Beings of Light
In this month of darkness, in this the darkest month, the light of the human spirit shines forth in so many– in so many ways. As the days grow shorter, houses and trees are decorated, and snow falls. In the hushed silence of the nights, lights shine in windows, and whisper in the darkness. For this season of giving brings the festivals of lights: Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and in the Fall, Diwali. Each tradition incorporates light in its ceremonies and decorations.
A neighbor-friend of mine who lives down the road, a donkey in his stable, reminds me of the story of another manger two thousand years ago. And seeing him snug in his stable with snow on the ground gives the illusion that all is right in the world. But all is not well. Far, far too many know no peace in any season. Far, far too many live in poverty. Far, far too many suffer the effects of the new mammoth storms.
We who live closer to the land are so blessed to share our lives with animals. These creatures are constant reminders of humility and simplicity in this rapid, complex, multi-tasking world. We drive around on a December night and see houses covered in lights with illuminated trees, houses warmed by fires, and imagine them filled with laughter and conversation and love. We are blessed to have so much, when so many have so little. Blessed to be able to celebrate our religious beliefs as we wish, when others cannot. Yet even in the worst of conditions the strength of the human spirit is indomitable.
In December’s darkness we light lights. In truth, we are beings of light. A light glows within each one of us. And, at the most basic level, we are beings of light for we are made of stardust. Perhaps that is why the stars hold such majesty for us—stars compose our bodies within, and, without, our skies sing with stars the hymns of the Heavens.
Einstein said: “A human being is part of the whole, called by us the ‘Universe”– a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest– a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” We are all cut from the same cloth and our inner light is one.
And in this holiday season we behold the night sky as shepherds did two thousand years ago on the birth of the holy infant, in a stable. That night a star lit the whole sky to guide the shepherds. And, in 165 BCE, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was re-dedicated and with the miracle of the ritual oil, the light burned for eight nights.
On these deep, long, silent nights as we light our houses, our candles, our Menorahs, our trees, let us look inside ourselves and find the glow that unites us and will guide us to the Everlasting Light.
The Spiders’ Secret
A chill wind blows the yellowing leaves off the trees. They drift down to the ground like giant snowflakes. The air is pregnant with the feel of the coming holidays. Fall has truly come, with the sudden drop in temperatures, a full 10-20 degrees cooler than a few weeks ago. This is the real Fall, no faltering Fall, but a Fall that will guide us appropriately into winter. November appears as a mirror image of March with its vibrant color of decay, while March is the decaying color of about-to-burst-forth Spring.
The birds are at the bird feeder all the time now. They are not stopped by our presence when we come to fill the feeder or blow leaves under it. Nothing stops them. They swoop around the feeder and the surrounding trees like Kamikaze pilots, darting here and there recklessly. The squirrels are in a frenzy as well, stock piling acorns and walnuts which they will retrieve without fail in a month or so in a snow-covered land.
To me, the trees are most beautiful at this time of year, when many of them are bare and a scattering of leaves remain on dark brown branches. The leaves that remain quiver daintily in their precarious positions on the tree limbs. Yet these are the survivors. The other leaves have fallen and gone the way all living things eventually go. Most trees have lost all their leaves and they stand in stark contrast against the blue sky, the stormy sky, the grey sky. But I find them most beautiful against the night sky, with arms reaching up to the darkness, trying to touch the stars twinkling between the branches, as moonlight dances on their limbs.
November holds the last glimmer of color. A carpet of yellow lines the woods now– and one can see inside the woods that are so dark and impenetrable in summer. Some forests have carpets of oak leaves– dark brown tan in color. Others are paved with variegated colors– vibrant crimsons against yellows and faded greens and tawny tans. The un-mown lawns are now taken over by the spiders covering the fields. At precious moments, one can see a world of webs that only appears in a certain slant of sunlight and reveal a silent take-over by the spiders in webs that sparkle secretly, mirroring the infinite web of creation.
The yellow, brown, and crimson leaves are complemented by the ubiquitous yellow, brown and crimson mums that appear on the roadside near mail boxes, on porches or along driveways. These tough little flowers withstand frosty chills and stand tall throughout most of November– hearty, generous souls, so giving in their colorful, velvety splendor.
Halloween pumpkins begin to sag a bit or shine with wetness as if encased in glass. They will soon be tossed– pine combs, wreaths and fir swags to take their places, and the season of lights will begin. Anticipation hangs in the air. Autumn seems the fastest season to come and go. I try treasuring each moment, but the minute/hours/days just sift through my fingers like so many grains of sand. Then Christmas/Hanukkah comes and fades in a flash and we are into the Nor’Easter blizzards of January. Another year is gone and a new one has come. Would that we could be in forever in the season of love, but it is also a season of loneliness and loss and darkness. It is good we are defenseless against time.
