I’ve recently added a rainbow-spiral wind-dancer to my balcony. I love watching it hang quietly when the air is still, and dance in its spiraling way—creating the illusion of vertical movement—when it’s windy. Air In Motion Its presence has caused me to reflect upon the phenomena of wind—which really is just air in motion. Being essentially nothing other than air, wind—like air—is invisible. …
Art & Spirit
The Round Jubilance
From Blossoms From blossoms comes this brown paper bag of peaches we bought from the boy at the bend in the road where we turned toward signs painted Peaches. From laden boughs, from hands, from sweet fellowship in the bins, comes nectar at the roadside, succulent peaches we devour, dusty skin and all, comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat. O, to take what we love …
Seemingly Parallel Lines
Joy “Don’t cry, it's only music,” someone’s voice is saying. “No one you love is dying.” It’s only music. And it was only spring, the world’s unreasoning body run amok, like a saint’s, with glory, that overwhelmed a young girl into unreasoning sadness. “Crazy,” she told herself, “I should be dancing with happiness.” But it happened again. It happens when we make bottomless …
Black Bees Carry …
A passage from The Lover of God, in which Rabindranath Tagore sings of the passionate longing of Radha for Krishna, of any lover for his/her Belovèd: He's there among the scented trees, playing the notes he has taught you. Too late for embarrassment, shy doe nibbling at the forest's edge, shawled in deep blue shadows. He's calling you. The flower of your soul is opening, little deer. The …
Beneath the Shivering, Shy Stars
1914 Truce Christmas Eve in the trenches of France, the guns were quiet. The dead lay still in No Man’s Land – Freddie, Franz, Friedrich, Frank ... The moon, like a medal, hung in the clear, cold sky. Silver frost on barbed wire, strange tinsel, sparkled and winked. A boy from Stroud stared at a star to meet his mother’s eyesight there. An owl swooped on a rat on the glove of a …
Exact, Deliberate Care
Reading, once again, Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is like reconnecting with an old friend: a deep comfort and easy pleasure, rich with sweetness and joy. One of my favorite passages ... About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four-story building. It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a stem or the kindling …