And as with prayer, which is a dipping of oneself toward the light,
there is a consequence of attentiveness to the grass itself,
and the sky itself, and to the floating bird. . . .
I too leave the fret and enclosure of my own life
I too dip myself toward the immeasurable.
The weather these past days – heat followed by rain and then more heat – has meant that there is a surge of growth in the fields and along the hedgerows. As always, I am surprised by its spontaneity and joyful abandon. We can see an unforced wild blossoming all around. In this poem we are asked to reflect on this natural growth and see if our restless planning and hectic schedule leaves any space for going out into the fields of possibility.
Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground bulbs
for flour, how the settler’s hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?
And you — what of your rushed and
useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything,
leaving only a note: “Gone to the fields
to be lovely. Be back when I’m through
with blooming.”
Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course, your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.
Lynn Ungar, What we Share
Some people of a scientific turn were once discussing pompously, and to him, distastefully, about the incredible distance of the planets, the length of time light takes to travel to the earth etc., when he burst out “Tis false! I was walking down a lane the other day and at the end of it, I touched the sky with my stick”
Alexander Gilchrist, Life and Works of William Blake
Mary Oliver has this extract at the start of one of her books of poetry, and then leads into these reflections prompted by the seeing of some butterflies. It shows that there are different ways of seeing the same reality. In this case, Blake, with eyes of a poet or eyes of awareness, recognizes the closeness of the universe to us, even in our very breath. Sometimes our thoughts and preconceptions can get in the way of us experiencing life fully.
Seven white butterflies…
lob their white bodies into the invisible wind
weightless lacy, willing to deliver themselves unto the universe
now each settles down on a yellow thumb on a brassy stem
now all seven are rapidly sipping from the golden towers
who would have thought it could be so easy?
Mary Oliver, Seven White Butterflies
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
In this poem e.e Cummings pushes the English language in an attempt to capture the life he feels, so much so that the words almost seem to have difficulty fitting in. He sees the vibrancy of growth and life all around in nature and expresses this in lines which rush from one into the next. The last two lines well express the richness that we feel when we start to pay greater attention to all the things which surround us each day.
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
e.e.cummings
The art of living….consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.
Alan Watts
Mindfulbalance 