The Music of a Winter Walk

On the first real afternoon of “true” winter, we took the short hike through our woods.  “Winter,” of course, doesn’t mean what it once did in Iowa.  It was 60 degrees and damp from recent drizzles - a long way from the feet of snow and frigid air once routine here this time of year.  Of course very little in Iowa resembles what it once did.  Once hospitable, reasoned and magnanimous, the body politic has become wrong-headed, small-hearted and mean-spirited.  While global warming has stricken the climate, social chilling has enveloped our culture.  Desperately in need of attracting new residents, we seem determined, instead, to repel them.  Climate change, indeed.

But that’s another story.  

Today, in late December, the afterglow of the Winter Solstice, when snow, by all rights, should be covering the landscape and parkas insulating our bodies, we hiked in shirt sleeves; our boots caking mud instead of ice..

There was evidence of green close to the ground.  There were buds on bushes and trees.  A few chestnuts had fallen which we’ll pick up tomorrow when we return with heavy gloves to blunt the spiky jacket.    We saw no animal movement beyond the single rabbit that scurried away from the threat he perceived us to pose, though the evidence of deer passage was plain and plentiful.  What struck us the most were the fallen limbs.  Everywhere - in the woods, on the trail; twigs and branches, limbs and whole trees.  Nature’s pruning.  Today’s detritus, tomorrow’s fecundity.  Which is to say that the trees, too, have changed; though while we have collectively grown tighter, they have simply become lighter.  Everywhere around us in the silent woods, a quiet sigh of fatigue or repose settling into winter’s quiescence. 

We pushed a few branches aside as we passed, admiring the juniper berries and the undulations of the land before emerging near the bee hives into the prairie, and its tall veiling grasses.  This, too, an echo of what Iowa used to be.  And we drifted back along the westerly section of the trail toward home.  It was good to be out, even if it doesn’t feel like winter.  Tomorrow, if the weathercasters can be believed, will be warmer still, and then rain on the day after.  

But today we walked in the woods, and shivered for reasons that had nothing to do with the weather.  It was good to be outside, taking long steps and deep breaths.  And in the dimming stillness of the afternoon’s setting sun we hear a hint of the carol, “...all is calm, all is bright.”  Surveying the wind-blown branches and broken limbs - the flotsam and jetsam of stormy turbulence - we hear a hint of angelic reassurance, “Don’t be afraid.”  In the unbent tall grasses, the prophetic pronouncement, “Peace on earth, goodwill...”

And we shivered again as, just for today, we knew it.

 

A First Snow’s Morning

First Snow
This is the gift the world has given him:
snow in hallows on roofs, branches, streets,
the long white candle on the window,
burning to dusk while snow fills up the city—
all these white contours filling his life—
starlight behind daylight wherever he gazes
~Jonathan Moya

Haiku - Snowflakes
snowflakes
on my lashes
tears of joy
~Orense Nicod 

The classic philosophical, theological curiosity is the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin.  I’ll leave that dilemma to the theologically bored and speculative.  This morning I am more fascinated by an earthier query:  how many snowflakes can gather on the head of a hydrangea, at just the perfect angle of repose?  How many can squeeze themselves onto a pine needle, like birds on a wire, until the whole assemblage spills on this morning following the first snow of the season?

The questions only serve the smile that has elicited them.  I accept that the precipitation likely inconveniences the lagging “Black Friday” shoppers, and inhibits “Small Business Saturday” browsers and diners.  There will likely come a time, in February or March, when the sight of flakes descending will evoke a cursing groan, but here in the waning days of November, while Thanksgiving leftovers still crowd the refrigerator shelves, the exhilaration is giddy.  I shiver - partly from the crisp autumn air, but mostly from a wondrously childlike joy.  

There is a brief wince of course.  For all of our preparations for winter around the farmstead that have lulled us into smug satisfaction, I am haunted now by the details yet undone - like removing the mower deck from the tractor and attaching, in its place, the snowblower.   Scraping the shovel across the inches accumulated on the front porch, additional items join the list.  Like locating my leather work mittens and checking our supply of ice melt.  More straw bales are needed in the chicken yard, and the bees need a final check.

