Of Middle Creek, Mary Oliver, and Wild Turkeys

 

http://www.picturesdepot.com/wallpapers/206463/wild+turkey.html

"You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."            ~ Mary Oliver

 

I’m still savoring yesterday.  Jay and I hiked at Middle Creek Wildlife Preserve, me clutching a pillow against my bruised side, and he holding the binoculars.  I am trying to be good, do what the doctor ordered.  I love that line from Mary Oliver’s poem –the knowing I’m worthy of love even if I’m not always good, or behave as I should or run, fall and hurt myself.  Isn’t much of life about just doing what we love, taking risks and learning to calculate them?  Which takes me back to yesterday.....

We crept as silently as possible, blending into the woods, hoping to see wildlife.  The heady sweetness of honeysuckle drenched the air, a marked contrast to the scent of mud and rotting leaves covering damp earth. The danger of slipping on wet rocks or slick mossy logs, and reinjuring myself (third time is not the charm!), heightened my awareness of everything, the incredible beauty of Pennsylvania woodlands and the truth of snakes and ticks and falling. 

The soft animal of my body loves the outdoors. It is the one place where goodness, truth, and beauty all come together for me. I experience God most clearly through nature. Wonder and Mystery come in lush grasses, diving eagles, blue skies and bird songs, delicate flowers, the flash of red feathers of cardinal and towhee.  Decay and death, predator and prey help me know the truth and wisdom of living fully while simultaneously embracing the process of dying.  

Writing is my way of savoring or processing what I experience.  Savoring is a lingering experience or expression of gratitude.  My field notes from yesterday contain a list of things we saw, but now, as I rewrite each item, I savor their memory.  Each is entry is seasoned with scents, sounds, wonder and joy.  

3 deer -one tiptoeing, two bounding 

6 turkeys - two males strutting with full fans, sunlight glinting off gnarly blue heads, two hens with two bobbing chicks

2 herons, in various stages of stalking

1 lovely pair of Rufus Towhees scratch/hopping in pile of leaves

1 glorious eagle soaring

Turtles Sunning on a Log by drash | Weather Undergroundaption

1 pair of red-tailed hawks, silhouetted, high above on a bare tree limb

8 turtles sunning on a log, oh, those are heads not bumps on a log!

Many song birds –wrens, catbirds, gold finches, orioles, redwings,  sparrows, and a delightful, trilling song bird that eluded our eyes

2 ticks   shiver, shudder, eww!

 

 

 

May you savor what you love too!  May you rise up from the desert, release yourself from repenting over and over, and just allow the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Please share your loves with me…I’d love to hear from you.

Joyfully,
Sharon


Middle Creek Wildlife Preserve- 
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=613318&mode=2

Mary Oliver poem - 

"Wild Geese"

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.