WAKING UP – As If For the First Time

(This is the third post in my series of reflections, As If For the First Time, describing the most mundane of daily activities through a fresh lens, one of innocence and wonder.)

PHOTO: Mike Hulsebus

My friends look up in wonder as I glide over the fountain-like crowns of elms. Their admiration is almost palpable. Just for the fun of it I dip lower so I can slalom among the huge, spreading branches.

I have no idea why I can fly, but I'm exultant. The soft, late-summer air sweeps my hair back. Ah-h-h-h...

Wait, what's that? Another sound interrupts the whispers of air brushing past my ears. I slow down. Instead of falling, I kind of dissolve back into the air and ground, settling gently into a dark, quiet place. But still that sound…My God, it's shrill, insistent!

My eyes crack open just far enough to make out the blurred red digits: 7:30. I reach over and shut off the alarm. Damn, the air's cold! I snatch my arm back under the covers and reach over to my wife's side of the bed, forgetting that she's already been up for two hours.

There's a certain kind of stretch...that seems to 
send relief to every fiber of my being.
 
I'm a pretty active sleeper; it seems like I change positions every few minutes all night, finding no more than momentary relief from the pain—the generalized kind often attributed to some forms of arthritis.

I'm used to it. But there's a certain kind of stretch, one of those luxuriant, full-body stretches one reserves for waking up, that seems to send relief to every fiber of my being. I don't want it to end. These mornings, when I have no pressing deadlines, the bliss of being pain free keeps pulling me back into the arms of Morpheus.

Why, I wonder, can't I get this to happen all night?

Thank you, God, for another precious day, a blank slate I can write on in any way I wish.

Now, my body wants to sink deep into the mattress, but my mind is waking up. I say a prayer. Thank you, God, for another precious day, a blank slate I can write on in any way I wish. I just pray it will be something worth reading.

With this thought I see myself and my situation as one sometimes does when looking in on someone else's life, romanticizing it, coveting the freedom and clarity of purpose one imagines they must be enjoying.

This radiant outlook is a rare and fleeting one for me; once I get up, I know other concerns will begin to blur it. But at least I've caught a glimpse, once again, of what it looks like. I suspect that's more than many people are getting this morning.

I use my elbow to lever my torso up, swing my legs out and sit there, trying to hang onto that blessed feeling. Something deep inside me tells me it's a clue to the secret of happiness...if not the ultimate meaning of life.

With that lofty thought, I shuffle to the bathroom.

GNAWING CURIOSITY – What’s That Sound?

From some quiet bay the eerie wails of loons poured across the lake. My thoughts would drift that way until the sharp snap of a jack pine knot popping in the campfire pulled them back.

At 15, I was on my first unguided northern Minnesota wilderness canoe trip with five of my buddies. There we sat one night after dinner. We'd put our makeshift log benches close to the fire so we could dry our socks, waving them on sticks, steaming, over the flames.

Then, somewhere beyond the cozy wrap of radiant heat and conversation, I heard something that just didn't fit with the rest of the scene. It was a faint, rhythmic grinding or "munching" sound. I scanned my friends' mouths and hands to see if anyone was chewing, whittling, rubbing stones together or anything that might explain the mysterious sound.

No, it was coming from the other side of the fire pit, somewhere behind my friends, close to the edge of the deep woods.

I stepped closer, with that simultaneous craning 
of neck and tilting of head that so often precede discovery.

Pushing aside my small concern about the ever-hungry and occasionally forward black bears often drawn to campsites, I got up and walked toward the pulsing noise. Sure enough, it got louder. I couldn't imagine what it could be if not some kind of abrasion. A beaver on the night shift? A deer rubbing felt from its antlers?

I followed the sound to a pine tree and shone my flashlight right on the spot it seemed to be coming from. There was something there. I stepped closer, with that simultaneous craning of neck and tilting of head that so often precede discovery.

PHOTO: Steven Katovich, US Forest Service

Aha! A BB-sized hole in the bark, and all around it a golden extrusion of hardening resin. I put my ear as close to the rough bark as I could without touching the sap. Sure enough, whatever the little critter was, it was the one responsible for that prodigious munching.

