THE HOPE BENEATH OUR FEET

Collage of Happiness

Followers of this blog know that I frequently return to the poetry and essays of Wendell Berry, a remarkable philosopher and writer whose poems and essays speak to me almost daily as I try to navigate the treacherous waters of an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world.  The poem that has my attention at the moment is Sabbath poem VI from 2007, as it appears in This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems (2013).  It's a poem about hope, but not the abstract notion of hope that one might find on a Hallmark sympathy card.  It's about what could happen to the world if each person could find his or her place, come to truly know that place, and recognize that caring for this place — this local place "underfoot," as Berry writes — is, ironically, the best way to care for the whole earth and the whole of humanity.

Knowing that most people do not have the time to devote to a lengthy blog posting, I hesitate to post a poem as long as this one.  I'm making an exception, however, because I think that the subject addressed — keeping hope alive by living well and responsibly on a local level — is vitally important, especially when our world leaders seem to be so bereft of solutions.

Sabbath Poem VI (2007)

from

This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems

 by Wendell Berry

            It is hard to have hope.  It is harder as you grow old,

            for hope must not depend on feeling good

            and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.

            You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality

            of the future, which surely will surprise us, 

            and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction

            any more than by wishing.  But stop dithering.

            The young ask the old to hope.  What will you tell them?

            Tell them at least what you say to yourself.

            Because we have not made our lives to fit

            our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,

            the streams polluted, the mountains overturned.  Hope

            then to belong to your place by your own knowledge

            of what it is that no other place is, and by

            your caring for it as you care for no other place, this 

            place that you belong to though it is not yours, 

            for it was from the beginning and will be to the end.

            Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are

            your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor, 

            who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,

            and the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing

            in the trees in the silence of the fisherman

            and the heron, and the trees that keep the land

            they stand upon as we too must keep it, or die.

            This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power

            or by wealth.  It will stop your ears to the powerful

            when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy

            when they ask for your land and your work.

            Answer with knowledge of the others who are here

            and of how to be here with them.  By this knowledge

            make the sense you need to make.  By it stand

            in the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.

            Speak to your fellow humans as your place

            has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.

            Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it

            before they had heard a radio.  Speak

            publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.

            Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up 

            from the pages of books and from your own heart.

            Be still and listen to the voices that belong

            to the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.

            There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,

            by which it speaks for itself and no other.

            Found your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.

            Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground

            underfoot.  Be lighted by the light that falls

            freely upon it after the darkness of nights

            and the darkness of our ignorance and madness.

            Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,

            which is the light of imagination.  By it you see

            the likeness of people in other places to yourself

            in your place.  It lights invariably the need for care 

            toward other people, other creatures, in other places

            as you would ask them for care toward your place and you.

            No place at last is better than the world.  The world

            is no better that its places.  Its places at last

            are no better than their people while their people

            continue in them.  When the people make

            dark the light within them, the world darkens.

Wendell  Berry, This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems, 

One of the sentinels on my little piece of land . . .

AND YET THE LIGHT BREAKS IN

For more than thirty-five years, Wendell Berry has been writing a series of poems inspired by the solitary, reflective walks he takes around his Kentucky farm on most Sundays.  According to Berry, the Sabbath poems "are about moments when heart and mind are open and aware."  

Many of the Sabbath poems appear in This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems (2013), which I have been reading in recent days.  One poem that keeps returning to my mind is No. VI of the 1998 collection.  It's a poem that reminds us of the fluid nature of life, the impermanence of all things, and the mounting losses that every person must encounter as the price for existence.  I find it both insightful and inspirational, and hope you will as well.

                                           SABBATH VI, 1998

                                        By expenditure of hope,
                                        Intelligence, and work,
                                        You think you have it fixed.
                                        It is unfixed by rule.
                                        Within the darkness, all 
                                        Is being changed, and you
                                        Also will be changed.

