Autumn Breathes
It's Tiw's day . . . here in Okieland, Fall is dancing with cool mornings and warm afternoons . . .
One of the best-selling poets in America and my “go-to” daily fave, Mary Oliver, was born on this date in Maple Heights, Ohio, a suburb of 1935 Cleveland. Among her many awards, she was the laureate of the Pulitzer Prize. For an introduction to her work, and to poetry in general especially if you've never bought a book of poetry, I'd urge her New and Selected Poems, Volume One, which brought the National Book award in 1992. There's also a Volume Two, equally compelling. There are also Kindl versions, but there is nothing quite like holding her pages in your hands after dog-earing 60-70% of her books leaves. Available from the AmazBezo shelves, or if you are anti-Bezo.
Song for Autumn
Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth / The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way. — Mary Oliver
Like most of us, my biology requirements in university taught that life is subject to its environment – that the demands of environment shapes the evolution of species. That view is being challenged by research revealing that life shapes life. Global warming, poisoned oceans, planetary forest fires – none have been visited upon us from afar.
Western science has long resisted and even ridiculed the idea that Earth is alive. Now, that is shifting. Although Gaia still retains a stigma in mainstream scientific circles, the idea of Earth as a vast interconnected living system is gaining acceptance. Life does not simply reside on Earth: it is an extension, and an expression, of the planet—an outgrowth of its structure and an engine of its own evolution. Life and environment have coevolved for billions of years. – Ferris Jabr
[M]illennials and Generation Z successors to the throne of youth are turning away from institutional religion faster than any other age group, raising a palpable sense of panic in religious communities concerned about their future. – Jennifer Bailey writing for Meditations from the CAC.
Prayer. It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. – Mary Oliver, Thirst, Beacon Press, 2006.