When I called my friends over, they too were fascinated, but we agreed our curiosity wouldn't justify gouging and injuring the tree. So we had to wait a while to learn the identity of that little buzz saw.

When our trip was over, a camp naturalist explained that the pine engraver beetle (Ips Pini) actually does gnaw its way through the wood, like a tiny beaver, just below the bark where the adult male excavates—"engraves"—a lattice of tunnels.

        

PHOTO: Dennis Profant'

I've heard pine engravers a couple of times since, and have taken great delight in amazing my paddling companions, who'd either not heard the sound before or never taken the time to investigate. (Or could it be that they had, indeed, been curious, but were just afraid of bears!)

WILLOW'S WAY

            Gold gushes from a thousand willow stems,
            Cascades down granite skies,
            Evaporates into light.

TREES LIKE ME – It Grows Both Ways

How like me the trees!

In the most patient of gestures, limbs grasp for open space—up for sun, out for air, for life everywhere. Some innate wisdom—or is it sense of touch?—bids them bend, or branch.

What trees can't reach beyond they simply grow around, absorbing rock, wire or post, turning it from obstacle to part of them. Simply, inexorably, they embrace what is.

Their skin grows thick and rough and wrinkled. Cut that protective layer, though, and they bleed. For just underneath they're soft and tender. There veins flow, a constant heart pumping.

Simply, inexorably, they embrace what is.

When winter squeezes tight around them, most trees have learned not to fight it, but just be slow and quiet for a while—till life's more inviting. How like me…or at least the me I want to be. 

Now, in the autumn of my life, Nature's spring reminds me, yet again, what it is I most admire in trees: No matter how old, still they grow. Budding, blooming, unfurling fresh and green—there's always a part of them celebrating new life, fresh as sapling, full of promise.

Yes, trees know something about time, something I'd do well to learn. They balance that joy of renewal with a responsibility to eternity—a time to bud and to flower; a time to deepen one's roots; a time to go to seed.

Can two beings share so much and not share affection? Could trees not know I admire them so, when I stand with them, touch them, confide in them, give them my wonder?

No matter how old, 
still they grow.

Know, they must, for how generous they are in return! They let me lean on them in time of trouble, take heart in their strength, take wing on their soaring beauty. They give me their shelter and shade, their sage counsel, their worthy example.

How wise, how faithful, how generous, the trees. How well they know me, to give, always, exactly what I need. How they must, somehow, care.

How the trees like me!

"If I keep a green bough in my heart the singing bird will come."
~ CHINESE PROVERB

 

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Tips

TIP #30

Blow toward a candle from across the room.

Air's like this magical, invisible liquid. It ebbs and flows, pours in to fill voids, lifts huge things...like roofs and airplane wings.

Like a wave, your breath rolls across the void. Will there be enough 
left of it to make lap that tongue of flame?

THE NATURE OF GOD – A Pantheist Persuasion

Recently, one of my new followers here on One Man's Wonder (let's call her Lucy) commented on how much she'd enjoyed my post on "screen-bound" kids and their growing alienation from Nature.

Almost as an aside, Lucy asked why I seldom refer to God in my writing. To be honest, I hadn't really thought that much about it, but as I've reflected on her question I realize I have something of an answer.

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WHOSE GOD IS IT?
It's true, you'll seldom see the word "God" in my posts, and when you do it's likely the kind with a small "g." A word you'll see far more often—always capitalized—is "Nature." This is very deliberate.

Don't get me wrong; I do believe in a god. When you get right down to it, I suppose I even believe in the God, whatever that means. But, ultimately, one's notion of what God is and how to portray and follow that idea is a very personal matter.

Still, as varied as our spiritual paths may be, doesn't every one of us who believes in any higher power at all come to that conviction by way of needs, hopes and instincts that originate in exactly the same place? It seems to me that place either is, or has something to do with, what we might call "the" God—a single, universal God.

