Alexandersmap

    Category: Nature

    • In the Grace of the World

      “When despair for the world grows in me
      and I wake in the night at the least sound
      in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
      I go and lie down where the wood drake
      rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
      I come into the peace of wild things
      who do not tax their lives with forethought
      of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
      And I feel above me the day-blind stars
      waiting with their light. For a time
      I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
      – Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things

      The iPhone is a blessing and a curse, for all that it brings. Sometimes you want to be away from the made up frenzy of short traders and politicians and debates about which quarterback is best (long since answered).  Great for a picture and for safety in a pinch, but best left stowed away the rest of the time. I used to post pictures while I was still on the summit of a mountain, for that we’re here! moment. But the act of posting takes you out of the moment, and so I leave it be until later in the day locked in as a memory of what was. #saveitforlater

      Walks outside in quiet places serve the body, but mostly the mind. Free from the frenzy we create for ourselves. One notification at a time, relentlessly poking a hole in your soul. What have we done to ourselves with all of these pings and vibrations? Pavlov couldn’t have dreamed up a more diabolical experiment in self-torture.

      “To go out of your mind at least once a day is tremendously important. By going out of your mind, you come to your senses.” – Alan Watts

      The wind shakes the house and reminds me to bundle up. January days are short in New Hampshire, so you’ve got to get creative with your time in the grace of the world. The edges of the day work, and sometimes, dog-less as I am at the moment, late night star-gazing walks with a flashlight or headlamp to fill in the blanks and keep stray cars at bay.

      I’ve learned to pause longer. To fill the void with more silence. To quiet the mind and seek out small pockets of stillness. Time flies by anyway, but it feels like yours once again. Isn’t it, in the end? Step outside. Find the stillness. It’s out there waiting for you.

    • Snowy Morning Bliss

      “In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth…. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,—no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

      I admit to a bit of excitement. Adrenaline coursing through me as I anticipate the first steps outside into the freshly fallen snow. A few inches of the fluffy stuff fell from early evening and overnight and still drifts downward in lazy accumulation. Not enough to strap on the snowshoes (pity), but enough to make an adventure of the walk. What is winter for if not to be a kid again when it snows?

      My destination is the woods. The woods grow silent in the snow, and I fill with reverence. The days inside are long, for there is much to do in this forever connected march to quarterly numbers and customer engagement and cross-department collaboration. But the early mornings are mine alone. And there is magic in the air. And underfoot.

      “I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

      The world ought to be filled with wonder, I think. But most people slide into survival mode, leaving their inner child far in the rearview mirror to face all the horrors of the world stoically. But the stoics saw the wonder of nature as Emerson saw it, and shouldn’t we too, while we still have both nature and the capacity to marvel at it?

      I always smile when I come across people from places without snow who walk outside in awe, snapping selfies in a frozen wonderland. Living in the snow globe we sometimes forget to shake it up and embrace the swirling magic. Not us, thank you. We’ll walk and swirl in the magic too.

      Morning Snow