday melt away. I must build.

I must gather the twigs, the soft grasses of autumn. I must gather the feathers, the string, and nature’s downy gifts. I must knit these comforts together in a sheltered hollow for my young.

Build with kindness, the wind whispers. This is the word I have heard. This is what I must circle our home with.

When kindness lines our days, the atmosphere changes.

Voices calm.

Tempers soothe.

Transitions are smooth.

We are all a little more settled, a little more satisfied.

There are more smiles, more hugs, more opportunities to share moments of wonder together.

When kindness lines our days, our hearts change.

Wrath is turned.

Mercy learned.

Compassion confirmed.

There is more repentance. There is more grace.

The Spirit’s fruit tree blossoms and bears good things, and by it were are sustained.

Kindness brings the warmth of spring to chilly days.

It is a simple investment, and small, but made mighty layer by layer. It is a habit of moments, of gathering the minutiae of life into a more gracious form. Kindness is never insignificant. By it I may build and bolster our home to be the haven I desire.

By kindness I will prepare a nest to receive you, little one – to sustain us all in the great change ahead, to soften the edges of tiring days, to warm this humble space with whispers from our good Father. His is the open hand wherein we may all rest. 

~lg

Swan Joy

Joy is a longing,
a passageway with the white wingbeat of swans overhead,
and the silent current of a spring river beneath.
You cannot live in water or air, and yet they push and lift you into realms of beauty and desire,
so much the more powerful for their being out of reach.

Joy is this pulling of the soul right out of the body and onto the swan's back,
a dreamscape more alive than your waking vision.
It is forever captured in your mind's eye,
a trumpet call from a far country,
which even now sets your feet dancing on the rippled water,
dazzled by the bright sun toward which you run.

Joy is the elemental force you cannot contain,
yet which defines your every movement,
now from beneath, now from above,
the wave that buoys,
the wind that breathes,
the holy, humbling wild of spring unleashed.



This poetic reflection draws on C.S. Lewis's understanding of joy as desire, and is formed by memories of canoeing down the Salt River with my father one spring. In an afternoon I will never forget, we set up a tarp sail and the wind carried us downstream toward hundreds of white tundra swans that had returned to the river. As we neared, they rose up by the dozens and dozens, and flew overhead to resettle behind us. We were surrounded. I look back on that day as a gift of beatific vision. 


~lg

The return of the birds

The blue jays arrived first. They still startle me with their plumage. I didn't grow up with blue jays, and they've always seemed rather foreign to me, like creatures out of a jungle picture book. They are colourful and noisy and somewhat obnoxious, rather like children. They crowded around the feeders, calling to each other with their piercing cries, alerting the bird world to their discovery.

The chickadees came next. They are the bravest of the little birds, willing to dart in between the bossy jays for their share of sunflower seeds. With their black caps on, they seem game for anything. These are the birds which landed on my head last winter when I stood out in the cold for half an hour with seeds on my toque, pretending to be a statue. It was one of those childhood dreams fulfilled. I had tried many times as a kid to stand still enough, for long enough, in our backyard in Fort Smith for the chickadees to land, but they never did. Perhaps I've gained some patience as a "grown-up." Or perhaps this variety is a little less wild. Either way, they braved my humanity long enough to settle and snatch what they were after, and left me grinning like a fool.

Later in the morning I came back to the window and the snowy ground was spread with juncos. I cannot say why these in particular should captivate me. Perhaps it is the distinction between their smoky grey backs and white breasts, or the way their eyes gleam like shiny coals through the smoke. It might sound silly, but I think it's the way they look at me. They prefer to forage on the ground, picking out what has scattered from more careless birds above. And that's why we make sure to scatter a few handfuls of seed just for them.

And up among the chickadees, a downy woodpecker, alternating between feeder and branches, gripping bark with its four-toed feet, always head up. How is the grub finding in February,  I wonder? It is smaller than its hairy cousin, though just as persistent. It must pick and drill for its food, if easier pickings are not to be found. "If any would not work, neither shall he eat." I admire its determination, and the way its thrusts its whole upper body beak-first into the search.  On Ash Wednesday morning, I woke to the sound of one of these, knocking on doors in the sky.