 

And it will all be gone before very long.  The melting has already begun in the white crystalline light of morning.  It's not yet winter after all, despite this brief foretaste.

For now, though, it is enough to relish this first snow’s morning.  

 

To shiver.  

 

To tally that crowded pine needle.  

And like the child I never want to forget how to be, 

 

to smile.

And Now The Quieter Stillness

“All is safely gathered in,

Ere the winter storms begin.”

It is the quiescent season that has settled upon the farmstead.  The garden is cleared and settled for winter.  The chicken coops have been prepared for the cold.  The brush has been mowed and the tools are in the shed.  The farmstead is resting.  All is safely gathered in.

As a teenager I sold ice cream on the streets of my hometown from a little three-wheeled gas-powered Cushman ice cream wagon.  The Popsicle wrapper referred to the contents as a “quiescently frozen confection”. Somehow, in those pre-Google days I learned that the word simply means “from a restful state” - liquid placed in a mold and left alone to freeze - as opposed to ice cream which is born from the agitation of constant stirring.

And so these rural quiescent days, born from a restful state.  It arrives with weary welcome.  The fruitfulness of summer and the frenzied preparations of autumn come at the price of long and exhausting hours and stiffly sore muscles, grateful rest, albeit little enough.  Even then it is difficult to keep up.  There always seems to be more to do than time and energy can match.  And so it is that the stored rain barrels, the rolled hoses, and the resting tools elicit a contented exhalation.  

Even inside the house the common flurries of harvest activity has stilled.  The canning water has cooled, the dehydrators are unplugged, and the cabbage is fermenting in the crocks.  Other stirrings have taken their place, but it is movement of a different sort; more cerebral, more cultivation and harvest of the head and heart.

And so we will see what crystals form in us as the temperatures drop on this more restful state - what flavors might brighten for the delight and quenching of a later day.  Perhaps we will use them to cultivate friendships rather than flowers.  Perhaps we will use them to feed fresh ideas and innovative possibilities for healing the discourse so poisoned in the culture around us even as we learn new methods for healing the garden soil.  Perhaps we will use them to strengthen and deepen the mutuality intrinsic in the companion planting of our marriage, even as we study better ways to position the vegetables to encourage and benefit each other.  Perhaps we can use them to enrich our spiritual fertility, tilling into our very souls the organic matter of scripture and poetry, wise thinkers and the patient observation of awe.  

And perhaps we will use this season of “a restful state” to rest.

“All is safely gathered in.”  Time now to quiescently gather in ourselves.

Autumn Morning

The Taste of Grace

 We enjoyed a caprese salad last night with dinner.  You know, fresh tomato slices, fresh mozzarella, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar?  There is really nothing especially novel about the dish, other than the fact that we had it, in mid-October, with tomatoes and herbs fresh from the garden.  By this point in the season our tomato plants are typically spent.  Indeed, we have been working in the garden, these recent days, pulling, clearing and readying the beds for winter.  There are cover crop seeds to plant, after all.  That, plus we have sorely neglected the garden this summer - abandoning it mid-season to tend to family matters out of state.  True to expectation, the weeds and grasses went wild, like children once the adults have turned their back.  The garden became an embarrassing jungle.  

But leaning back into the care of it in recent days - yanking and hoeing and shoveling our way into the choking foliage - we discovered...

...generosity.  Abundance, still.  Patiently, forgivingly flourishing food - peppers, leeks, onions, carrots and beets, chard and kale, collards and, yes, tomatoes.  There are even sweet potatoes lurking beneath the ground, and more than a few missed potatoes from the digging last month.

It was an humble feast, then, crowned with the garden’s forgiveness.  Tomatoes, yes, along with those errant potatoes; collards and peppers, leeks and onions and garlic and herbs.  And apple crisp for dessert, because the orchard would not be outdone.  

It was nourishing, of course.  Our bodies smiled with sated appreciation.  Even moreso, it was delicious - the very taste of grace.  Unmerited, unexpected grace.

Of course, that’s what grace is:  unmerited munificence.  Goodness where you had no reason to find it.  No, abundance where you had every reason NOT to find it.  

And so it was that we chewed more mindfully, tasted more exactingly, savored with conscious and lingering intentionality.  Nourished, yet again, by what we did not deserve.     It was, as I say, the taste of grace.  

