And yet even while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Constructing a life was never easy.
The work of making the pieces fit
Was hard.
It had to be thought out,
Done right.
Relief ended most days:
Well done.
For now.
Everything changed late one afternoon.
Something drew him deep into the forest shadows.
Light and dark fragmented the forest floor,
Unmoving, as though awaiting a coming storm.
His eyes found it somehow
In the dark,
The seedling which called to him.
It barely stood in the shadow of a mighty oak,
Seeming to strain for the light beyond reach.
The frailty and the potential were evident to him.
He knew this seedling
And himself for the first time.
There was no turning back now.
He cared.
Though his fingers loosened the soil,
The uprooting left pieces behind.
He felt the tearing echo in his heart.
A single drop of water shook a tiny leaf.
It was not a rain drop he saw;
The storm was in the past now.
In that moment,
In the dark,
All his losses were clear.
Though it soiled his white shirt
He held the roots with both hands
Close to his heart.
Then his body moved
And his thoughts followed.
It was a kinder way.
. . .
Now,
In the center of his back yard
A sapling stands
For the memory of the seedling.
The Green Man has not forgotten.
His home is alive
With the frailty and potential
Of carefully tendered growth.
Green leaf oxygen factories
Cleanse and nourish the air:
A return on the quality of his care,
Elegantly evident reciprocity.
He serves what grows as it serves him.
He lives the natural way now,
Knows the cycles.
He is active when the time of dying comes:
Pruning what has outlived itself,
Feeding the soil with what once lived.
Nurturing new life with the old,
Providing for the seeds,
Attending the needs,
As life springs forth.
Again and again.
He knows the growing way;
Love gives life.
Allan Schnarr, M.Div., Ph.D.
I love the pounding of hooves
I love engines that roar
I love the wild music of waves on the shore
And the spiral perfection of a hawk when it soars
Love my sweet woman down to the core
There’s roads and there’s roads
And they call, can’t you hear it?
Roads of the earth
And roads of the spirit
The best roads of all are the ones that aren’t certain
One of those is where you’ll find me
‘Till they drop the big curtain
Hear the wind moan
In the bright diamond sky
These mountains are waiting
Brown-green and dry
I’m too old for the term
But I’ll use it anyway
I’ll be a child of the wind
‘Till the end of my days
Little round planet
In a big universe
Sometimes it looks blessed
Sometimes it looks cursed
Depends on what you look at obviously
But even more it depends on the way that you see
Hear the wind moan
In the bright diamond sky
These mountains are waiting
Brown-green and dry
I’m too old for the term
But I’ll use it anyway
I’ll be a child of the wind
‘Till the end of my days
Bruce Cockburn