Wild, Precious and Free

There is a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver about a time when her dog ran off, which ends:

“…who am I to summon his hard and happy body

his four white feet that love to wheel and pedal…

to come back to walk at my side, obedient.”

from ‘The Dog Has Run Off Again’

She recognises the wild, natural freedom that her dog loves – that is more precious than simply getting him to walk to heel!

I was down by the River Severn recently and saw some of my favourite colourful ducks there – goosanders. They are bright and beautiful, especially in the spring sunshine, but extremely shy. And as you can see from the photograph, it wasn’t long before they decided to assert their wild freedom, just like Mary Oliver’s dog!

And I had a similar thought. I do enjoy watching them and photographing them. But who am I to control their “one wild and precious life“?

Goosander taking off on the River Severn, Shropshire, March 2022

My Lapwing Love Affair!

I saw my first lapwing as a boy on a farm belonging to a family friend. It was a long way off, and all I remember is the tuft on its head. I remember thinking how magical it looked – especially to someone brought up in suburban London! It made my heart beat a little faster – the love affair had begun!

Decades later and I find myself in the Midlands, where, thankfully, lapwing are still not that uncommon.

In Shropshire, for example, I’ve discovered that they can fairly regularly be seen at Polemere Nature Reserve. In February, a huge flock were feeding in the field next to the reserve. When they decided to take off, they made a spectacular sight overhead:

This photo gives a closer view ofbirds strutting their stuff around the edge of the lake:

On a visit to Anglesey recently I had a much better view of the amazing, beautiful green breeding plumage of the male…

And this week I was treated to the wonderful spectacle of lapwings acrobatic, crazy flight and song, just over the Shropshire border in Staffordshire, as they chased, and were chased by, corvids, gulls and each other!

Their name lapwing may derive from the Anglo Saxon word for “leap” and “reel”, and as they displayed, I could see why!

Hopefully I’ll be able to write a follow up post once I’ve amassed more photos of this beguilingly beautiful bird!

A Gateway of Golden Daffodils

It’s the daffodil time of year in the UK – that wonderful, brief time, when yellows trumpet at us from every patch of green around. And especially so in Shropshire.

Shakespeare wrote about the daffodils…

“…that come before the swallow dares

And take the winds of March with beauty”

from ‘A Winter’s Tale’

And of course Wordsworth once wandered…

“…lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills

When all at once I saw a crowd

A host of golden daffodils…”

The photograph is of the entrance to Attingham Park, Shropshire, taken from the other side of the road in Atcham, where the daffodils are looking as beautiful as they always do every year.

Truly a gateway of golden daffodils to the spring!

Inspired and Connected

What gets you excited, inspired and feeling connected?

For me, it can be something as simple as a sunrise!

I pass The Wrekin every day on my way to where I work. It can be cloudy, hidden by mist, ominous, and sometimes, as on this day, spectacular.

A reminder we are an integral part of our beautiful world, connnected, whether or not we choose to accept it, and whether we choose to destroy or preserve.

And who would choose not to defend a planet that we can be so connected to, and that can be so awe-inspiring?

Tell Me You Love Me

There is a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver where she focuses on her dog, and his simple intuitive longing to know affection:

“he turns upside down, his four paws in the air…

Tell me you love me, he says.

Tell me again…

Over and over he gets to ask it.

I get to tell.”

from ‘Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night (Percy 3)’

Today we are so aware of the need for love – for refugees, for the dispossessed, for the homeless. We are so aware of the need for the power of love to displace the force of evil and hate.

A few months ago I was walking along the ridge of a Shropshire hill, called Stiperstones. The ridge is punctuated by exposed concentrations of bare rock, and the strange atmosphere these create have led to stories of the connection of evil with the place (the largest mound is called “Devil’s Chair”).

But as I walked with the sun setting in the west, I could only think of being blessed by being in this remote, wild place. I was like Mary Oliver’s dog, and it felt like the world was saying “I love you” back to me. Of course there was no audible voice and my mind was responding to ideas I had been exploring. And yet love is a perennial and powerful voice. Perhaps the most powerful voice in the universe?

