Fox

Out for a stroll and a meal.

When I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

~ Mary Oliver

A Monday meander: Loons

Yesterday evening out at the Point.

Anytime loon shows up as a totem, it is calling to you to pay attention to your dreams.  It indicates that they will be of greater importance, along with becoming more vibrant and colorful.  The haunting call of the loon may also be telling you that all those hopes, wishes, and dreams that you have tucked to the back of the heart are about to come to the surface.  The loon may be signalling you not to compromise them again, or you may truly find yourself haunted.

The loon will teach new states of consciousness.  It will also help you to deepen those you have already awakened.  Because it lives close to the water — at the shore line — it can teach you to use these various states of consciousness to open to new dimensions and other life forms…

… To most people, the call of the loon is its most distinguishing feature.  It is haunting and touches the soul in a primal way.  The loon is actually very talkative, and it has a whole repertory of calls — each different in sound and meaning.  One of its calls is similar to the sound of a wolf howl.  One is like a trilling laugh.  It will often use the call to distract predators away from the nest.  To many outdoors people, the loon call is the true call of the wild.  It stirs the primal embers within all who hear it — no matter how long those embers have lain cool.  It is as if the sound is calling forth all that we have ignored or shoved to the back of the closet in our minds.

~ Ted Andrews, Animal Speak

Silent Sunday

 

Saturday darkness

Before the darkness falls.

There are so many unsung heroines and heroes at this broken moment in our collective story, so many courageous persons who, unbeknownst to themselves, are holding together the world by their resolute love or contagious joy. Although I do not know your names, I can feel you out there.

~ David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology

A ramble around the pond at Pocomoke River State Park

Reflections of autumn. (The pond at Pocomoke River State Park yesterday.)

If you catch a fragrance of the unseen,
like that, you will not be able
to be contained.
You will be out in empty sky.

Any beauty the world has, any desire,
will easily be yours.

As you live deeper in the heart,
the mirror gets clearer and cleaner.

~ Rumi, excerpted from Out in the Empty Sky

Hope

When the light is obscured. (Moonrise last night.)

Truly it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest all of us.

~Meister Eckhart

Regardless of the shadows that cross the moon to make it appear less than it is, to the moon, it is always full, so it is with us.

~Buddha

A short walk around Cape May

On the beach. (Thursday, October 4)

Victorian rigidities were such that ladies were not even allowed to blow out candles in mixed company, as that required them to pucker their lips suggestively. They could not say that they were going “to bed”–that planted too stimulating an image–but merely that they were “retiring.” It became effectively impossible to discuss clothing in even a clinical sense without resort to euphemisms. Trousers became “nether integuments” or simply “inexpressibles” and underwear was “linen.” Women could refer among themselves to petticoats or, in hushed tones, stockings, but could mention almost nothing else that brushed bare flesh.

~ Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life