                                        Now I recall to mind 
                                        A costly year:  Jane Kenyon,
                                        Bill Lippert, Philip Sherrard,
                                        All in the same spring dead,
                                        So much companionship
                                        Gone as the river goes.

                                        And my good workhorse Nick
                                        Dead, who called out to me
                                        In his conclusive pain
                                        To ask my help.  I had
                                        No help to give.  And flood
                                        Covered the cropland twice.
                                        By summer's end there are
                                        No more perfect leaves.

                                        But won't you be ashamed
                                        To count the passing year
                                        At its mere cost, your debt 
                                        Inevitably paid?
                                        For every year is costly,
                                        As you know well.  Nothing
                                        Is given that is not
                                        Taken, and nothing taken
                                        That was not first a gift.

                                        The gift is balanced by
                                         Its total loss, and yet,
                                         And yet the light breaks in,
                                         Heaven seizing its moments
                                         That are at once its own
                                         And yours.  The day ends
                                         And is unending where
                                         The summer tanager,
                                         Warbler, and vireo
                                         Sing as they move among
                                         Illuminated leaves.

A SPLENDID SUNDAY WALK: RAVEN ROCK TRAIL

As you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged by a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens.

                                Stephen Graham, The Gentle Art of Tramping 


After several bruising weeks of winter weather, the temperature has risen in recent days, the ice in higher elevations has melted, and the trails of the Blue Ridge mountains are once again beckoning the winter walker.  For those of us who have suffered from a bit of "cabin fever" lately, the prospect of spending more time outdoors is a welcome relief.

Early yesterday morning, I drove up to the piedmont area of the mountains and set out on the Raven Rock Trail, an interesting circuit hike that offers moderately challenging ascents and descents, as well as magnificent views of Lake Keowee. From the moment I entered the trailhead, I became a different person — no judgments, no analysis, no anxiety, no resentment — just pure, unadulterated peace and joy.  How liberating it is to be in the woods, far from the material world and the maddening crowds!

A few photos of my walk are set forth below, along with some observations about the importance of our connections with the natural world.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Thoreau 

Keep close to Nature's heart . . . and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods.  Wash your spirit clean.

John Muir

Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.

George Washington Carver 

Until we understand what the land is, we are at odds with everything we touch.  And to come to that understanding it is necessary, even now, to leave the regions of our conquest — the cleared fields, the towns and cities, the highways — and re-enter the woods.  For only there can a man encounter the silence and the darkness of his own absence.  Only in this silence and darkness can he recover the sense of the world's longevity, of its ability to thrive without him, of his inferiority to it and his dependence on it.  Perhaps then, having heard that silence and seen that darkness, he will grow humble before the place and begin to take it in — to learn from it what it is.

Wendell Berry 

In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things.  In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me.

John Fowles

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

John Muir 

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

Keats 

                                           What would the world be, once bereft
                                           Of wet and of wildness?  Let them be left,
                                           O let them be left, wildness and wet;
                                           Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

                                                         Gerard Manley Hopkins

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

Walt Whitman

And this our life, exempt from the public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running books, sermons in stone, and good in everything.

Shakespeare

The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.  It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

Thoreau 

A RINGING GLASS THAT SHATTERS AS IT RINGS

If we are to live in the present moment, a worthy goal for most of us, it is helpful to always remain mindful of the impermanence of things.  As Samuel Johnson famously said, "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

Here are two fine poems that deal with life's impermanence and what it means for those who want to avoid sleepwalking through life.  Enjoy!

                                     The question before me, now that I

                                     am old, is not how to be dead,

                                     which I know from enough practice,

                                     but how to be alive, as these worn

                                     hills still tell, and some paintings 

                                     of Paul Cezanne, and this mere

                                     singing wren, who thinks he's alive

                                     forever, this instant, and may be.

                                                     Wendell Berry

                                               Sabbath Poems 2001, VIII


                       Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,
                       like winter, which even now is passing.
                       For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
                       that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

                       Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
                       Climb praising as you return to connection.
                       Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
                       be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.

