Love Every Creature!

“Love every leaf,
and every ray of light.
Love the plants.
Love the animals.
Love everything …
love the whole world
with an all embracing love.”
from Dostoyevsky, ‘Brothers Karamazov’

It was the first time in my life that I had knowingly seen the small copper butterfly – on a recent visit to The Hollies, a nature reserve in Shropshire, just up from Snailbeach lead mines near The Stiperstones.

With a wingspan of a just a few centimetres, it would be very easy to overlook this little beauty, but its bright coppery colours contrasted strikingly with the green grasses and wild plants all around that it was impossible to miss.

You get the most fantastic views of other Shropshire hills at The Hollies – Pontesford Hill and Earl’s Hill…

And of course The Wrekin…

This photograph of the Wrekin shows holly trees to the left (some of the oldest holly trees in England grow in this spot – 400 years old!) and also one of the many beautiful rowan trees that grow there.

On the walk back to Snailbeach, of course there were views of sheep – this is Shropshire after all…

And some beautiful “tree writing”, as gnarled, twisting branches seemed to want to say something to me in arborial hieroglyphs!

But really it was the day of the small copper.

How could you not love it?!

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

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”?

The Birds Who Own Nothing and Fly!

Birds teach us about freedom, so we should make room in our hearts for them!

This is a message I have taken away from Mary Oliver’s amazing poem with the mundane title ‘Storage’. She talks about clutter she kept in storage as she moved from one place to another, and how all these things eventually meant so little to her that they could all be burned in a “beautiful fire”!

I love the conclusion of this poem:

“More room in your heart for love,
for the trees! For the birds who own
nothing – the reason they can fly.“
from ‘Storage’

On the River Severn, there is so much wonderful wild bird life – the swans…

the goosanders…

the swifts…

They fly, and they own nothing.

We seem to want own more and more as human beings.

But do any of our possessions help our souls to love, or to fly?

The Blossoming of Human Life

Blossom is everywhere in Shropshire at the moment.

I have been reading a book called Wayfaring by Margaret Silf, and some of her words got me thinking about how human life is a kind of blossoming:

“Each human life reflects the same pattern as the universe itself – beginning from a single point, infinitesimally small, and expanding outwards, constantly revealing more and more of its immeasurable potential”
Wayfaring, p.1

There has been the deadness of winter, and now life starts again in the world of trees, bushes and wild flowers. The warmth and light of our distant star, the sun, miraculously calls forth a response from life here on earth.

And we also come from nothing. We depend on the love of others, not a distant star, and yet we also long for “light” of a different kind – the light of hope, the light of relationships, the light of love.

Enjoy the blossoming of human life!

Love, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Attingham Park

What, or who, do you love?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s wonderful poem “How do I love thee” was written to a man she fell in love with in her late thirties. This post is all about places we love, and people in love…

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

(from Sonnets from the Portuguese)

I love the way this poem is so extravagant in the way Elizabeth Barrett Browning lists all the different ways her love manifests itself. But maybe love is uncountable: ultimately you can’t quantify love.

Nearby to where I live in Shrewsbury is Attingham Park, loved by generations of owners, many of them happily in love whilst living there. Its grounds include a deer park, and who can fail to love these gentle animals?

Lif4Gd must surely contain love for someone or something. Maybe we should approach each day in love?

Approach each day

in love

Love every minute

that creeps into the room

Love every hour

that glides outside

Love every day

that offers you life

Approach each day

with love.

Some Questions to Ponder

What do you think of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s definition of love? Accurate / sentimental / idealistic / something else…?
Would you like to share in a comment something you love?

Do leave a comment if this post has made you want to share something with other readers.

Best wishes,

Michael