Enchanted waters call me to an unexpected cascade
It wasn’t here a week ago
Ah ~ the rains have animated the creek
Its splashing waters hypnotize
and lure me off the path to wander near its bank
These are the dangerous days
Slippery, fallen leaves, thick under foot
The softest places are under those pine trees
My steps there are nearly silent, matching the subtle quiet of the forest
An unexpected fording
A stream has overflowed its tiny banks
and flooded my path
Hickory nuts crash close to my head
Too close, actually
The tree across the path a mile later reminds me to look up
where dead-man limbs hang overhead
sodden from the rains, waiting to fall
I listen for a crack, ready to jump to safety
Danger is high above, too
Moss and lichen
on oak trees so old these mountains surely
were children when they sprouted
The hollow tree holds secrets
So, I hum an elfin song
Hoping I might charm the mysteries of
this
ancient place
And awaken the magic of faeries
How old is your song?
As young as Today
As old as Yesterday
Each treasured facet of nature
contains the whole
of the enchanted Universe
in ways I – mere mortal –
can almost understand
There was a time when I lived far from nature. Oh, not in physical distance. My home is in a small valley, abundantly surrounded by wildlife, plants, rocks. All I have to do is look outside. But the stresses of long days and too many activities kept me from looking, much less seeing. Then life changed with a death. My weary and complacent spirit was shocked into another world, another existence.
My wanderings from that time have shifted me to places where nature’s wisdom has brought serenity as I learn her steady pace. A tempo that allows for chaos and change. My path – physical and metaphysical – has led me to many spiritual traditions, to the wonders that science (especially physics and astronomy) reveals. To the powers of parallel potentials and the inspiration of great minds who grapple with life at differing levels.
“Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious.” [1] Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
So, then I ponder. To have this powerful intellect – whose grasp of nature, of physics, of math, of this universe is so incomparably great – say that beyond anything he can conceive or link or chain together is "something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable" makes me pause with a sense of the deep mystery that surrounds us.
I love Einstein’s inclusion of the word "subtle." It speaks of Spirit that does not force or intrude, but in stillness simply...is. "I Am that I Am" in my Judeo-Christian heritage. Subtle is elusive and yet ~ and yet ~ not unknowable. But it must be listened for and listened for carefully. Only with "subtle" could there be free will. If something (Spirit Force/God as I see it) is blatantly evident, then there is no freedom to believe. But if it were not discernible in any fashion, then how could we know to listen?
A Subtle Force. Perhaps the most powerful forces always are subtle, elusive. Gravity. Magnetism. And Spirit.
In Einstein's veneration, I sense awe. Of course, this also begs the question: if he - or we - could comprehend this intangible Something, would we be in awe? But in this quotation, I sense an understanding that even as one mystery after another is revealed to our curious minds, there will be a new question, and there will be always the Something Beyond that holds it all together.
So, I offer this poem, my photographic images, and these additional musings with the hope that they bring you closer to Nature, to Spirit, and to That which draws each of us to Finding the Real~in ourselves and in our world.
[1] Quoted in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Einstein
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