"Ask and it shall be given unto you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you." This was the message I heard on the day we consider and mark our frailty.

Such little creatures all, with only a feather's breadth between them and starvation. Fragility like this cannot afford complacency. And so I am happy to spread this small banquet in a sparser season. Sometimes you just need a table prepared. 

When you are tired of drilling and foraging through a crust of ice, there is this grace that arrives like manna. In  the deep winter, a hand stretches out, offering seed for the sower and bread for the eater.

Be brave, little bird, and come closer!

The search never ends, but neither does the provision. There is always food enough for the journey.




~lg

Lent Is For the Birds

Winter is truly here with a respectable -22 C morning. The snow is crunchy and crystalline, and the river shivers under its growing skin. Life stirs house by house, as first one plume of smoke and then another rises out of the neighbours' chimneys. All seems still, silenced by the cold, except for the birds of winter.

I've neglected the birdfeeder lately. The odd chickadee hops over to investigate their previous source of food, then flies off to search for other, more generous backyards. I miss them. I miss the chatter and flutter and closeness of small life.

I miss the messages they carry from another kingdom. Over the years, they have been to me heaven's carrier pigeons. (For God's voice is woven and wafted throughout all creation.) A year ago, a bird was somehow tied up with the beginning of this journey of a life of prayer.

Lent is a time for fasting. But it's also a time for feeding the soul.

This Lent, I've decided to feed the birds. 

Junco - Carrier of secrets, she knows where to find the hidden seed. She knows the song of the wind.

(Give me ears to hear!)

Chickadee - Cheerful herald through winter's cold, constant companion of woods and windowsill, bright bringer of joy.

(Give me a heart of joy!)

Sparrow - Common beauty building her nest, crafting a refuge of kindness out of bits and pieces, gathering nature's scraps into a soft bed for her young.

(Give me wings of kindness!) 


We will go out into the cold and fill up the feeder, scatter the seeds, and send our invitation. We will watch and wait for the birds to come back. We will listen, and learn, and lean close. We will feed the hunger of winter.

We will wait for the return of the birds . . .

~lg

Junco: a prayer for ears to hear

This morning, my ears feel numb. Dulled somehow to the wonder of the world, or the whispers of its Creator.

I clear a space in the muddled, meddling clutter, clear the view so I can see the sun shining on the sibling pear trees in the yard. I open the window, just a few inches, for it is nearly November.

The world breathes in. There is an underlying hum of the wind, conducting "Autumn" better than Vivaldi, and turning a wild dance with a golden, glittering poplar. A lone crow, a chickadee duet, the low clucking of ranging chickens - winged creatures speak over the wind's hustle.

The Manitoba Maple has been shaken bare of leaves. The brave skeleton stands firm, twisted arms stretching, protecting this house from the nor'east winds.

I have been one to speak with the wind. But I am tired, and cannot distinguish its tones. A junco hops by on a maple branch. It is in the know. This I can tell by its bright eyes, and the way its feathers turn to meet the wind. It doesn't stay long. It must follow the song.

I put my face close to the opening between my world and another. I breathe in. I pray. I ask to be shaken, like the poplar. I ask to be brave, like the maple. I ask to be merry, like the chickadees. I ask to be unbound, like the crow. But most of all, I ask for the junco's ears.


