POETRY
The Calf-Path
bY SAM WALTER FOSS (1858-1911)
One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.
And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.
This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet.
The road became a village street,
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare,
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed that zigzag calf about,
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They follow still his crooked way,
And lose one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.
Question: What calf-paths of the mind am I following and where did they originate?
Fueled
By Marcie Hans
Fueled by a million
man-made wings of fire —
the rocket tore a tunnel
through the sky —
and everybody cheered.
Fueled
only by a thought from God —
the seedling urged its way
through thicknesses of black —
and as it pierced
the heavy ceiling of the soil —
and launched itself
up into outer space —
no one
even clapped.
Question: When have I felt moved to “clap” for something that touched me to the core? What was I feeling at the time?
Friday, September 2, 2022
Praises of this Place
If not now
when? Who will sing
the praises of this place
if not you?
Can you make love
with limp excuses?
Just one word
in your own voice would cock the heads of robins,
but today they listen only to worms.
Every morning
a thousand birds
give the world a chorus of themselves
without hesitation or regret.
All through the day
the trees and sky
speak in the hushed voices of lovers,
and in the night
the grasses sigh in the warm hands
of the evening breeze
while fireflies flash their honest love
to the distance stars passing overhead.
When you are ready,
join the conversation —
It still needs the strong and delicate
sound of your voice.
—Thomas Griffin
Question: How do I sing the praises of this place – in my own voice?
WHAT WE WANT
In a poem
people want
something fancy,
but even more
they want something
inexplicable
made plain,
easy to swallow –
not unlike a suddenly
harmonic passage
in an otherwise
difficult and sometimes dissonant
symphony –
even if it is only
for the moment
of hearing it.
~ Mary Oliver
Question: Have I known a moment when I felt, in my bones, that something made sense?
PRAYING
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 patcha few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorwayinto thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.~ Mary Oliver
Question: Could this be my prayer?
THE THREAD
Something is very gently,
invisibly, silently,
pulling at me-a thread
or net of threads
finer than cobweb and as
elastic. I haven’t tried
the strength of it. No barbed hook
pierced and tore me. Was it
not long ago this thread
began to draw me? Or
way back? Was I
born with its knot about my
neck, a bridle? Not fear
but a stirring
of wonder makes me
catch my breath when I feel
the tug of it when I thought
it had loosened itself and gone.
~ Denise Levertov
Question: When do I feel the thread being gently pulled?
PASSAGES
What does it mean to be a human these days? How do we understand ourselves?
We’re stuck in a number of small stories right now. One story says we’re here to amass as much wealth and as many toys as possible—to have a good time, to be properly entertained and never bored. This story is part of another, larger story about our ecological place in the world, in which we believe that everything was put here for our use; the world is a warehouse and a dumping ground for our waste. Another small story is the shallow religious one that tells us we’re here to do good deeds so we can get to heaven later. These are conformist stories: you’re here to learn the roles and to obey them.
But there are many bigger stories that give us far more agency. I like the story that we’re animals with the capacity to recognize and praise creation. We see this in the poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, for example. I also like the version that my partner Geneen Marie Haugen tells, that humans are meant to be the forward-seeing imagination of the planet. As far as we know, we have a capacity that other beings don’t—to imagine possible futures and make them real.
The point is not to settle on one answer, but to look beyond the confines of the story we’ve been given—to stretch our story to see how beautiful and affirming it can get. That reminds me of one more story: We are as natural as anything else on the planet. We emerged from the earth, will enhance life on the earth, and will return to the earth. This becomes clear to us when the walls come down. We just need to remove the obstructions so this ancient human intuition can come flooding back in.
~ Bill Plotkin in Tricycle magazine (May 28/21) ~
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What insights about our human psyches appear when we return to Earth, when we remember that we are related to everything that has ever existed, when we reinstall ourselves in a world of spring-summer-fall-winter, volcanoes, storms, surf, bison, mycelium, Moon, falcons, sand dunes, galaxies, and redwood groves?
What do we discover about ourselves when we consent again to being human animals — bipedal, omnivorous mammals with distinctive capacities for self-reflexive consciousness, dexterity, imagination, and speech?
In what ways will we choose to live when we fully remember the naturalness and ecological necessity of death?
Who will we see in the mirror when we face up to the present-day realities of human-caused mass extinction, ecosystem collapse, and climate destabilization?
And what mystery journey will unfold when we answer the alluring and dangerous summons now emanating from the human soul, from the dream of the Earth, and from an intelligent, evolving, ensouled Universe?
~ Bill Plotkin, Wild Mind ~
THE MIND HAS TO LOOK AT ITSELF
The mind is not something that can be looked at with the eyes or grasped with the hands.
The mind has to look at itself.
What we need to do is not to analyze this mental darkness discursively; rather we have to first let the mind rest in a state of complete naturalness or simplicity, just as it is, without falling into distraction.
A state will be soon attained that is free from obvious movements of the mind such as aversion for enemies, unpleasant feelings, or attraction toward pleasant things. This state is also free from the opaque dullness that one experienced before.
It is a state that is lucid, clear, and spacious, like the experience of looking into the vast sky.
~ KYABJE DILGO KHYENTSE RINPOCHE
BOOKS/REFERENCES
Abram, David. (2017) The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World. Vintage Books.
Baring, Anne. (2020) The Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest for the Soul. Archive Publishing.
Bateson, Nora. (2016) Small Arcs of Larger Circles: framing through other patterns. Triarchy press.
Bender, Sue. (1989) Plain and Simple: A Woman’s Journey to the Amish. HarperCollins Publ.
de Oliveira, Vanessa Machado. (2021) Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism. North Atlantic Books.
Kissilove, Betty-Ann. (2014) Great Ball of Fire: A Poetic Telling of the Universe Story. Collins Foundation Press.
Macy, Joanna. https://workthatreconnects.org/spiral/
Macy, Joanna. (2021) World as Lover, World as Self (30th anniversary edition). Parallax Press.
Martel, Yann. (2001) Life of Pi – illustrated by Tomislav Torjanac. Random House Canada Ltd.
Morizot, Baptiste. (2022) Ways of Being Alive – English Edition. Polity Press.
Oliver, Mary. (2008) Red Bird. Beacon Press.
Pearson, Anne (1981) Sea-Lake: Recollections and History of Cordova Bay and Elk Lake. Sea-Lake Editions.
Plotkin, Bill. (2022) Soul Encounter and Eco-Awakening: Two Essential Realms of Awakening Neglected in Contemporary Spirituality, Part X.
Plotkin, Bill. (2013) Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche. New World Library.
Powers, Richard (2018) The Overstory. W.W. Norton & Co. Ltd.
Roy, Bonnitta. (2021) https://thesideview.co/journal/complex-potential-states/
Swimme, Brian & Berry, Thomas (1992) The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era – A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos. HarperCollins Publ.
Wahl, Daniel Christian (2018) https://designforsustainability.medium.com/deep-weaving-indigenous-earth-wisdom-mythology-and-cosmology-dad5da368b0d.
Watson, Richard A. https://www.richardawatson.com
Watson, Richard A. https://www.richardawatson.com/love
Yahgulanaas, Michael Nicoll. (2008) Flight of the Hummingbird: A Parable for the Environment. Greystone Books.
Zimmerman, Jack and Coyle, Virginia. (2009) The Way of Council 2nd Ed. Bramble Books.
Gracious Unfurlings 