 

MESSIN' WITH PERFECTION
Where most organized religions get it wrong is not in their core values. After all, everyone with a heartbeat wants basically the same things: to live in peace and harmony, to experience love, to do something of value, and to be reasonably happy.

What happens, though, is that faiths somehow always manage to lose their focus on those principles, allowing a few of their leaders or proponents and their self-serving agendas to hijack their missions. They fool people into losing touch with love; in its place, fear and negativity start seeping in.

With all those various interests and agendas, religion has gone to seed. At last count there were more than 20 major religions and over 270 subdivisions of those faiths in the world. The Christian moniker alone comprises thousands of denominations; in just the US and Canada some 1,000 of them claim to be the only legitimate Christian denomination.*

I don't know about you, but no god I could worship would have time for all that nonsense.

Religions expend way too much of their resources on defining and defending their differences, and too little on pursuing the values they share. They focus more on what they—or even worse, others—can or can't or shouldn't do instead of who they are and what they can become.

So you see, it's all become way too complicated. Instead of spiritual, it's gotten all intellectual, hierarchical, political. They've squeezed the joy out of being spiritual.

    

I don't know about you, but I'm confused and disappointed with organized religion. No god I could worship would have time for all that nonsense. This is why I find my god—what I suspect is indeed the God—in Nature.

A HOLY CONVERSATION
For most of my life I believed in, and prayed to, what I thought was "the" God. It was a concept I'd been taught as a child—someone else's concept. God was an abstract presence, a faceless, formless, lifeless power that supposedly existed at once everywhere and nowhere. And whatever communication I had with  him consisted of prayers that felt very much like shots in the dark. It was pretty much a monologue.

Since my gradual conversion, though, I converse with my god—Nature—all the time. Like a good old friend, he's approachable; he accepts me for who I am, not for who I should be; he commands my respect not for his power, but for his wisdom, integrity and constancy.

Notice I said "converse." Indeed, I chat with animals and birds; I listen to trees; I touch the wind and pour my heart out to the skies. As with any good conversation, my dialog with my Nature/god is often less about talking and more about listening and wondering.

Every day, I discover new evidence that everything—and I mean everyone and every thing—is connected, and that each creature, thing or place, large or small, is nothing less than holy.

What do I hear from Nature? I hear wisdom in its timeless patterns and rhythms; humility in its power and scale; inspiration in its sublime beauty. I find as much wisdom and guidance in that counsel as I would in any book—including one supposedly written by or through "the" God (though this is yet another bone of contention among man-made religions).

 










The more I practice this Nature-as-God faith, the better I get at seeing that the conversation extends far beyond my dialog with my immediate surroundings. Every day, I discover new evidence that everything—and I mean everyone and every thing—is connected, and that each creature, thing or place, large or small, is nothing less than holy.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
Lest you wonder if my Nature-based religion has any place for the human species, let's just say that, for the most part, I see us as just another species of animal, in the end no more or less worthy of God's blessings than any other.

Does Nature care if I get through the day safe from harm? 
Probably no more than "the" God cares if Tim Tebow completes 
the game-winning pass.

Does this mean that Nature doesn't care about me and whether I get through the day healthy and safe from harm? Probably no more than "the" God cares if Tim Tebow completes the game-winning pass.

All my god cares about is that everything fits in the whole, divine Scheme of Things—that magic that explains everything from the birth of the universe, to the great interconnectedness of life, to eternity. In that context, I'm powerful only to the extent of my ability to love and create. To the universe that might not seem like much, but it does matter, and to another human being it may be everything.

CONNECTING AT THE SOURCE
Again, it's all a very personal matter, but for me Nature is a way—possibly the only way—of interpreting God that I know is both immediate and timeless; that both surrounds me and fills me; that teaches me both how small I am in the whole scheme of things and how powerful love can make me. And, as far as I can tell, Nature is the only god I can trust to remain always true, honest and positive.

So, since God is everywhere and every thing, shouldn't we be able to find him wherever we choose? I suppose I could look for him in buildings, on Sunday mornings. I could honor him in doctrine and ceremony created by human beings. I could study him in books—again, a medium of our making, not his.

