Landscapes far and near

I have just come from two hours of unbounded-ness. Two hours that included conversations with a coffee purveyor, a baker, a seller of brussel sprouts, and a small baby quite taken with the rose color of my corduroy shirt; that pair of hours included reading from a book called The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane about his walking of ancient pathways in the world, their topo/geo/graphy, their geology, and their influence on the person (this chapter is about Palestine); I wrote to several friends in other places and also spent some of the time simply watching and listening to all that surrounded me from my vantage point on the steps of our local Farmers Market by the harbor.

I love these letting go moments...when I am able to be within mind and heart and book and surroundings all at the same time...when the confluence of all is murmuring "home" in a harmony of voices.

I am finding Macfarlane's book an exquisite read. His use of language, the topic, and the images he shapes with his syllables have me aching for moments to read...and to read in open spaces because the feeling inside me needs room. Yesterday I copied out some lines after reading about his friend who handed him a feather carved from dolorite with a whale rib as a spine.

~~The feather was cool on my hands and impossibly heavy. Its density seemed supernatural. It longed to fall, dragging my arms down. This was its brilliant contradiction as an object--it was a feather that yearned for the earth, a flight-object supercharged with gravity.~~ The Old Ways, p. 175

A flight-object supercharged with gravity...

When I read that I thought YES!! I understand that!! The yearning to be grounded and the ache to fly...to be free...to find ways to embody both, to make known both... and isn't that the nature of The Love to which I have given my life...both grounded and unbound... a call to presence and a call to freedom... a call to Be and a call to Go Forth... A call to trust in the foundation of God and in the wind of the Spirit.

 

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