Abundance

We have had an

of ducklings in the pond this year. I’ve kept the long lens on the camera and left my camera in front of the living room windows so that I can photograph the ducklings and their mamas as I see them.

I find the mallard family often lingering on or near the log at the edge of the pond. The wood duck mama and her babies are harder to catch. She and her babies move fast and they are quite shy.

Being on duckling watch brings me joy. The ducklings grow so quickly and dart around the pond every which way. Some ducklings seem shy and stay pretty close to their mama. Others are far more adventurous and stray far and wide.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe

— John Muir

Nature is Profligate

Just looking at all of the cottonwood fluff and seeds that are coating our lawn and the surface of the pond for the last week shows me just how profligate nature is.

But I hadn’t realized that the cottonwood seeds were very popular food sources for the ducks. We had four gorgeous male wood ducks gliding along skimming up seeds, along with two or three families of ducks with their babies, paddling around eating as many seeds as they could.

Cottonwood season is almost over now but other plants are also scattering seeds with wild abandon. The path that I like to walk on down the hill from our house is covered with maple seeds. Everywhere I look I see seeds strewn from various kinds of plants.

The Reason Nature is Profligate

The thing I don’t often like to think about is the reason nature must be profligate. Many animal babies and plants do not survive their infancy.

Life is a chancy business. So many of us live lives insulated by a different kind of abundance and believe that we can protect ourselves from harm. But everyone suffers loss — everyone. There are no guarantees in life.

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

— Mary Oliver

I feel so blessed to be the age I am and still have my immediate family well and nearby. But I don’t take my days on this earth for granted and I don’t believe I “need a little darkness to get me going” either. The darkness is always here, but so is the light. Seeing and experiencing both is how we participate in this dance of life and death here on this earth.

What about you? How are you belonging to the world?

May you walk in beauty.