Alexandersmap

    Tag: Mary Oliver

    • Love For the World

      “Imagine that you’re unwell and in a foul mood, and they’re taking you through some lovely countryside. The landscape is beautiful but you’re not in the mood to see anything. A few days later you pass the same place and you say, “Good heavens, where was I that I didn’t notice all of this?” Everything becomes beautiful when you change.” — Anthony De Mello, Awareness

      The world, such that it is, can be hard to take some days. As a glass half full operator, I work hard to skate my lane, leaving the pessimism and despair-at-everything to others. Life is short, after all, we must make of it what we may in our time. Still, it’s hard not to take note of the setbacks.

      Illegitimi non carborundum: Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

      Those bastards are on both sides of the political spectrum, dealing in despair and outrage and self-pity. They’re our worst enemies but sometimes also the people we love and trust the most, unloading their burden on us. But we don’t have to wear that fecal matter on our shoulders; we may choose to move ourselves away from the matter pilers altogether.

      I don’t say
      it’s easy, but
      what else will do
      if the love one claims to have for the world
      be true?
      — Mary Oliver, Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

      It’s not easy to forgo outrage in an outrageous time, but it’s essential life force management for the aspiration of a beautiful soul. We don’t have to wear rose-colored glasses as we move through the world. Nor do we have to see it through a filter of pessimism, anger or misery. Simply see and be, with a bias towards beauty. When we add enough light the darkness retreats. Now how lovely is that?

    • The Resonance of the Ritual

      I have dreamed
      of accomplishment.
      I have fed

      ambition.
      I have traded
      nights of sleep

      for a length of work.
      Lo, and I have discovered
      how soft bloom

      turns to green fruit
      which turns to sweet fruit.
      Lo, and I have discovered

      all winds blow cold
      at last,
      and the leaves,

      so pretty, so many,
      vanish
      in the great, black

      packet of time,
      in the great, black
      packet of ambition,

      and the ripeness
      of the apple
      is its downfall.
      — Mary Oliver, The Orchard

      I spoke with an old friend this week about sailing and song. As sailors in my circle of friends tend to do, he lectured me on working too long into life, and did the quick math on life after work. So many pretty leaves, vanished in our time. And what lesson does it offer for us? We ripen so quickly, don’t we?

      I’m writing less, which means I’m publishing fewer blogs. Yet I’m living a fully aware, active life. We reach a point where the length of work is less important than the resonance of the ritual. In a world that is upside down, we find meaning in the little things stacked together just so. The aim hasn’t always been awareness, but surely it is now.

      Consider what we will never do in a lifetime. The list is far longer than the things we will do. There’s a restlessness that stokes a fire in us, pushing us to do more and still more with the time we have. If we’re lucky and aware, we learn what to leave behind as not for us. People, jobs, projects and places all recede from possible to probably not. We are forever reconciling our probably nots.

      Rather than dwell on probably nots, there is joyfulness to be found in the ritual of what we’ve said yes to. Each day is a dance with yes. It becomes less about filling bucket lists and more about more of this, please. The time will still fly by relentlessly, but the hours are measured in what we bring to the world.

    • Alive and… Well?

      To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
      — Mary Oliver, Yes! No!

      What we pay attention to determines how we live, who we are and who we will become. To notice the little details is immersive, or it’s distracting—it all depends on what our attitude is on the matter. There’s just so much to pay attention to. There’s just so much to see and do and be.

      I’ve noticed that some people have receded from the conversation. Or maybe it was me all along. I’ve been sliding in the direction of less is more for some time now (even as I’m busier than ever: I’m a living contradiction). Shifting this blog from every day without fail to now and then when I have something to say is indicative of an inclination to step out of the noisy lane towards a quieter path. Perhaps one day I’ll get there.

      Alive and, well, less focused on rushing this moment along for the next dose of click bait or sound bite packaged just so. Social media, text streams, demands for our time, and good god, the news of the day. It’s all just so distracting and not us. We are here, now. We ought to be aware of it all, at the expense of all that we ought to ignore.

      “The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

      To be engaged with everything is to be focused on nothing. Slow down and have a look around. See the world as a poet or a philosopher observes it. This is the path to a deeper awareness than the fast track offers. Where is the fast track bringing us anyway? Life shouldn’t be a blur of forever next. It all flies by fast enough already. To be quietly virtuous, aware and fully alive: That feels worthy of our remaining time together. This is our great life, so have a look around.

