Trees with lights in them

I was still ringing

Quote of the day:

Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.— Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

iPhone photo art

We traveled to Banning State Park and St Croix State park this week.

It was a beautiful sunny blue-sky day and the greens glowed in the morning light. On our way I spotted an old house facing into the morning sun. We pulled off the freeway at the next exit and made our way back to the house. She stood like a faded, somewhat worn matriarch, still proud and beautiful in all her glory.

Faded Beauty

At the park, the mosquitoes were fierce. Covered head to toe with hats, long sleeves, and long pants, and insect repellant, we headed into the woods. Mosquitoes still buzzed us constantly and made it difficult to pause and make photographs.

When we first arrived at the park we saw another photographer getting ready to head out for a morning of photography. He was well prepared for the bugs and for hiking in boggy conditions. Wearing camouflage pants, knee-high rubber boots, a thin camouflage shell jacket and hat and carrying a large camera gear backpack, reflector, and tripod he rubbed insect repellant on his face and hands (the only exposed skin on his body) and headed out. You gotta love the woods and photography to go to all that effort in 80+ degree temperatures.

Trillims were in bloom in both parks. I’ve never seen so many wild trilliums in bloom at one time. In places they blanketed the ground.

Trees with lights in them

I chose today’s quote of the day from my reading last night. I am re-reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I love Annie Dillard’s description of being “knocked breathless by a powerful glance.”

In a longer passage preceding the quote, Dillard describes the responses of people who were blind from birth with cataracts, when surgery restored their sight. Like infants who gaze with wonder at the light and dark shapes made by their hands in front of their faces,   they could not make any sense out of what they were seeing.

Shapes, light, color

Dillard wrote, “For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning…” and “In general the newly sighted see the world as a dazzle of color-patches. They are pleased by the sensation of color, and learn quickly to name the colors, but the rest of seeing is tormentingly difficult.”

On her daily rambles at Pilgrim Creek, Dillard tried to see the world unencumbered with meaning, but found it difficult to maintain for any length of time. It requires a kind of letting go of everything you think you know about the world.

Sometimes when I’m out in the woods I feel I’m seeing this way—noticing shapes, patches of color, and glimmers of light.

I slow down and soak it up, sometimes pausing and making photos. It can be maddening for anyone who tries to walk with me. One minute I’m walking beside them and the next I’ve disappeared and they turn around and find me crouched by a leaf or patch of light.

When I walk I no longer count the distance traveled. Instead I treasure the moments of being “knocked breathless by a powerful glance.”

Like a spiritual practice, it takes intention and practice to let go of what you think you know and allow yourself to simply experience sensations without words. In fact, it is a spiritual practice, very close to mindfulness.

Try slowing down and looking with soft eyes, seeing if you can turn off the thoughts and words about what you are seeing.

Sometimes if I relax my eyes so that they are barely focused I can get a sense of it. But mostly it takes something like Dillard’s “tree with lights in it,” to get me out of my thinking mind and into pure sensation.