Now, at Thanksgiving, it is our time to give thanks. Inspired by the Native Americans, let us thank the earth. Let us give thanks to the trees for their constantly changing beauty, to the stars for their piercing presence in the night sky, to the leaves for their inspiring colors, to the sun for its life-giving power. Let us thank the Spring for its awakening hope, the Summer for its warm, thriving growth, the Fall for its beauteous bounty, to the Winter for a time of renewal. Let us thank the soon-to-come snow for its hushed, white silence that transforms our world, to all the animals for their pure souls, to our families and friends for their precious love, and, lastly, but mostly, to the Higher Power of our belief for the macrocosm of creation.
Happy Thanksgiving and may you each be blessed with the all-embracing, pervasive, pulsating Love in Nature.
An Insecure Security
Gemutlichkeit* of
a rainy October morning
dry chilly warmth
in our little barn
*
downstairs
you perusing the paper
upstairs
me pumping poetry
*
rain tip-toeing
on the metal roof
a tymphanic symphony
outside the window
a masterpiece of color
yellow walnut leaves
and red sugar maple
the steady drip-drop of water
*
what bliss is this
precious moments of Now
a heavenly haven
from a frightening, tipsy-turvy world
*
I wish to always be
in your aura of calm
and the beauteous bounty of Nature
but
for sure
death will come
*
please take us together
and
find us in each other’s arms
*
blessed bliss
pure peace
and
true security
the everlasting Now
only exist
in the presence of God.
*German word meaning “coziness”.
Just Renters
The house that we think of as “our” house does not belong to us. Not because we are still paying the mortgage on it. Not because it, like so many others, is in foreclosure. No, though it is still “our” house, we are just renters.
This becomes evident one morning while sitting in a moment of calm before the day has begun, watching the bird feeder which my husband is lovingly filling. He has dumped out the seeds too big to fit through the wire mesh of the feeder. About 10 little birds, sparrows and juncos and sometimes a dashing male cardinal, are feeding on the seeds on the leaf-covered ground. They are not scared off by the lone squirrel who comes to eat the peanuts from the mix. Larger birds flock to the now-full feeder. The largest birds, too big to land on the feeder, sometime take over the small bird territory, eating seeds on the ground.
Rain is falling as we prepare to go to work, cleaning up the kitchen and locking up the house. The birds fly around in my mind. So vulnerable they seem yet so brave, so tiny yet enormous in their freedom to take to the air. I want to hold them in my hand and stroke their soft, downy feathers, give them love. But truth is, this is purely a selfish wish on my part for they don’t need my love. They don’t really even need the bird seed my husband religiously puts in the feeder. There are bushes out back with berries which they love. It is we who need them, to make us feel happy, to make us feel loving, to make us feel alive and connected to something larger than ourselves.
As we pull out of the driveway I take another lingering look at the birds in the brightening light. And then it hits me. They get to stay there all day as we drive off through the rain to our respective jobs in the cement jungle of a nearby city. We drive past horses, grazing in a neighboring meadow. They get to stay home, too. Often I make an effort to remember the birds and the squirrels and the horses to bring calm to a fraught work day. Yet I usually get so caught up in my frenetic, little life that I forget to think of them. Or if I manage to conjure them up, the image of them in my mind is thin, pale and lacking in substance.
I imagine the animals laughing at us as we have to drive off to go to work. Our house belongs to THEM. Sometimes they even invade our living quarters. When we first bought the house, it had 50 or so little brown bats in the attic who would occasionally fly around the bedroom at night. One year we had a pair of squirrels. We even had the company of a milk snake one afternoon. And every fall as the weather turns frigid, the field mice run in.
A little more thought on the subject reveals to me that in actuality we own nothing. Not our house, our spouse, our children, our pets, nor even the body we inhabit. All of these things are on loan to us, rented to us if you will, by the Maker of the sun and the moon and the stars. Such a wealth of beauteous bounty is there for us, ours to enjoy for the mere act of attention. The trees, the summer breeze, the blanket of snow in winter, the flowers of summer, the butterflies, the deer who eat our lilies, the possums and ground-hogs, the ever-changing species of birds, the occasional coyote and the thousands, if not millions, of insects underfoot in a terrestrial universe. And the universe above our heads with the planets, the sun, the moon and its trillions, gazillions of stars and whispers of other universes beyond what we can see. And yet we are so caught up in the dramas of our mundane lives that we fail to duly honor the ever-present gifts except in periodic snatches, when we turn our attention outside ourselves and our little lives. We may pay a sum to rent a piece of the earth but that piece contains a seemingly infinite multitude of gifts given just for the taking. Or rather, I should say, for the renting.
A Microcosm of the Macrocosm
To see a cathedral in a flower,
to be drunk with its nectar,
under an opalescent sky.