                       Be.  And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.
                       That emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
                       in resonance with your world.  Use it for once.

                       To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
                       numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
                       add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost.

Rilke

Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, VIII

(translation by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

To always "climb back singing," to continue ringing the glass even as it shatters.  Is there any better resolution we can make for the new year?

WHAT WE NEED IS HERE

It's been a foggy Sunday here on the Eastern Shore, one of those days when everything loses its hard edges.  I needed to lose a few of those hard edges myself, so I grabbed my camera and drove to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, which is within an hour from my house.  During the colder months, one does not encounter many people here—only the occasional birdwatcher or photographer—but the waterfowl are abundant.  This is a wintering area for Canada geese, snow geese (both seen in photo above), herons, swans, and ducks of every stripe and color.  It is also a year-round refuge for those homo sapiens who believe, in Wordsworth's immortal words, that "the world is too much with us." 

It's easy to become mesmerized by the vast waterscapes of the refuge and the large flocks of waterfowl that congregate here, especially just before sunrise and again at sunset. Indeed, I have often been here before sunrise, and there is nothing quite as reassuring as seeing thousands of birds celebrate the morning sun with both dance and song.

Today, however, the sun remained hidden behind a veil of fog . . . 

. . . and the most interesting part of the trip was the time I spent with a single great blue heron, which graciously invited me to be his companion as he searched for small fish and crustaceans among the reeds and shallow waters.  

 

There was no resistance here, neither on his part nor mine.  There was simply a tacit understanding that we are both searching, and, as Wendell Berry reminds us, that "what we need is here."

                                              What We Need Is Here

                                                   by Wendell Berry

                                           Geese appear high over us,

                                           pass, and the sky closes.  Abandon,

                                           as in love or sleep, holds

                                           them to their way, clear

                                           in the ancient faith: what we need

                                           is here.  And we pray, not 

                                           for a new earth or heaven, but to be

                                           quiet in heart, and in eye,

                                           clear.  What we need is here.

                                                     

MYSTERY AND WONDER

We wake, if ever at all, to mystery.

Annie Dillard

Driven by a desire to be completely liberated from the cultural provincialism of the American south, where I was born and spent my early years, I have dedicated much of my life to the pursuit of knowledge.  Seldom, if ever, have I questioned the metaphorical truth of Shakespeare's observation in Henry VI that "ignorance is the curse of God, knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven . . . "

Now, however, as I approach the end of my seventh decade, I'm less inclined to see ignorance and knowledge as some kind of binary choice.  Ignorance and knowledge can only be intelligently discussed in relative terms, and they usually walk hand in hand throughout our lives.  Regardless of one's level of education, what one knows is always dwarfed by what one does not know.  Our most profound questions always seem hydra-headed; slay one and two more will arise in its place.  Perhaps Plato's observation still holds true: "The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant."

And consider this:  In his recent book—The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality—science historian and writer Richard Panek states that only four percent of the universe consists of matter that makes up you, me, the earth, the stars, the planets, and the galaxies, everything within the ambit of our current knowledge.  The remaining ninety-six percent, referred to by cosmologists as dark matter and dark energy, is unknown.  What's even more stunning, many of the world's most prominent scientists believe that it will continue to remain unknown.

In short—with all of our scientific advancements, with all of our technological discoveries, with all of our penetrations into the worlds of quantum physics—we know only a small fraction of the universe in which we spin our lives.  What we know is wrapped in the larger mystery of what we do not know and may never know.

Set forth below are some interesting observations on the the subject of learning and knowledge on the one hand, versus mystery and wonder on the other.  I have punctuated these quotes with abstract photos in which I have attempted to capture at least a hint of some of the mystery of which I speak.  With the exception of the header photo, all of these images were created by panning my camera at slow shutter speeds across man-made lights against dark backgrounds.  Limited light against a background of infinite darkness seems to be an appropriate metaphor for our place in this mysterious universe.

