Bonus Days

I feel like the past few days have been

Bonus Days

The weather has been so beautiful this week, especially considering that we’re in the last half of October in Minnesota. But it looks like the unseasonable warmth is about to end tomorrow with rain and cooler weather coming in. Last year by this time we had had our first snowfall of the year. I am so grateful for the beautiful days we’ve been able to enjoy  almost all fall. They truly are bonus days even if the warmth may be because of global warming.

I give thanks every day and spend time outdoors soaking in the sun and the warmth and the beauty all around.

This morning I went out to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and wandered in several out-of-the-way places away from the crowds.

It was a delightful morning. Geese flew overhead honking. Flocks of birds flew from crab apple tree to crab apple tree, feasting on the profusion of crab apples.

I saw several other photographers out and about. Each time I saw another beautiful scene I thought a lot about bowing or kneeling to acknowledge the wonder of it all. Then I saw this photographer kneeling beneath a gorgeous maple tree that I had been heading to photograph. Yes! I bow to this beauty, I kneel to this grace. Life is magnificent! This season of brilliant color is here and then quickly gone. So I immerse myself in its delights while I can. Soon enough winter will arrive.

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

 

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

 

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

 

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

 

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

 

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

 

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

 

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

 

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

“In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver, from American Primitive

A World Full of Wonder

Yesterday I had an epiphany of wonder concerning the miracle of having opposable thumbs. I nicked my thumb with a sharp knife while peeling some apples. Afterwards, with the cut bandaged and my thumb wrapped in a waterproof wrap, I resumed peeling apples, a little clumsy because of the cut. It took only a few moments before I realized that it would be impossible to peel apples without having opposable thumbs and what a miracle and wonder they are.

Think of all of the things humans have created—beautiful and not so beautiful, helpful and not so helpful. If humans didn’t have opposable thumbs how much art would we create; how would the world be different?

It’s possible that you might think the world wouldn’t be in such a mess as we humans have created. Perhaps. But perhaps not. Still, because I am here and self-aware, and surrounded by beauty, I choose gratitude for it all. I sing songs of praise and gratitude to life.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

   — Walt Whitman, from his poem Miracles

Wishing you a week filled with miracles and grace.

May you walk in beauty.