~lg

June ramblings

I've got seeds in my pocket and a sonata on my fingertips. It is a June evening, blushing with the colours of the sun up past its bedtime. These night hours seem stolen from some other world, some other time. There is the only the wind in the trees, and its noise does not demand, though we all bow to its power. There is no past, only these seeds that I place in the soil, space, cover up, then step to the next row. The garden gives, long before its fruits are ripe. Solitude. Solidarity with the earth and the mother spider that scuttles her egg nest to safer ground. Here is time, true and ticking, tuned to the turn of the earth and tilt of sun. Before the dark settles I put the tools in the shed and scrub the black dirt from my knuckles. Now limbered up, fingers fall easily on the smooth ivory keys, remembering patterns learned a decade and a half ago. The window is open to the night air, and I linger with the diminuendo, feeling the last vibrations sink away into the walls and floor of this old house. Then there is quiet. The quiet of children sleeping, and the breeze blowing through the rooms, and the frogs across the valley. There is a peace that comes when all the portals to the racing, rabid world are closed, and a thought can wander and turn without the clamoring opinions of a never-sleeping network. The house fills with the glow of lamps, but there is yet indigo through the windowpanes. Soon the night will leave us with only mirrors, and then what will we see gazing back at us? I have danced with June, let it in and taken its bait - and there, it smiles with me.


~lg

Kingdom Field Notes: Mother Junco's Secret

Little mother junco knows a secret. The tilt of her head outside the kitchen window tells me so. She knows the place where heaven and earth meet, somewhere in the branches of a great tree. There she will build her nest, and lay her treasures to rest.

She has found a seed. The one that falls into the earth and dies. And it will be her kingdom.

She has a dark eye for the small things, little mother junco.

And how she will sing on the day of new birth, when the pale blue egg breaks open like a morning sky to welcome the sun!

Until then, she laughs at the snow, her faith the evidence of things unseen, and her secret keeps her warm.


~lg

Do the Juncos Know It's Ash Wednesday?

Do the juncos know it's Ash Wednesday, flitting from willows to crusted snow, seeking the half buried seeds? Their diet is unchanged today, and their winter foraging, their flight and fight for survival, goes on.

And yet, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. This I share with all creatures, those who dance in the cerulean heavens and those who seem intent on bringing hell to earth.

I sip my bitter coffee, this small denial, offer it up in fasting and prayer. No sugar. No sweetness on the tongue for forty days. In its absence I remember those who struggle for bread, let alone sugar, who struggle for life in the looming of death, for hope in the heavy drifts of despair.

I am one person, one graced by hope, one surrounded by beauty so myriad I almost feel guilty. I am one who falters on the pilgrim path, all too aware of my own tendencies to sin and selfishness. I am one who wonders how best to spend this life and the inheritance given, how to direct my energies into the howling vacuum of need at my fingertips.

And so I fast. And so I pray. And so I live Lent remembering that all I am is marked by this smudge of a cross, the unlikely mark in which all things must find their definition, in which my own life is defined and made clear, and is made somehow more than the sum of its dust.

The best way I know to reshape this life with all its passions, to order its loves to a fitting end, is through prayer. This is my prayer: form me into a woman who prays, for whom prayer is second gifted nature. For the one who prays seeks the face of God, from whom all blessings flow, from whom love bleeds out to join with human suffering, from whom all creatures live and move and have their being. And in the seeking, perchance to find, perhaps to see - aye, here's the rub! - and in seeing to be seen. For You are El Roi, the God who sees.

And Your gaze is my undoing, and my repentance, and in my repentance my remaking.

Remake me to be worthy of the shape of the cross. Remake me into a fitting vessel of love. Remake me so all my sweetness is found in the beauty of holiness.

Remake me so that in praying for those nearest and those distant I may be formed into your answer. Give me courage to be your arrows, flung into the heart of my aching prayers.

The juncos dash for the seeds, and there is a merry desperation in their movement. One flits, hovers near the window, flings a glance with its shining black eye to my strange indoor world. I suppose it's safer in here. But there are seeds to be had in the snow, with a little digging, and the slow but steady increase of the sun's reach, and the whole free sky.


~lg

Christmas Lights

We drove to North Rustico to look at the lights, and ended up out on the point, past the lighthouse and up the dirt track, with the water on our right and darkened summer cottages on our left. Up to where the dunes parted for the boat launch and the row of rocks stretched out into the sea. We put the windows down and turned the engine off. The kids put their heads out the windows, and so did I. There it was – the sound of the waves.