It is, of course, the taste of everyday - blessed and nourished by what we don’t deserve.  

Maybe “caprese” should become our secret code word for “pay attention, grace is being served.”  You know, for those times we might callously, or distractedly forget. 

In Gratitude for the Day

 

"To open my eyes 

and wake up alive in the world
To open my eyes 

and fully arrive in the world

With its beauty and its cruelty
With its heartbreak and its joy
With it constantly giving birth to life 

and to forces that destroy
And the infinite power of change
Alive in the world"

--Jackson Browne

 A rabbit scurries across the lawn, disturbed by my approach, but already busy with its day.  The morning sun is young, just breaking through the trees as I lug pails of chicken feed toward the coops.  There is something settling, centering, about this morning routine - an homage to purpose, to capacity, to necessity.  

 

The sky is clear and the air crisp after yesterday’s rain.  Though technically still summer, this morning’s 47-degrees already feels like autumn.  The scattering of fallen leaves punctuates the anticipation.  Two deer stir from their reverie in the orchard, shaking off the last quiet grace of dawn – and no doubt the lingering taste of fallen apples – and lope into the woods.  The chickens, of course, are long-awake.  Eager in equal measure for the feed and the freedom, they cluck their impatience and, I like to imagine, their gratitude and greeting.  It’s hard to mistake Dwayne the Rooster’s persistent crowing for anything but impatience.  

 

I fill the feeders, open the hatches, and retreat back through the gate, my boots showering dew ahead of me with each step.  

 

I’m feeling lazy about the day ahead.  Though the heaviest harvest is behind us, there are still leeks in the ground, peppers on the bushes, and purple-hulled peas on the vines.  Apples and pears and plums are ready for our attentions, and of course there is the fall clean-up to commence.  Some of that will get some of my attentions today, but ragweed season in all its histamined glory is not a helpful workmate, and I’ve little energy for much beyond tissue retrieval and disposal.  We’ll see how much or how little I accomplish.

 

But “accomplishment” is not the measure of the day.  The day is its own glory, with or without my initiatives.  It is both humbling and enlivening to reconcile with the reality that the morning is indifferent to my productivity.  For the moment, then, I relish the light on my face, the cool on my skin, the shiver of delight, and the empty buckets in my hands.  

 

It’s a new day, and I get to be alive within it.  I’m grateful. 

In Anticipation of the Dawn

 It’s not that I couldn’t sleep; just that sleep ended early.  Reheating a mug of yesterday’s leftover coffee, I take a seat on the deck, gently rocking in the pre-dawn darkness.  And listen.  It’s not exactly silent; the chirps and clicks and miscellaneous thrums layer an underlying drone that bends my own rhythms to its pitch - like a tuning fork for the heart and mind.  Part rhythm, part sound, my breath - already relaxed - slows even more as it becomes aligned with the lingering night noise.  Even the reheated coffee tastes better.

Gradually, imperceptibly, the edges of the horizon gain light - eastward, to be sure, but even in the recesses to the north the hint of a glow.  It’s still dark, but my body moreso than my eyes perceives the change.  Soon I will be able to make out the form of the landing plane in the distance, not simply its blinking light.  Soon, the stars overhead will dissolve into the blue of the morning sky.  Soon the green of the trees will swell the details of the branches and leaves beyond the current outlined silhouette.  And just now, Dwayne, the rooster, announced that he, too, is aware of dawn’s approach.

Last week the temperatures hovered around 100, and next week the prediction is a return to more of the same sweltering climatic malaise.  But this week days will be mild and the darkness almost chilly.  I draw my robe more closely around my shoulders and savor the rejuvenating cool.  

Reviewing the calendar, I confirm that there is no schedule to keep within the hours of this day, just the rhythms of the farmstead to honor.  There is harvesting and groundskeeping and preserving.  There are bees to tend and chickens to feed, eggs to gather and music to make and perhaps, when day is done, a fire to build in the pit.

But for now there is the music of the night to hear, and the crescendoing morning.  And the dawn to celebrate.  Which might just be the most important work of the day.  

The chair rocks gently. I breathe slowly, and deep.  And color teases the horizon.  

Good morning.  

Good, indeed.