The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery.  There is always more mystery.

Anais Nin

Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.

Henry Miller

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

Charles Dickens

A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty, the contemplation of mystery, or the search of truth or perfection, is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession of such days if fatal to human life.

Lewis Mumford

Mystery is a resource, like coal or gold, and its preservation if a fine thing.

Tom Cahill

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.

Anne Lamott 

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.

Henry Miller

The approach of a man's life out of the past is history, and the approach of time out of the future is mystery.  Their meeting is the present, and it is consciousness, the only time life is alive.  The endless wonder of this meeting is what causes the mind, in its inward liberty of a frozen morning, to turn back and question and remember.  The world is full of places. Why is it that I am here?

Wendell Berry

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.  He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead.

Albert Einstein 

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.

Dag Hammarskjold 

The final mystery is oneself.
Oscar Wilde

SANCTUARY AND BOOKS

Inspired by recent postings of several other bloggers, including my friend, Ruth, author of Synch-ro-ni-zing, I have decided to pull back the curtain on the study in which I read, write, and ponder questions that will never be answered.  In the spirit of full disclosure, however, I must confess that that these photos—taken on the morning of my departure for a few months in South Carolina— suggest a level of neatness that is rarely found in my little sanctuary.  On most days, the study is cluttered with books on the floor, mail and periodicals on the desk, an myriad other items that a more organized person would have disposed of promptly and properly (e.g., abandoned coffee cups, opened maps, computer cables I don't understand, and shoes taken off the night before).

My study (header photo) is a converted bedroom that is furnished with a few of my paintings, a photo of my first yellow lab ("Baci"), three bookcases, and the desk and credenza that are holdovers from my days of practicing law.  

Other than books, furniture, and computer equipment, I do not keep many objects in my study.  On these bookshelves, however, you can see a few objects that I value for spiritual reasons.   On the middle shelf is a hand-thrown begging bowl (made by a potter friend), which is a daily reminder of how little one actually needs to live; a scallop shell (symbol of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela), which is a reminder that every day and every step is part of a pilrimage; and small carved statue of Buddha, which is a reminder that I can always choose peace.  


Beneath the shelves is a beautiful stone with a single word carved into its center: "Create."  Few words in my vocabulary hold as much power and possibility as this word.  

I have finally abandoned the the idea that I can retain all of my favorite books in my house.  Many are in storage and I am finally becoming more comfortable with the idea of donating books to the local library unless there is some reason for not doing so.  What remains in my study are those volumes which invite me to return to their pages frequently—poetry, a few favorite novels, art books, travel books, and a variety of books relating to philosophy, theology, and ancient wisdom traditions.

For the most part, my books are not organized according to author, subject matter, or any other standard.  On this shelf, however, are treasured volumes of two of my favorite authors, Henry Miller and Thomas Merton.  This is the default shelf when I find myself teetering toward despair.  Any volume on this shelf is likely to clear my vision and lift my spirits.

As you can see from this shelf, my reading habits are very eclectic.  Lots of books on religious and spiritual traditions—Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, Hinduism, and the origins of Christianity.  I see some volumes by Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, and Annie Lamott, all of whom I admire.  Others on this shelf are are Krishnamurti, Dante, Emerson, and the poet Stanley Kunitz.  Just in front of the small replica of a bicycle I once owned is my tattered but treasured copy of the great Kazantzakis novel, Zorba the Greek.

This shelf has a bit of almost everything—more Henry Miller, an anthology of the poetry of Jorge Luis Borges, several volumes on yoga, a two-volume anthology of American poetry, the collected works of Yeats, more works by Wendell Berry, a selection Nietzsche's works, and several books on the art of writing.  I also see my copy of Jon Kabat-Zinn's fine book, Full Catastrophe Living.  I'm especially fond of this title because it reminds me of one of the main reasons I have always loved books: They prepare us for the full measure of life, including all of the catastrophes that will be encountered by each of us.