*
“Infinity is our Home. We are just sojourning awhile in the caravanserai of the body.”
~ Paramahansa Yoganada~
(Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html for information on, and to purchase my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.)
The Consciousness Stream
Look carefully below
to see the stream flowing
in between the tangle of greens
and the landscape of rocks
*
Look carefully within
to hear the whispers of God
in between the jangle of loud thoughts
and the overgrowth of emotions
*
Heaven lies in the quiet
trickling like a stream
through the spaces of the silence
Dahlia Dreams
Drunk with
the nectar of you,
I fall into your arms,
helplessly inebriated
and sweetened
by your Love.
The Night Light Show
Tiny, twinkling stars
suffering loneliness,
fall from the sky
and become fireflies,
flickering on and off
among the trees
calling for a mate,
lighting the night sky
and exciting vision
with twinkling
and flashing lights
and one is not sure
which is which
so bewitched are we
by the show of Light.
Flutterbies
Tread lightly
for the wings of angels
flutter by our souls
as we plod on
in our own worlds
often unawares
of the Heaven inside us
because of the Hell of our thoughts.
Animal Highs
Last week my husband called me from the back yard. “Come quick, come see what I found.” I ran to the back door where he was, holding out his arm, and there in his hand sat a teeny green frog, about the size of a thumbnail. I oooed and aahhed over it and thanked him for calling me. The frog had jumped onto his arm while my husband was unrolling the garden hose, its temporary home. “How wonderful!” I said. And then I thought some more about it and I realized I was jealous. Jealous of the fact the frog had jumped on my husband’s arm and not mine. “Well, he deserves the frog more than I do,” I found myself thinking, as if any of us deserve such things.
Today I began to think more about this. I remembered when we had first moved in. My husband was at work and I saw a mound in the grass moving out the back door window. Upon closer examination I found to my utter delight it was a box turtle. This time it was my husband, an affirmed reptile lover, who was jealous and even admitted to being so. Okay, jealousy of such things is obvious and on the surface in children. Yet we were dealing with adults here who, it seems, covet visits from animals. We cherish an interchange with a creature. And why?
I remember the Sunday night a few years ago, apprehensive about a challenging week ahead, when I saw a stag in the woods behind our house. I called to my husband to come see him. He was stunning with huge antlers, an imposing presence. And suddenly I knew everything would be alright. Why? Because the stag in the distance– majestic, princely, beautiful was a sign.
And how thrilled we are to have a snapping turtle return every year to lay her eggs in our driveway. We feel privileged. Again, blessed. Or when, with delighted guests, we saw a giant luna moth flying in the porch light one night. And the countless times a butterfly lands on one’s body, on a shoulder or head, or a dragonfly visits an arm or a sleeve. And, the beautiful hummingbirds. We even had a hummingbird nest in our Black Birch. Such visits feel so special– to have these delicate, exquisite creatures land near us or live in the trees near our house. Even when my least favorite reptile makes an appearance out from under his home on our back deck, a tiny garter snake, the spirit soars.
Research has shown how having pets is therapeutic. We are blessed by animals who trust us utterly. We feel their trust and it is pure, unalloyed by human characteristics. We don’t deserve such trust and yet we receive it as a gift. We have made contact with a being of a different species who lives in a different world whose being synchronizes with different biological rhythms. The native Americans believed animals to be spiritual guides that have much to teach us. Psychology tells us Nature is a natural antidepressant. An animal can disarm the most defensive, enchant the most mentally ill, bring out the goodness in the criminal, and bring a smile to the face of the young, old and in-between.
And, yes, animals can be pests when they get into where they don’t belong or become aggressive or defensive in a bad way. But our world is a richer, more vibrant place because of them. Animals bring us out of ourselves and into the experience of awe. Their innocence lightens our loads, allowing us to share the “mystery of the other” with others, drawing us closer to our friends and family. We share the world with animals and they share their hearts with us. And their innocent interactions with us are blessings from God.
Dropping Dead
Jack Kornfield reads a poem on the finiteness of life while talking about meditation practice (3:26 min.)
Oh Dying Lily
Oh, Lily
in the valley
of despair,
the devil’s lair,
thou seemeth to be shy
with your glossy, glassy tears.
One day we all must die
and we all have fulsome fears
of dying.
It is not
for lack of trying
your life to live;
it is not from sins of lying
or reluctance to give.
You lived your life purely,
always kneeling demurely,
and though your petals turn to crepe
your form still has a humble drape,
still praising He who made you
in your last living days
and inspiring us to follow suit
in your reverent ways.