    • Poets and Paw Prints

      Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
      the perfection of the morning star
      above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
      blue in the first light?
      — Mary Oliver, Am I Not Among The Early Risers

      When you hit a certain age we all ought to settle down a bit, right? I’ll let you know when I feel I’ve arrived at that certain age. Not just yet, thank you, I’ll say if you were to ask.

      Admittedly, I’ve settled into an increasingly quiet life, full of dog walks, quiet talks and thoughts of the garden. Is that bold? On the face of it, not really. We reach bold by reaching beyond the ordinary. And life can be pretty ordinary most days.

      I remind myself that the trick to living an interesting life is to be interested in life. To see the world as a poet does. To be aware is to be alive! Life isn’t meant to be one distraction after another to the end, but fully immersed in this moment.

      Even as I wrote these words, a gnawing feeling rose within. Just what is the dog up to, anyway? Why, she’s bouncing boldly back and forth across the yard, chasing prey I cannot see, leaping over garden fences and digging muddy holes. She’s shrugged off her grooming this week and the quiet contempt of the indoor cat for glory and a frothy frenzy of fun. All while I silently wrestle with words.

      The lesson? Certainly to be young and alive while there’s time for such things. We’ll never be younger than we are right now. But we may increase our awareness today and for all our days. To be aware and intent on capturing all that we can in the amber of the moment. Even those muddy paw prints, captured like ink blots on a towel hanging just outside the door, offer a reminder to get out and live already.

    • All We Have

      What if you suddenly saw that the silver of water was brighter than the silver of money?
      —Mary Oliver, How Would You Live Then?

      The time does fly by, doesn’t it? Tempus fugit. Does our time grow shorter, or does our experience grows greater with the years? Isn’t it in how we look at things? It always was and always will be about what we focus on. Are we living in a time of scarcity or abundance? We have as much of each as we wish to see.

      The answer may be to stop listening to those who would tell us otherwise. Knowing that sometimes we are our own worst false prophet—sowing discontent with the status quo for the love of more. Never grow blind to all that is and will be if we just stay the course with all we have.

      We are blessed in life when we are finally aware of all that surrounds us. We find that we don’t want to miss this opportunity at hand chasing dreams of better all the time. What’s better than the dreams we are realizing now? If we wish to savor time, we ought to stop throwing it away chasing better. Better isn’t discovered by chasing it—better is something we grow into with time.

    • The Rich Lens of Attention

      The dream of my life
      Is to lie down by a slow river
      And stare at the light in the trees—
      To learn something by being nothing
      A little while but the rich
      Lens of attention.
      — Mary Oliver, Entering the Kingdom

      Restless and productive, that’s this life—knowing there’s work to be done. If not us, then who? Blame it on my GenX tendencies. I’ve been fighting it all of my life. An entire generation has fought it all of their lives. We’re all complex contradictions of motivation and awareness. Or maybe that’s just me lumping the lot of them in with me just to save face.

      Even writing this (even writing this!), I turned to my work laptop to dash off an email that’s percolated to priority. How can one linger with poetry or walk quietly amongst the trees when the mind is full of the minutia of a productive life? We must learn to say enough is enough in our lives, before it all floats away to illuminate the dreams of other, more open minds.

      The thing is, every day is our lesson in living. We choose to be aware and attentive, or we swim deeper into the tumultuous red ocean fraught with ravenous sharks and whirlpools that drag us downward into the depths of other people’s priorities. Alternatively, we can swim to calmer waters, away from the chaos that would consume us, and discover a new life.

      Decide what to be and go be it. Our lives will be the richer for it.

    • The Doorway

      It doesn’t have to be
      the blue iris, it could be
      weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
      small stones; just
      pay attention, then patch

      a few words together and don’t try
      to make them elaborate, this isn’t
      a contest but a doorway

      into thanks, and a silence in which
      another voice may speak.
      —Mary Oliver, Praying

      I had lunch with a friend earlier this week. She asked me about my writing, wondering when I’d get back to publishing. I mentioned that I’ve been publishing every morning for years now. The blog hides in plain sight. It’s a marketing person’s nightmare I know. Yet here it is, as it always has been, if one should wish to find it. A quiet voice in the storm.

      I don’t write for views and likes—I write to enter that doorway Mary Oliver describes above. I share it because it’s not a journal, but my idea of creative output. The jury may be out on just how creative the output is, and I’m okay with that, simply because I don’t seek them even as I appreciate them. And appreciation is surely one reason to get up every morning to begin filling our blank page.

