Run before the sun. Blue heron on the river. Two hours on my deck listening to the morning, thinking, drinking tea, eating oranges. Feels like May, not August. A visit from Fritz, the (kinda dirty lookin’) neighborhood cat. Can’t deny him a good head scratch. Good thoughts, good vibes, good weather, good things in store.. Back to work.
Atchison Sunset, 2010.
Song at Sunset by Walt Whitman
Splendor of ended day floating and filling me,
Hour prophetic, hour resuming the past,
Inflating my throat, you divine average,
You earth and life till the last ray gleams I sing.
Open mouth of my soul uttering gladness,
Eyes of my soul seeing perfection,
Natural life of me faithfully praising things,
Corroborating forever the triumph of things.
Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space, sphere of unnumber’d spirits,
Illustrious the mystery of motion in all beings, even the tiniest insect,
Illustrious the attribute of speech, the senses, the body,
Illustrious the passing light–illustrious the pale reflection on
the new moon in the western sky,
Illustrious whatever I see or hear or touch, to the last.
Good in all,
In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,
In the annual return of the seasons,
In the hilarity of youth,
In the strength and flush of manhood,
In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age,
In the superb vistas of death.
Wonderful to depart!
Wonderful to be here!
The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood!
To breathe the air, how delicious!
To speak–to walk–to seize something by the hand!
To prepare for sleep, for bed, to look on my rose-color’d flesh!
To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large!
To be this incredible God I am!
To have gone forth among other Gods, these men and women I love.
Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself
How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!
How the clouds pass silently overhead!
How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and on!
How the water sports and sings! (surely it is alive!)
How the trees rise and stand up, with strong trunks, with branches
and leaves!
(Surely there is something more in each of the trees, some living soul.)
O amazement of things–even the least particle!
O spirituality of things!
O strain musical flowing through ages and continents, now reaching
me and America!
I take your strong chords, intersperse them, and cheerfully pass
them forward.
I too carol the sun, usher’d or at noon, or as now, setting,
I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth and of all the
growths of the earth,
I too have felt the resistless call of myself.
As I steam’d down the Mississippi,
As I wander’d over the prairies,
As I have lived, as I have look’d through my windows my eyes,
As I went forth in the morning, as I beheld the light breaking in the east,
As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach
of the Western Sea,
As I roam’d the streets of inland Chicago, whatever streets I have roam’d,
Or cities or silent woods, or even amid the sights of war,
Wherever I have been I have charged myself with contentment and triumph.
I sing to the last the equalities modern or old,
I sing the endless finales of things,
I say Nature continues, glory continues,
I praise with electric voice,
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe,
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.
O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration.
My nature guru, Jeanette, and I paddling out this morning. We saw lots of egrets, herons, comerants, and even an osprey and a bald eagle. Major bird nerding going on. And here’s a very rocky, boring little time lapse video from Wednesday eve that I made with my GoPro camera that I mounted to my kayak.. I’ve gotta master this thing – it’s got major potential to make some amazing video.. Anyway, back to the art first thing tomorrow.
An amazing evening and morning spent paddling around on Perry Lake. The best part: sleeping on a dropcloth underneath the first full moon of August, the Sturgeon Moon. It felt so natural to be out there under the sky looking at the stars (and thanking them profusely. Dang, I’m so fortunate for so many things..). A rain shower and lightning show moved us to our cars around 3:30am, but who can complain. We needed the rain and it didn’t put a damper on our plans.
“Here, start living moment to moment totally and intensely, joyfully and playfully — and you will see that nothing goes out of control; that your intelligence becomes sharper; that you become younger; that your love becomes deeper. And when you go out into the world, wherever you go, spread life, playfulness, joy, as far away as possible — to every nook and corner of the earth.” -Osho
A flower in Rocky Mountain National Park.
I started my day by changing my regular running route to include a run over the Kansas River bridge as the sun was bright just over the horizon and reflected off the water. A blue heron sat content next to the dam, and I wanted to stop and watch it, but the pushy runner in me wouldn’t allow any breaks.
I ended my day reading on my deck with a chorus of cicadas singing in the trees around me, and then, what are now my former neighbors (but still good friends), dropped by for one last martini before embarking to their new abode. It’s a constantly shifting landcape ’round here..
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” -Lao Tzu
Colorado City, CO, 2012.
“The lamp burns bright when wick and oil are clean.” -Ovid
Along the trail around Bear Lake, RMNP, Colorado, 2012.
“You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings, and give them shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I think you are latent with unseen existences—you are so dear to me.”
-Walt Whitman, from Song of the Open Road
Pine cone at the Alluvial Fan, Rocky Mountain National Park, 2012.
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” -Henry David Thoreau
Textures by William Stafford
1.
The dwell of a sound for a while
will sometimes diminish all else
and a whole forest lie down at night
for hearing the moon, where the first
tick and its tock are still waiting
for what time it is.
2.
Morning color opens its eyes
where it slept in the mountains.
Oh, it’s afraid! This might be
the day when white comes all the way
back from the sky where it went
when color first came.
3.
And fur—of all presence it is
the most, a million touches
at once, to assure, reassure,
instruct our lives, like this:—
Be here so well that even
one time is enough.
I started my day with tea on my deck with my neighborhood cat, Fritz. I spent the rest of the day printing and packing up orders that came in while I was in Colorado. Now, I’m sitting on my couch listening to an orchestra of crickets and night critters out my windows and trying to stay cool while I flip through some new books (6 to be exact, and 2 by Thomas Merton) that I ordered.. I only have like 100+ other books on my shelves that I still need to read. I can’t help myself..
“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” -Thomas Merton
Til next time..