It seems that life these days, or maybe all days, is like a swirling pool of stories and experiences that move in contradictory eddies; have you noticed this? Sometimes I have difficulty knowing what end is up, let alone how I should feel about it.

This reflection was shared at a Still Point Mountain Retreat partners meeting on May 3, 2014.  It begins with a poem by Mary Oliver:

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

Thoughts shared at an Easter fire near the Retreat House at sunrise
(Photo by Scot DeGraf)

Celtic Art by Welsh Artist Jen Delyth
www.celticartstudio.com

Yesterday, March 3, it snowed again; about five inches.  We've had so many snows this winter from early December to March that I've lost count.  This snow was light and dry and it almost instantaneously crusted over.  The juncos trip lightly over its surface, heads bobbing into tiny holes and tracks left by the squirrels.  The ground is once more stunningly white, the ever-higher March sun polishing the light to a cut-glass brilliance, even through the lingering pale gray clouds.  I'm at the bottom of my capacity to draw meaning from the wintry landscape.  I've thought every thought about the resting trees, the stark beauty of stripped branches, the cycle of death and life, the hidden seeds.

This last weekend a small group of us gathered at Still Point Mountain Retreat for "Simply Silence". Between mindfully pausing to mark the hours in the Benedictine rhythm, there was time for experiencing the many dimensions of silence while wandering in the winter woods, making art, dreaming, meditating, and reading or writing as each was led. This is what emerged for me:

On New Year's Eve a handful of us gathered in the Meditation Shelter near midnight, having walked there under a starlit, velvet sky. The shelter was aglow with candles and and firelight. There we welcomed the new year, "full of things that have never been.", as Chardin says. We shared poems, songs, quiet, and a few thoughts, of which this was one:

"In a Star-Filled Night", an Advent retreat, took place at Rolling Ridge in early December. This short sharing draws on experiences, poetry, and conversations from that retreat.

Winter has arrived early and hard to our small mountain. Most years it is mid-January before we see snow. We've had three snow storms already, a stretch of bitter cold, and sleet and freezing rain in the forecast. The several inches of snow on the ground has crusted over, crunching underfoot as we walk to check on the sheep or close in the chickens. The trees are bare and black against a pewter sky. The dark comes early.

This morning the mist returned. This time it didn't curl and wisp so much as descend and envelop. Not quite fog, still it was thick enough to wrap much in mystery. As everyone knows by now, mist is one of my favorite forms of the water element we have watched so persistently emerging from the rock wall. It's not wholly water though. Mist's essential trait is that it is neither water nor air; it is an in-between being.

Interestingly, mist imparts startling clarity to the things close in: the trailing purple edges of the hanging spiderwort plant, the determined curve of the hummingbird's head at the feeder, the nonchalant grace of the cat licking her paws in the green deck chair. While in the wild woods beyond, all is shrouded, quiet, waiting.

It was just what I needed this morning.

It has rained a lot this summer, steadily, or in brief showers, or sudden downpours, or misty sprinkles; all day, or only for a minute or two; out of stern, gray skies, or pearly clouds. All this generosity has had an effect. Seed potatoes and strawberries planted in April have flourished. In fact the whole 1300 acres of Rolling Ridge has burst forth in a riot of green growth. Looking out my kitchen window, I could swear that the walnut tree at the corner of the field near Homestead is several feet taller than it was the day before. Bamboo down by Deer Spring Creek has reached out and over the foot bridge. Grass seems to spring up fully grown behind every sweep of the mower; tomatoes and wineberries ripen minute-by-minute in the garden.

Up here on the mountain, for those of us hailing from Christian roots, we are in Lent, one of those thin times during which we are graciously vulnerable to visitations from the invisible world of the soul and the sacred. These come to us in forms both marvelous and astonishing.