      

Or I can experience God at the source, at places that show his true countenance, places where there are no walls around my awe; where the ceremony is life itself, where all the wisdom is written in his own hand;  places where I can not only speak to him, but literally become one with him.

That place, that sacred state of mind, is Nature. That's where my God and I find each other.
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POSTSCRIPT – My new friend, Lucy—that woman who commented on my blog—suggested, when I tried to summarize my religious beliefs, that I might be a pantheist. I looked it up; it's someone who identifies God with the universe and who acknowledges the validity of all gods. I try to avoid labels—they tend to manipulate and/or limit thought—but if I have to wear one, perhaps pantheist is as good as any.

Where do you find the face of God? Is it floating around you in the air, or is it in something or someone? Is it a kindly countenance or a  stern one? Does your god care about you?

And what's the name of your faith? Just in case you march to your own drummer like I do, here's a site that might help you decide what to call yourself: http://www.selectsmart.com/RELIGION/ 

* Source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm

I SPOT EYE SPOTS – The Small Wonder of Floaters

Most people assume Nature exists somewhere between arm's length and the horizon. Isn't that where we're accustomed to pointing our curiosity, to finding beauty and wonder?

But that assumption's not necessarily true; I have to keep reminding myself that Nature’s never any farther away than my own skin. For there, on me and in me, resides a whole other world of small wonders, just waiting to be discovered.

One of these little, inner wonders in particular has always fascinated me. Not for
its size or speed or any elegant design, but because to find it you have to close
your eyes.

It fascinates me, not for its size or speed or any elegant design, but because to find it you have to close your eyes.

OUT, DAMNED SPOT!
Just the other day I was out sitting on the deck, enjoying the very early spring that's sprung here in Minnesota. I was facing right into the sun, and even though my eyes were shut I was struck by how much there was to see.

My field of vision was flooded in bright, fiery red-orange, the result of that powerful light penetrating my translucent, blood-laced eyelids. Every so often a cloud would drift across the sun, muting the glow to a sumptuous deep burgundy.

     

Against this dramatic backdrop, one of the human body’s most arcane little quirks stood out like bugs on a TV screen: floaters. Floaters are actually shadows cast on the retina (the eye’s light receptor) by tiny clumps of cells or of the gel inside the vitreous, the clear jelly-like substance that fills the eye.

Nature’s never any farther away than our own skin.

Floaters look like tiny organic shapes dangled here and there in front of your eyes (if your eyes were open, that is). Mine look like little bits of thread or lint. They’re there all the time, whether your eyes are open or shut. When they're open, though, your vista's usually so filled with a busy pattern of other stuff that you don’t notice them.

     

FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY
Once I notice my floaters, a little game ensues. I pick out the biggest, most complex one and try to look right at it. Trouble is, it’s located a few degrees off of center, just to the left of where I’m looking.

Try as I might to look right at it, the moment my eye moves so does the floater, staying always slightly peripheral. Like a young Mohammed Ali, it glides back and forth at will, just beyond the reach of its hapless opponent's best jab.

This is made all the more maddening by the slight lag time between when I move my gaze and when the shape follows! I imagine it being on an elastic leash. When I tug, at first it doesn’t move; it only stretches the leash. Then, a fraction of a second later, the energy transfers to the object, which then slides greasily—alas, not to where I want it, but again just to the left.

How ironic that the only way you can stop looking at something is by opening your eyes!

I always tire of this losing game after a few minutes. I open my eyes and try ignoring the floaters. This is easier said than done. What would happen, I imagine, if I couldn't stop seeing them? I'm thinking this could drive a person nuts! Fortunately, it never takes me long to tune them out.

Still, how ironic—some might say demonic—that the only way you can stop looking at something is by opening your eyes!

     

HERE'S LOOKIN' AT YOU
Do you have floaters? Let the rest of us know what that's like for you. Do you rue the day you first noticed them, or have you found ways to make peace with them—perhaps even celebrate them? 

We'd love to hear from you!