Leaning into the Light

The fall season has finally turned here in the Minneapolis area. The colors are astonishing. Leaves rain down whenever a breeze passes by. Everywhere I look I am astonished with the beauty of it all. I find myself

Leaning into the Light

of this short span of magnificent days of color and brightness. My soul wants to store up memories of these days and pull them out one by one as the colors fade and the world turns towards shades of brown, gray, and white.

 We went for a drive mid-week along County Road 6 towards Long Lake and then on a side road down to the Baker Park Reserve area. What wondrous beauty there was everywhere.

Life, death, earth and sky all come together in the intimacy of a garden’s space. It is a metaphor too rich to exhaust, a perfect microcosm of the universe’s deepest wisdom, a constant reminder that we must accept the forces of nature if we are to survive.

At least once in the course of a day, I try to contemplate a garden. The season does not matter. The weightlessness of snow, the timelessness of rocks, the timebound mutability of plants, the fragile immediacy of flowers — somewhere within is a lesson that will touch my heart and link me, if just for a moment with the universal rhythms that are the source of all true peace.

I reach down and touch the delicate leaf of a plant. My friend’s words rise up in my heart. “Everything lives, everything dies, everything leans to the light.”

If I knew only this, it would be enough.

   — Kent Nerburn, Small Graces

Permission to Cry

There is so much happening in the world right now that makes me want to cry. Perhaps we need to give ourselves permission to cry. It’s important to me to notice the beauty AND the pain of life.

As I listen to stories from Israel and Gaza my heart breaks for the loss and pain of everyone in that area.The seeds of this were sown so long ago and still they continue to reverberate through time. All I can do is to hold all who are suffering and in pain and those who are responding to the events there in the light hoping that we can find a way to let love and mercy prevail.

…

For these things I weep, my eye, my eye runs down with water
For our children crying at nights,
For parents holding their children with despair and darkness in their hearts
For a gate that is closing, and who will open it before the day has ended?

And with my tears and prayers which I pray
And with the tears of all women who deeply feel the pain of these difficult days
I raise my hands to you please God have mercy on us
Hear our voice that we shall not despair
That we shall see life in each other,
That we shall have mercy for each other,
That we shall have pity on each other,
That we shall hope for each other

…

   — Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum and Sheikha Ibtisam Mahamid,, Prayer of Mothers for Peace and Life

Other ways of leaning into the light

Besides soaking in the beauty of this season, another way of leaning into the light I find helpful is to read the words of writers and poets. In a world full of both sorrows, injustice, and violence and beauty, grace, and joy they bring timeless wisdom. Today I offer you words that comforted me from Elizabeth Gilbert’s weekly Letters from Love…

…the world outside shows no sign of coming into peace and coherence anytime soon. As the outside world becomes more incoherent, and as your aging body becomes more difficult to manage, internal coherence will be ever more vital. Ever more vital. Keep me [love] closer than ever, and ask me to settle your fears and sorrows. I will never not be here. I will quiet your storms, so that, when opportunities arise for you to be of service, you will be of service — rested, sane, sober, and present.

   — Elizabeth Gilbert, Letters from Love

Wishing you a beautiful week ahead. Keep leaning into the light my friends.

May you walk in beauty.

A view of the pond behind our house this morning

The sugar maple tree I see from my kitchen window

And the river birch tree

Pond reflections