      There is also attention and awareness. I believe we are all aware as children but grow out of it through formal education, narrowing viewpoints and the hectic lives we embrace in the quest for success (whatever that is). Some never reach that state of wonder again, while some of us spend the rest of our lives working to grow back into it. May we all reach back into wonder before we reach the end.

      I aspire to write as efficiently, as beautifully, as a poet. To convey with brevity and emotional weight all that is encountered in this brief go at things. As this is published, it will be post number 2,850. Is that enough to say, or should I keep entering new doorways? The answer lies in how far we have left to go.

    • Into the Morning

      I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
      flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
      as it was taught, and if not how shall
      I correct it?
      Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
      can I do better?
      Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
      can do it and I am, well,
      hopeless.
      Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
      am I going to get rheumatism,
      lockjaw, dementia?
      Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
      And gave it up. And took my old body
      and went out into the morning,
      and sang.
      — Mary Oliver, I Worried

      I let the pup out this morning as I do every morning. She was inclined to stay out longer, and longer still. I glanced out the window and saw she was prancing in the deep snow. There were no rabbits or mice or moles scurrying away from her, just a dog doing her dance with life. And I wondered at my choosing productivity instead.

      The world will go on. We learn this in time. And we learn to focus on getting things done. Our particular things. Productivity and efficiency become tools of our trade. We trust in our routines, rely on our habits. Growth becomes incremental. Sometimes surprisingly exponential.

      When we are focused and engaged in a life we love, we forget to worry so much. Worry is for the less busy. It’s a sign that we aren’t using our time in the way that we’d like to. We think too much instead. Do something with the time and the worry recedes. Worry tomorrow, for we have things to we’d like to do today.

      And so I’ll publish this blog. I’ll roll into my routine of being all that I can be. After all, the world is expecting me to be me today. But that dance in the snow sure looks fun. Far more fun than worrying or resolutely getting things done.

    • More Than Crumbs

      “Joy is not made to be a crumb.” — Mary Oliver, Don’t Hesitate

      It hasn’t been lost on me that I’ve largely ignored the joy in the abundance of snow we’re having this winter while focusing on the chores that come with that abundance of snow. There ought to be more snowshoeing. There ought to be more walks in frozen woods. There ought to be more snowy play dates with the pup, who’s got enough joy to fill a barn. We can learn a lot from joyful souls, whether they’re human or otherwise.

      Winter is far from over in this frigid land, and at the risk of making plans, I will find my way back to play. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All play and no work makes Jack a poor boy. But money in and of itself is the pursuit of fools and empty suits. Get out and live before the buffet closes for that long night. Before all that’s left are crumbs and thoughts of what might have been.

    • The Slow and Difficult Trick of Living

      It isn’t very far as highways lie.
      I might be back by nightfall, having seen
      The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.
      Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.
      They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:
      How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!

      Many have gone, and think me half a fool.
      To miss a day away in the cool country.
      Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,
      Going to Walden is not so easy a thing
      As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult
      Trick of living, and finding it where you are.
      — Mary Oliver, Going to Walden

      It isn’t very far at all for me to visit Walden. I could be there in about an hour, accounting for rush hour traffic in that general direction. I’ve gone there before, just to be there on some random Tuesday or Wednesday or whatnot. While others worked I would play hooky for an hour or two, just to see the water, just to feel like Thoreau in the interlude between responsibilities. Inevitably I’d return better for having been there. Some might argue that my nose to the grindstone for those couple of hours would have been a better use of the time. Let them think what they want. We’re all different people, aren’t we?

      I can feel that it’s almost time to re-read Walden again, just as I felt today it was time to revisit Mary Oliver. There are other voices beyond the hustle culture that ought to be listened to. There are other ways to spend our precious time. The trick to living is awareness and presence in the invaluable now. To learn and grow and become at a pace that we can maintain for the long haul, even as we know that the time slips away so very quickly.

      You won’t find me at Walden today. I assure you it will be just fine without me. For a Monday I ought to be in more of a rush somewhere, but what is on the other side of that hustle? Just what do we arrive at when we go from here to there anyway? Maybe that’s why I keep writing—to remind myself to be aware of the time going by, or to simply remind myself to cherish the view along the way. To be here, now feels like more than enough. Why would we ever rush away from it?