Sometimes I forget that sound in winter. We don’t think to go to the beach in December. But tonight I’m glad we did. The old roving light illuminated the rocks in its steady sequence from somewhere behind us. We could just make out the white of the breaking water on the sand, and from there out all was dark and the sea and thy sky seemed one dark mystery save for a few stars overhead. Where are the boundaries between heaven and earth anyway?

There are nights when the veil is thin. Holy nights kissed by the salty air. Hushed nights when we turn our revving, striving, sputtering engines off and look out to sea.

We sat eclipsed for just a few minutes, silence peppered with the questions and exclamations of small children out past bedtime. Transcendence can creep up on you when you least expect it. Before we rolled the windows up, the kids called a goodbye to the ocean. “See you in the summer,” they said, and Arden blew a kiss into the night – “I love you.”  

~lg

life

Last night I held a baby chick in my hand, one that hatched here in Wheatley River, part silkie. So soft, so fragile, clinging to life by a dropper of sugar water and a heating lamp. It had been too cold yesterday afternoon. The day before was sweltering near 30. But then a shift, a sudden drop, and this little one was overtaken by shivers. I marveled at the delicate intricacy of its emerging feathers, of the warmth of its faltering heart – one of God’s creatures. It died before morning, and our eyes leaked salty water.  

This morning we found the first strawberries down by the chicken coop. We had unearthed the patch quite by surprise, clearing out brush early this spring. Arden brought one in to me, perfectly red, perfectly ripe, as if timed to my breakfast. Fruit in season – what could be sweeter? You can’t buy that life on a shelf.

Today I thinned the carrots and turnips. Too many, too close, and the harvest will be thin and twisted. So I pulled up the tiny roots, already veggies in miniature. I marveled at the faint purple of the turnip roots, the hearty green of suncatcher leaves, the very life of these seed babies. I tossed them in the compost pile. Maybe I’ll eat them next year.

This afternoon I found a chipmunk, dead, in the grass by the old tractor. One of the cats must have got it. I swelled at my cat’s hunting skills while mourning the chipper motion that was halted forever, here on the lawn. I lifted it with the spade and laid its life to gentle rest beneath one of the hedgerow’s rotting logs.

Life – size does not determine its significance. Creation whispers as powerfully as it roars, and I am caught up in its Gloria.

Life – it comes and goes between my fingers, and all I can do is try to catch the joy and cradle the sorrow . . . keep my hands cupped open. 

~lg 

November

Fields lie fallow
Weary old men with frosted whiskers
Settling in for the long nap

Forests robbed of gold and rubies
Stand forlorn, wringing their limbs
And the spruces sigh, there, there

The river’s eye is swollen
Knocked about by a north wind
Muddied and oozing over its banks

But hush,
The battle for the season is almost won
And winter will come with her blankets and gauze
Come with her command to lie still and rest

All will be healed


~lg

The Heavens Declare

The way the early autumn light is bounding and resounding around the world this morning is a marvelous thing.

Those particle-waves are racing through the atmosphere, gathering every shade of cerulean and azure in the spectrum, spreading them wide over my horizon.

Every photosynthesizing leaf is practically bursting with new energy, gathering our faded breath and exploding into songs of oxygen green.

Rich rusty red oozes out of the pores of the earth, a super-saturation of organic overflow, making decomposition a thing of beauty.

Even brown reveals its subtle personalities in the mown hay fields, the cud-chewing creatures across the road, the flash of feather in the air.

And, marvel of marvels, it my eye that is able to catch what this kinetic spectacle flings out, to render the nuclear language of the sun into these colourful phrases.

Me, praying with eyes to see, spherical windows washed clean by the light, till I can feel the glory of God pierce my soul at 300 million metres per second.


~lg

late summer praise

Six sunflowers stand tall in a vase on the middle of the table, saluting the morning. They are stretching from night’s slumber, waking to the light, turning, turning. Bowed heads lift and faces open in bold yellow praise as they find their Creator.