The Light Beings
In the freshness of the forest
I like to think
there are beings of light
especially after a rain
dancing in the green scented air
some call them aberrations
of the digital age
but I think them not unlike
the perception
of fleeting flecks of light
seen against an empty sky
I marvelled at as a child
and was flatly told they were floaters on the eye
floaters they are not
rather they speak to me still
decades later
in hushed whispers
of the mystifying mystery
of the air we breathe
and the light we see
everyday without thinking.
“The Butterfly of the Soul”
“The butterfly of the soul must be freed to spread its wings of beautiful divine qualities… To the last day of your life, be positive; try to be cheerful.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda
Ode to a Lily
Oh gentle
Lily of the Valley,
bowed down in quiet prayer
to your Creator,
your humility,
your simplicity
is your beauty.
~
How like the trees art thou
who, unlike you,
reach skywards,
while you kneel
with sensuous spirituality
in deference to the Almighty.
~
Oh beauteous
Lily of the Valley,
would that we all were like thee
in thy hushed humility.
Vibratory Connections
The reverberations of love
jump across time and space
to another receptive heart.
The reverberations of suffering
resound around the earth
picked up by open souls in prayer.
The reverberation of aum
sacred sound of the universe
pulses through meditating mind.
Love brings the possibility of loss
suffering brings a totality of pain
Aum brings the reality of God within.
Looking for the Light
In the golden hour
Spring sprouting trees
dainty with bud,
a delicate delight
devoured
by the hungry devotee.
The Microcosm and the Macrocosm
Grace flows through the limbs of a tree reaching skyward, its intricate patterns of branches pleasing the eye– just as grace flows through the orderly, spikey branches of frost on a window.
Patterns repeated ad infinitum in all creation.
A microcosm of the macrocosm and a macrocosm of the microcosm.
God’s breath breathes through all.
The Beloved
For a very long time when I was alone and had no hope. Being Bipolar and having Asperger’s, I thought I would never find love. I had lost it many times. My vision of the future was totally black and bleak.
Years later, at age 35, I found love again. This time it felt right though I was filled with much uncertainty at the time. Almost 24 years have past and it seems righter than ever. We have nudged each other to grow and we have grown. There is still a future to face, now of old age. But every day can bring a new and unanticipated revelation. Recently, and on more than one occasion, I have looked into the eyes of my beloved and seen a tiny glimpse of The Beloved. An epiphany of sorts. For love of a human is but a taste of the love of God.
In the video below, Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf, sings of earthly love and The Divine. For those of you who don’t know, after starting out as a folk/rock star, he found Islam and that radically changed his life. He gave up fame and fortune to pursue God. In the end, he found his way back to music to use it to witness The Beloved. And that is the title of the song below.
When the Snows Come
Sitting in our living room, with all the little, dairy barn windows alive with falling flakes of snow, it is as if my husband and I were on a ship, floating on a sea of white. The living room in our converted dairy barn has the feeling of a ship cabin, and I think it most beautiful when the snow is falling.
The glass doors in the kitchen give us perfect view of the bird feeder, our television in all seasons. In winter we watch male cardinals, bright red in the stark white, feed and contend with the beautiful, bullying blue jays. And the more modest, gentle, tiny juncos and sparrows touch our hearts with their humility.
One winter, when the snow had covered the ground for a month or so and turned to solid ice, we watched, horrified, as squirrels clawed at the feeder and fought with one another for a chance to feed, making shrill cries of territoriality. The ground was too frozen for them to retrieve the nuts they had buried in the fall. They were fighting off starvation.
Waking up in the morning there is no need for a weather report as we see the snow piled high on the surrounding trees and see the sky through what used to be the hayloft door, now a cathedral window. The thermometer tells us how cold it is though we can feel the chill in the air. We gauge the depth of the snowfall by watching the squirrels running along the limbs of the trees, cleaning off the heavy snow. They seem friskiest just after a snowfall.
And if we are lucky, and the snow is deep enough, we get out our snow-shoes and climb up the hill out back to what we were told was once a Christian Indian burial ground. There are no markers left but the spot has the air of the sacred and it affords mountain views in winter. High on the hill overlooking the valley, it seems a perfect place for a burial ground. The snowfall makes it easier to walk the hill. In the summer the path is too full of saplings and underbrush to walk the “meadow.”
On our half of the meadow there is a squat fir tree which provides a great shelter for deer in a storm and the deer love the meadow. There are a few blown over trees. And as we snow-shoe we see all kinds of animal tracks which we attempt to identify.
Like many barns, ours was built near the road so there is some traffic noise. But in the meadow we are far removed from the road. When it snows, it is so beautiful in the quiet, looking at the animal tracks, and feeling the spirits in the graveyard. A secret, little piece of Paradise. And to stand there in the virgin white silence, and see the abstract patterns of the snow on the surrounding hundreds of trees, is a taste of the Divine.
MOONSIDE 
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