Senses in Photos

In preparation for a retreat I am co-leading this April, I am finally diving into the many art prayer and therapy type books I have.  One had an exercise in which you take photos representing the senses, so I did that from my window seat yesterday in the afternoon sunlight.  I find photography can help me to be in the moment, see something familiar in a new way and appreciate the beauty around me.

Touch - I can imagine touching those prickly pinecones that seem to touch the sky

Hearing - the wind in the trees, the trees growing

Sight - my eyes and the camera catch the blur of motion and color of Catnip's tail

Smell - the warm woolly smell of the lamb

Taste - I remember Catnip licking my chin last night with her scratchy tongue

Knowing - the book adds a sixth sense of knowing;
I know beyond there is more than just what I see with my eyes.
This is one I feel I could ponder a while...

 I'm adding this because I like it.  I never saw this spot as an altar before, though it is often where I pray,
but seeing it in a photo makes me realize that it is a home altar.
I am even in the picture!

Headstands and Perspective

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith."

The Lord replied,

"If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,

you would say to this mulberry tree,

'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

Luke 17:5-6

I participated in mass this Sunday at Mt. Irenaeus, a lovely rural Franciscan retreat center near my daughter’s upstate New York college. I was struck by Fr. Dan’s interesting take on the gospel reading from Luke 17 about having faith the size of a mustard seed and saying to the mulberry bush to be uprooted and planted in the sea. He saw it as a metaphor for being open to God who uproots us from our normal way of looking at life and turns us upside down on our heads, as it were, so that we see things from a new perspective.

I had been praying and thinking about this same idea of perspective on the way up to Houghton. Often lately I look at my life and think, "Oh brother, what a mess I am. I don't know what I want to do with my life once my kids are gone. What's wrong with me?" But instead I could think, "Well, I don't know what I want to do with myself once my kids are gone, but I know what I'm to do now, and with God's guidance, what I'm to be doing next will emerge." The situation doesn't changed, but my way of looking at it does. My attitude towards life is colored by my perspective. Do I look at situations the normal way, which for me often tends to the negative, or do I follow St. Francis in being a Holy Fool who stands on my head and see things from a new perspective?

“Any scene can be more freshly and clearly seen when it is seen upside down.” G.K. Chesterton

(photo: Chapel at Mt. Irenaeus)

Evening Quiet

One night this week I took a walk with my dog in the moonlight. Heading down the hill, the three-quarter moon framed by the trees bordering the road shone ahead through the clouds in the east. There is nothing like the moon and the clouds as the clouds alternately veil and reveal the moon. Beautiful, mystical, haunting. I strolled down the road enjoying the moon and clouds, the warm fall evening, the quiet and peace. My moon shadow and Romeo’s accompanied us back up the hill.

I had another evening like this the earlier in the week. After dropping my daughter off at her dance classes in Lewisburg, I drove to the library to pass the two hours, but didn’t feel like facing the large space and florescent lights; I felt like something quieter, more solitary, natural. So I went to the park on Fairground Road and sat in my car in the twilight watching the mallards and other ducks who live there and listening to quiet jazz on the public radio station. I just sat and observed the ducks waddling back and forth, quacking at one another, flying to and from the creek, wading in the rain puddles in the parking lot.

I was amused to see the ducks walk among the flock, quacking at one another. Were they greeting friends, scolding foes, remarking on the events of the day? Do ducks have duck friends? Do they spend their time with the same ducks all the time or just randomly group and regroup in the flock? One duck stood and groomed himself, running his smooth orange bill over and over his smooth gray chest, rubbing his smooth green head over and over his smooth brown back. He looked well-groomed to me but apparently he didn’t think so as he did this repeatedly. I've never taken time to watch a duck at his grooming ritual before.

I took a walk around the little park, noticing how the ponds and stream shone in the twilight reflecting the trees and evening clouds. Perhaps the reflection was how the heron who flew in spotted the place he would spend this night.

Gradually the ducks slowed down for the night as the light faded. One and then another would settle to the ground, and though it was hard to see distinctly in the light, some appeared to turn their heads over their backs and tuck them under their wings. Occasionally a few late evening ducks would saunter into a group of settled ducks, quacking and disturbing them so some of them too would stand up and join in. Eventually they all settled down again and grew quiet.

What a peaceful, refreshing way to spend the evening, being with the ducks as the day came to an end.

Wind and Roots

I haven't posted in quite a while. I'm not exactly sure what I want to do with a blog. Sometimes I think I should keep the posts really short, change the name and jazz up the background a bit so it will appeal to people like my younger daughter who says my posts are too long and hasn't read any of them. Somehow I want the blog to express me, but I'm a person who has many facets and different ones show at different times, so to really express myself, my blog would always be changing! So far this blog has had two names and I don't like either of them but don't have any better ones waiting in the wings... (I'm open to suggestions!)

I have been thinking that I want to try posting more frequently. A friend told me I should post my poetry, and since I was inspired during mass today to write a poem that describes how I feel lately, I thought I'd post that.

I am a tree tossed about by the wind

my branches whipping

my leaves torn away

I bend and swoop with each gust

back and forth

frenzy and agitation.

Yet I am rooted firmly in soil

where I cannot see

strong earthy anchoring me

Bending, yielding, yet not breaking

or moving from my earthy fastness.

Tempests blow me about

rattling, shaking my limbs

bowing my trunk

but my roots are invisibly, firmly gripped

by soil embracing and homing me.

Cat's Light

I love twilight. It's my favorite time of day. I sat on my bed tonight observing the sun go down behind Montour Ridge in the southwest and the sky gradually darken from sky blue with gray and white clouds to the deep rich dark blue of twilight. I love the bare trees silhouetted against the clouds of the late afternoon sky and then against the twilight sky. I remember summer nights sitting on the back porch of our house in Hartford during the twilight. Watching the flock of pigeons someone had circling the block, their wings catching the last of the sunlight that day. The quiet and calm of that block in the midst of the city--gardens and grapevines and clotheslines and rose bushes and the beagles next door. So much nature in the midst of the city. The cat from next door I called Friend because she was so friendly and visited quite often. We were pregnant at the same time and I felt a kinship with her. She even brought her kittens visiting a few times.

And later afternoons in our house in Turbotville, walking down the road to see a view of the sun just disappearing over the hills to the west. Watching the sun actually getting smaller as the hills gradually hide it. Catching that moment when there is just a dot of light, then suddenly it's gone. Here on Montour Ridge, we watch the sun set through gaps in the trees, so we don't get a gorgeous sunset unless we are driving home through the fields below to the North--there we have spectacular views of the fields and distant hills topped by the western sky. Sometimes I stop to catch that moment when the sun winks out.

And here, at home on the Ridge, sitting on the back stoop; don't do that as often as I did in Hartford in the days before children, but I do it sometimes and I do often sit in my room and watch the sky at this time. I remember one night early in our days here being outside by the apples trees at twilight with the cats roaming around outside--cat's light, the twilight is called and it's appropriate. It's such a peaceful time of day. A time to turn on the lights of home and pause for a breath. The work of the day is winding down and that makes life more peaceful.

(I'm updating the look of my blog--still trying to find a good photo for the title.)