We bought them at Hope River farm last night as the evening light cast long shadows on our way home from the beach. We bought honey too, and met the chickens, and saw how raw wool was brought into line with steady hands and a spinning wheel. But the sunflowers, acres of them, were top billing last night. Hundreds and hundreds in straight rows, all facing the same direction, a congregation of sun worshipers.

This is what sunflowers do, and I can’t help but wonder if they were created to do just this, to remind us to turn to the Sun, that our fitting posture is one which stands tall in bright worship, showing others the way. As the Countenance shines down, we lift ours up, and it is right to give our thanks and praise.


~lg

Thunder

Thunder rumbles me out of my bed
To stand at the windowpane, watching
Feeling the absence of the wind that signals the coming tempest,
The atmosphere’s vacuum, drawing me out of my skin and into the grey gathering clouds

Thunder rumbles and Arden looks to the window, wondering
Not afraid, just curious, looking to me to explain, to make safe
How do I wrap the words around thunder?
How do I tell her it is deep calling to deep,
All the ancient longings galloping over the plains to throw themselves off the cliff,
The shaking of everything that can be shaken,
The roll of the drums vibrating with a resonance that awakens the taut skins within
Till hearts skip beats to join in the dance of the Sky King?

Thunder rumbles and I wrap my arms around her
And we stand together at the window, waiting
I can never make it safe
Only make it welcome


~lg

Hawk Tag

And then I see a little bird, sparrow or swallow I cannot tell, chasing a hawk through the great blue sky. My eyes are drawn up in amusement as the little one flits and darts, circling the powerful strokes of the bird of prey. Is it a game? Is it an argument? The little one dives straight for the hawk’s head and gets away with a playful peck, and the hawk gives her the eye – annoyance? bemusement? – and shifts his flight path. Still she follows, short wing bursts in contrast to the steady soaring, disappearing now behind the trees. I am laughing at nature’s joke, thankful to be lifted out of my valley into the mirth of the heavens.

I know I am but small, not used to thin air, but oh how I want to follow! Will you let me tag along? Will I ever grow wings big and strong? You turn your eye and laugh, tilt your head and turn into the breeze . . . but you take me into your current and the joke’s on me, for now I am rising on your wings.


~lg

a wing and a prayer

A surprise
Graced by the presence, magnificent,
of two bald eagles
Strength and beauty circling each other
in playful dignity over the river

Oh, for such a wingspan to take in the world, to embrace the globe's rippling breath, to see the straightest line between two points and yet take the scenic route

They call to each other, to me
Come up here
And I want to fly away

Where?
Deeper into this earthbound spirit-ache and then perhaps out the other side
...

Secrets of the woods

Do you wish to hear a secret?

Put on your boots and go into the woods

Go as a child would

Running and skipping with eyes full of wonder

There you will find a certain grove of trees

And a little patch of moss in the centre

Plant your feet into the earth and

Stretch your arms up to the patch of blue

Now close your eyes and breathe

If you stand very still, very patiently

Your eight year old ears will open

And you will hear once again the murmurs of the forest

The trees are speaking

Telling the story of the deepest mystery

The rising of sap in the spring

And the origin of the colour green

~lg

spring floods

The Forks of the Credit are swollen with the force of spring. Heaven’s thoughts, hurled down in the rain and snow, are now converging to water the earth. The waves are high, higher than the banks, higher than our thoughts can hold them. We are frightened by their icy strength, until we can hear the undercurrents of joy. The northwest wind breaks over the mountains and hills, waking up the trees of the field. Their bony applause welcomes the wind and the rising waters. Clap your hands, put on your rubbers, you cannot hold back the impetuous vernal flood.



God . . . has infinite treasure to bestow, and we take up with a little sensible devotion, which passes in a moment. Blind as we are, we hinder God and stop the current of His graces. But when He finds a soul penetrated with a lively faith, He pours into it His graces and favors plentifully; there they flow like a torrent which, after being forcibly stopped against its ordinary course, when it has found a passage, spreads itself with impetuosity and abundance.
(Brother Lawrence - The Practice of the Presence of God)

~lg