With longer days and warmer weather, John and I are once again able to take after-supper walks. On Tuesday evening we headed over to the millrace, which was both peaceful and bustling -- the water was still and full of reflections, while the bike-path was busy with walkers, runners and bikers. And there was plenty of action down by the water as well . . .boys and geese, geese and swans, muskrat and greens.....
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The combination of late afternoon sun and colorful autumn leaves made for fascinating reflections on the millrace today. Sometimes the ducks paddling by stirred the water into Monet-like impressionistic paintings. Other times the water was still, filled with confusing mirror images.
With the drought here, and yet another day of 100 degree temperatures, it seems a prime time to post some pictures of the mountain stream near our campsites at Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp. And for a more complete experience, here's a short video clip of the rushing waters.
Fireworks for the 4th -- the only kind we'll see around here. We're in Colorado for a niece's wedding this weekend and between the drought and the fires Colorado is already fighting, there are burn and fireworks bans everywhere.
We came to Colorado by a round-about route -- driving to Harrisonburg for a Weaver family reunion at Highland Retreat last weekend, spending a few days in Pittsburgh where our daughter lives, and then flying out to Denver. We'll be in Westcliffe for the wedding and then camp for a few days. I hear there are mountains around here, but so far the smoke haze has kept them obscure. Even so, there's sunlight on the fauna and flora, and I'm enjoying the variety. March may come in like a lion, but February decided to celebrate Leap Day with a glimpse of spring. Compare these blooms with yesterday's photo of the same flowers. Take a sheltered window well, add a day in the 60's and presto -- instant spring. I went over to Witmer Woods and wandered the woods of my childhood, when we lived on Carter Road, just south of the College Cabin, on the other side of the drainage ditch. All woods were mostly brown and barren, but the moss was looking lush. Think of the tooth work it took to reach the nutmeats in this one. I spent a restful time sitting by the river, listening to the water lapping against the shore, the wind roaring in the branches overhead, and red-wing blackbirds calling in the bushes.
_In The Wild Places, Robert MacFarlane explores a variety of landscapes in the British Isles, with an understanding of "wild place" that enlarges from "somewhere remote, historyless, unmarked" to include another kind of wildness, "the wildness of natural life, the sheer force of ongoing organic experience, vigorous and chaotic. This wildness was not about asperity, but about luxuriance, vitality, fun." It's a wildness that he encounters in the city fringe as well as in high remote mountains. At one point he muses on the inner maps we carry, the record of our own encounters with creation, the landscapes small or large that have given us "happiness, and the emotions that go by the collective noun of 'happiness': hope, joy, wonder, grace, tranquility and others." _"Every day, millions of people found themselves deepened and dignified by their encounters with particular places. Most of these places, however, were not marked as special on any map. But they became special by personal acquaintance. A bend in a river, the junction of four fields, a climbing tree, a stretch of old hedgerow or a fragment of woodland glimpsed from a road regularly driven along -- these might be enough." "Or fleeting experiences, transitory, but still site-specific: a sparrowhawk sculling low over a garden or street, or the fall of evening light on a stone, or a pigeon feather caught on a strand of spider's silk, and twirling in mid-air like a magic trick. Daily, people were brought to sudden states of awe by encounters such as these: encounters whose power to move us was beyond expression but also beyond denial." Macfarlane, p 236. At Faith House Fellowship last night, we combined this idea of inner maps of special places with Celtic Christianity's perception of the gift of creation as essentially a self-giving of God,a "showing" that reveals something of the One who is the essence of life. We shared memories of some of the places that have provided moments of encounter, awe, and happiness for us. Some of us looked back to beloved childhood spots, others to our current maps, or to bright memories from this past year. These are good memories to bring back from time to time, to finger like prayer beads. I've scattered some of my memories from the past year through this entry -- what is on your inner map?
I'm still reading Philip Newell, this time in Christ of the Celts, and this passage caught my eye:
One of the most ancient symbols of Christ in the Celtic world is the salmon. We find it in the earliest strands of Celtic Christian art and poetry. Even in the pre-Christian Celtic world, it is a favorite image, associated especially with true knowledge and wisdom. Of course, the fish had been a symbol of Christ in the earliest centuries of the church, but in the Celtic world, it specifically became a salmon. So the ancient symbolism for wisdom merges with the Christian symbolism for love, and love and its longings are viewed as the deepest expression of wisdom. p.90 Musing on the fish imagery, I'm reminded of an O Antiphon I worked on at a writing retreat last year. Traditionally, the O Antiphons are a series of Advent songs, or verses, that call on Christ with a title from the Old Testament. If you are familiar with O Come, O Come Emmanuel, you'll recognize the pattern. We were working with a variation on this, based on a collection of invocations written by Richard Skinner, Calling on the God in All, from the Celtic-based community on Iona. These O Antiphons begin by addressing God as revealed in some aspect of creation -- the first line beginning O (fill in the blank), four lines describing the thing seen, a line naming the facet of God that has been illuminated, and then a line or two of petition. This particular antiphon was inspired by a recurring event that happened as I sat scribbling on a pier by the lake. I've worked on it a couple different times over the past year, and I'm not sure it has settled yet, but here it is. I enjoyed looking at it again with this image of Christ the Salmon. O Splash – sound and spurt of water in a silver lake, brief backwash ringing outwards into ripples, shimmering moment that draws my eye to seek the silent fish below, you are the tangible trace of unseen action: come, sound in the waters of our lives, alert us to the Spirit, rising. John and I are spending a weekend away, in celebration of our 30th wedding anniversary -- there's a spark of light right there! Our anniversary is actually the first of August, but we were busy celebrating Beth and Jesse's wedding that week. Earlier today we visited the Kalamazoo Institute of Art, to see their exhibit of Japanese pottery. There is also an exhibit of etchings, titled Shimmerings of Light, Mysteries of Shadow, which strikes me as an excellent option if I ever want to rename this blog. Today's photos come from the buffet lunch at Saffron's, an Indian restaurant whose flavorful dishes provided an inward spark of light. My mouth is still happy. We also enjoyed the decor. Each booth had its own artwork, all variations on a blend of traditional and contemporary. It's hard to tell in the photo below, but those diamonds and circles are mirrors, each reflecting light in its own way. More reflections here, with the interaction of light and water and glass. And here's a different sort of interaction of light and water and glass, seen across the way. . . a little apple light.
I woke up this morning realizing that I'd gotten sidetracked last night and despite good intentions to protect the remaining outdoor rosebud, it hadn't happened. Still, it seems to have survived the frost. Not bad for the first day of November. Out of curiosity, I checked the fountains in front of the music building late this afternoon, and they were running. Not only that, the drops were catching the light. It's next to impossible to catch the dancing of the water with a still photo, though, and it's in the dance and the play of the droplets that I saw sparks of light. This may look like an ice sculpture, but it's not that cold yet, not here anyway. It is the first of November, though, and so All Saints day, the day we remember those who have gone before us into the adventure of death, yet who remain with us in the great circle of saints, past, present and future. At an All Saints vesper service this evening, we lit candles and wrote names on paper leaves, and remembered our loved ones, our ordinary saints. Another moment of light.
John and I left supper simmering and took a quick walk this evening, enjoying evening sunshine after a cloudy day. I hoped to catch the evening sun on the fountains by the music center, but the college seems to have turned all the fountains off. We’re getting frosty nights; winter’s coming. I’d better go out and cover my rosebud again. But for now it is still autumn, and we found the sun highlighting some of autumn’s warm colors. And there was afternoon light dancing in the fountains a few days ago. Not as flamboyant as the leaves, but lovely in its own way. |
My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Archives
August 2020
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