HERD ABOUT IT? by ana grarian

I would title this

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Morning

On this wintry morning I love this poem from Jon Katz’s Bedlam Farm blog,

Tell me, why should I not sit, each winter morning,

every cold morning,

and look directly into the radiant world,

the shining star that is life.

…though I would have topped it with some of my favorite Lennart Helje artwork rather than the bleak RV in a field that reminds me too much of Jon Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild” about a young man who died in the Alaskan wilderness.

I also would change the references to God to a feminine form, or preferably gender neutral if it could be done fluidly.

I wait for her him there.

I nod to the gospel of light,

the holy radiance of color,

my God sweeps down from the icy clouds, she

he needs no Bible, no robe, no angels, she

he comes

to kiss my cheek, embrace me in her his loving,

healing grip, to look me in the eye.Her

His very gaze melts the ice that grip my fingers and

makes my heart glow like a fiery star.

 

This morning the ‘big storm’ we were told would come Saturday night and stay through Tuesday morning has finally arrived. It is too soon to tell if it will bring the accumulations of ice and snow that were predicted.

Like my grandson who has been blessed with a two hour delay that morphed into a snow day, I can sit and gaze out my window at this classic winter morning with fat flakes falling straight down onto the already thickly blanketed landscape, and appreciate its beauty.

I don’t have to be anywhere until later this afternoon, and I have a tall 4 wheel drive vehicle. Unlike so many of my neighbors (or myself 4 days a week), who still need to arrive at work on time, properly dressed (for the office, not the weather).

I don’t have the chaos of finding childcare on a day when most facilities are closed (even home based day-cares), because they close whenever the school does.

I no longer even have the annoyance of finding a parking space during the months when odd/even parking restrictions halve options though demand has risen by necessity.

I can look forward to shoveling the white stuff in the quiet of my rural neighborhood, safe in the knowledge that the snow blower awaits if need be, and that where I am now, the absence of significant wind means that snow that gets shoveled, will stay where I put it.

Back on the farm the wind would charge across the open fields, dragging the snow off the front yard and depositing it in a waist high drift between the house and the barn. Most mornings we just waded through. It was more important to get to the barn, make sure the water buckets and pipes hadn’t frozen, and get the cows milked and fed. Every other day we had to be sure the driveway was plowed enough for the milk truck to get in and out.

Today I have only to walk to the coop and make sure the ducks/chickens/guineas have fresh, unfrozen water, and feed in their trough. I am so glad they had Saturday and Sunday to wander the yard some, even if it was just to walk around the barn and inside the front door to watch me cut and split wood.That firewood now waits just outside my door under cover of tarps.

“My Lord, I say, I have learned to be

passionate about beauty and justice,

the sublime and the sacred. I have learned to

live by my own lights, and not the call of others.”

 

I would have to admit that I am learning to live by my own lights and not the call of others. The pressure of what I ‘should’ be doing still too often weighs heavily on me, but for at least the next few hours I will listen to the goddesses’ wintry song and feel it has

lit the creative spark,

it has warmed my soul and cast a light upon the shadows.