I'm hopelessly addicted to travel books and travel essays, some of which are found on the top shelf here.  I also see a favorite book by Ken Wilber, a compassionate philosopher whom I greatly admire;  several works by Rilke, including Letters to a Young Poet, a small volume which I read at least once every year; and one of my books by Karen Armstrong, a contemporary theologian who has written a number of fine books, including a biography of Buddha.

Looking closer at the bookshelves in the second photo of this post, one can see that I have a rather insatiable interest in various wisdom traditions.  Underpinning this interest is a lifelong desire to understand the common threads that are found in all of these traditions.

On this shelf is a novel, The Sea, by John Banville, a fine Irish novelist whom I have only discovered in the past few years.  There is also a copy of Crossing to Safety, a novel by the late Wallace Stegner, whose work I also greatly admire. Between these novels are several spiritual books,  including the Tao Te Ching and more Krishnamurti.  I also see a couple of French books—additional evidence of my being an unabashed Francophile.

For what I consider to be enlightened discussions of Christianity, I usually turn to iconoclasts such as some of those represented on this shelf—Paul Tillich, Meister Eckhart, and John Shelby Spong.  I also greatly admire the work of Eckhart Tolle, who, like Aldus Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy, has done much to elucidate the core principles that underpin all of the great religions and spiritual traditions.  I'm especially fond of Eckhart Tolle's book, A New Earth.

Some of my Alan Watts books are found on this shelf.  The writings of Watts were instrumental in introducing me to Zen several decades ago.  Also found on this shelf are several different translations of the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, as well as a volume of the Upanishads and some additional works by Krishnamurti.

Well, there you have it—a few glimpses into my sanctuary, one of the places where I can usually find refuge from the outside world and passage into the interior realm. For those who might have the inclination, I would recommend this little exercise, not only because it is always interesting to see the contents of other people's bookshelves, but also because one can discover so much about oneself my simply looking at the favorite books of one's life.  A bookshelf is a better mirror of oneself that a piece of glass.

NOVEMBER REFLECTIONS

Perhaps it is trite to say this, but nature is, indeed, an amazing artist!  If you have any doubt, just look at the interplay of color, form, and reflections in this little scene that I discovered near my home late one afternoon earlier in the week.  For one blissful and surreal moment, I felt that I was standing in the middle of a Monet painting.

Amazingly, this scene was found next to a well-traveled bridge on the upper headwaters of the Tred Avon River.  Cars were crossing the bridge incessantly while I stood on the riverbank, but no one seemed to notice the miracle of light that was occurring not more than fifty feet from the road.  Strange, isn't it?  The magic can be so close, yet most people are too busy to notice it.

After discovering this lovely scene by happenstance, I decided to take a more disciplined approach to my photography this week.  More specifically, I made sure that, camera in hand, I was near some body of tranquil water during the hour just after sunrise and the hour just before sunset, the two hours of day when the light is usually at its best, especially in mid-November.  A few of the photos taken this week are set forth below, paired with some relevant thoughts about the role that nature plays in the preservation of our sanity.

Some of these photos are representational, while others are abstract.  Each image, however, reflects that beauty than can be discovered on rivers, lakes, and ponds during the luminous days of autumn.  Enjoy!

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

John Muir 

I'll tell you how the sun rose a ribbon at a time.

Emily Dickinson 

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

Desiderata

Civilization has fallen out of touch with night. With lights, we drive the holiness and the beauty of night back to the forests and the seas; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it.  Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of the night?  Do they fear the vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars?

Henry Beston,
"The Outermost House" 

There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night . . .

Rachel Carson 

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu 

Each moment of the year has its own beauty . . . a picture which was never before and shall never be seen again.

Emerson 

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

e.e. cummings 

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

Walt Whitman 

We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.  For it can be a means of assuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.

Wallace Stegner 

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 . . .

Wendell Berry 

If the only prayer you said in your life was, "thank you," that would suffice.

Meister Eckhart


Peace to everyone and thank you!