~

Here

In the silence

~

Of Stiperstones

The sun sets

~

And we forget

The day’s pains

~

There was a wind

That blew

~

On the summit

And swept me through

~

A voice that called

Again and again

~

“I love you”

I heard it

~

In the silence

“I love you”

~

“I love you” again

And again and again.

~

In the silence of Stiperstones, November 2021

“The Pleasures of the Body in This World”

Although life brings great challenges, there are also great joys.

Lent has begun but joy is not something that has to be given up!

There is a lovely Mary Oliver poem about her dog:

“…Running here, running there, excited…

the pleasures of the body in this world.

Oh, I could not have said it better myself.”

from ‘The Storm’

There is so much to be anxious and fearful about at the moment, but anxiety and fear themselves do not promote generosity and caring. We also need to be open-hearted and compassionate.

The photograph shows a recent sunrise in Shropshire, UK, over our most famous hill – The Wrekin.

The sun rose over the horizon just afterwards, but the colours of the sky gave me joy, as did the synchronicity of the flock of rooks who decided to move across the view in their contrasting dark silhouettes.

I felt the pleasure deep in my body, as we do other pleasures. And one of the things I am hoping to give up in Lent is any narrow-minded materialism that makes me forget my emotionality and spirituality, my joy, my pleasure in being human.

And I hope that will make me also a more caring and compassionate person.

Sunrise, The Wrekin and Rooks – February 2022

Who Are Your Blessed Company?

Feeling alone, feeling abandoned – these are amongst the most terrible feelings we can experience as human beings.

And the opposite is true – a sense of belonging, of fellowship, of being loved – these are some of the most life-affirming feelings, what makes us feel on top of the world, confident, capable of realising all our potential.

For the poet Mary Oliver, nature often brings her that sense of consolation and belonging:

“I do not know what gorgeous thing

the bluebird keeps saying …

Sometimes

it seems the only thing in the world

that is without dark thoughts…”

from ‘What Gorgeous Thing’

I wrote the following poem when I lived in Dorset, and had a similar feeling of closeness and consolation from nature:

Thrush hurls her song

in curls and spirals and dead straight lines

.

The trees stand as still as time

The hills look down benignly

.

The wind converses enigmatically

The river merely suggests itself so quietly

.

Even the buttercups

Nod their heads with glee –

.

I feel I am among

such blessed company.

And I wonder who – or what – are your “blessed company”?

Blessed Company FWTS

Meditating Gloriously

“I prefer to lounge under a tree…

Of course I wake up finally

thinking, how wonderful to be who I am…

my own thoughts, my own fingerprints –

all that glorious, temporary stuff.”

from ‘On Meditating, Sort of’ by Mary Oliver

These beautiful lines by Mary Oliver are more than a “sort of” meditation (her title of the poem!).

They speak to me about her uniqueness as a human being – all of our uniqueness as individual, differentiated people – and I love how she links her “sort of” meditation with lounging under a tree.

The photograph below was of a unique moment recently. The sun was setting as I looked out over the floods of the River Severn, and then I noticed the beautiful, unique reflections of the trees (they are normally standing in a field!).

How wonderful to be who we are – our own thoughts, our own experiences, our unique, glorious “stuff”.

Drifting

There are different kinds of thinking.

Mary Oliver captures one particular kind in her poem ‘Drifting’:

“It’s wonderful to walk along like that,

thought not the usual intention to reach an answer

but merely drifting.

Like clouds that only seem weightless

but of course are not…”

We could not live without the clouds that drift through our skies.

And we need different types of thinking other than logical reason – ‘drifting’ thoughts can be just as valuable and “really important”as Mary Oliver goes on to say.

I wrote this poem after being inspired by the sky and the clouds – they also seemed to speak to me.

Sky speaks to me

wind whispers her breezes

.

Clouds move inside my mind

and all this seems good:

.

I have seen the invisible

qualities of God

.

And I

have understood.