I discovered a secret conclave of preachers out in the woods yesterday -- a crowd of jack-in-the-pulpits. The names seems to fit best with an ornate pulpit style, complete with canopy, and a tripartite leaf to go with it. Dark red trillium continues the trinitarian theme, but wild ginger goes with a heart shape. And the feathers below, each about an inch or two long, came floating down out of a clear blue sky this afternoon, along with twenty or so others, gently wafting on the breeze. I couldn't spot a source.
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Spring keeps dancing on the threshold, teasing us with a day of sun and warm temperatures, followed by gray, windy days and frost. But she can't hide completely. There are hints of new life everywhere.
This morning I smelled the sharp, green scent of newly cut grass, thanks to the first mowing on campus. We're in the greening time -- in a few days time, the grass has gone from a dormant huddled brown to a vibrant growing green. And a gauzy green is beginning to tint the gray-brown bushes.
So today I'm celebrating green, and Viriditas, indoors and out. From Mary Sharratt, author of Illuminations, a novel about Hildegarde of Bingen, the medieval German Benedictine abbess, composer, theologian, visionary and naturalist: A cornerstone of Hildegard's spirituality was Viriditas, or greening power, her revelation of the animating life force manifest in the natural world that infuses all creation with moisture and vitality. To her, the divine was manifest in every leaf and blade of grass. Just as a ray of sunlight is the sun, Hildegard believed that a flower or a stone was God, though not the whole of God. Creation revealed the face of the invisible creator. Hildegard celebrated the sacred in nature, something highly relevant for us in this age of climate change and the destruction of natural habitats. At long last, some days with sunshine and warmer temperatures, so yesterday I headed down to the Calendar Garden to see what early spring looked like there.
It's an in-between time, with a lot of trimming and garden clean-up happening. The new is beginning to appear, like the hyacinth just starting to poke up through red-gold sedum. But there are still plenty of remnants -- leaves and river birch bark and dried hydrangea blossoms, lit by warm sunlight, stirring memories of last year's autumnal reds, golds and browns. And, unexpectedly, a flock of goldfish brightening the pond -- and nary a frog or pollywog in sight. A little sunshine works wonders. Saturday the sun shone on the huddled crocus from my last post, and this was the result -- Easter eggs. Now today they are covered with snow again, so I don't know if they will actually last until Easter, but they were a nice splash of color before the snow fell.
I spent Saturday morning leading a retreat for Assembly and Assembly North, drawing together some of the themes of Lent -- being a beloved child of God, from Assembly's work with shame and healing, and Extravagant Living, Reckless Grace, the theme from Assembly North. I provided written and sensory resources for three areas: In a Dry and Weary Land; Coming to our Senses; and All-surrounding Grace. The retreatants had an hour and a half block to spend time alone with God, praying, using their senses, reflecting. One retreatant enthusiastically showed me his discoveries afterward. He had chosen to spend time with a dried fig leaf, gazing at it closely, drawing it and letting it speak to him about a dry and weary land. These dry fig leafs are definitely dessicated and crumpled, but they have their own sculptural beauty. He went on to put the stem of the leaf in a small pitcher of water, where it soaked up enough liquid to soften it just enough that he could gently spread it open. The sun was streaming in the window just beside him and he discovered that the dried leaf, seen in sunlight, had a jewel-like beauty. And when held at just the right angle in the sunlight, it was full of an inner fire. What a beautiful image of the transforming power of grace! Then Jesus told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
This Luke 13:6-9 passage was in the lectionary readings for last week, and our focus for worship at Assembly North this past Sunday. I led worship, and wanted some visuals, but it isn't the season for fresh figs in northern Indiana, even in the grocery stores that seem largely unaware of seasons. But I knew that one of us, Rachel, had been trying to grow a fig tree. I saw it in a large pot at her home several years ago and wondered if she might be able to bring it. As it turns out, she transplanted it to their greenhouse two years ago and it was too big to bring. After several years of barely surviving in the house, it is now thriving -- last year they had several dozen figs from it. It is bare at this time of year, of course, but with excellent timing, she was planning to do some pruning that very week. For Sunday, I brought dried figs for people to see and taste. Rachel brought a handful of pencil-thick cuttings that could be used to start a fig, a bag full of dried leaves that she had gathered from under the tree, several six foot long branches, and a jar of fig jam. Dried leaves and bare branches sounds dull, but I found their sculptural shapes so fascinating that I brought several home to spend more time with. Here are a few photos -- I'd like to do some sketching and reflection on these signs of past and potential fruitfulness. Our frosty mornings continue, followed by sunny days -- is this really November? There's that brief period after the sun is up but before it has really warmed up when I find leaves covered with crystals and outlined by light. It's providing me with a rare opportunity to use the phrase "rimmed with rime" to describe this series of leaf photos.
More photos from Sunday's visit to the Calendar Garden. My eye was caught by the lines of leaves and branches.
I can hear the wind blowing outside my window, and they tell us rain and possibly snow are on the way, with the temperatures dropping from a high of 70 today to expected highs in the 40's this week. So a couple of us went down to the Calendar Garden this afternoon, seizing the chance to enjoy sunshine and warmth before winter arrives, and to see what we could see. We found familiar faces of other friends who had the same bright idea, and a not-so-familiar face in the corner of the greenhouse. I'm not sure I'd look so stoical if I had cactus growing in the top of my head. Gulls floated silently overhead, hardly stirring their wings as the wind blew them on by. In the center pond, I saw a few minnows, a tiny goldfish, and a copper dragonfly, but the only frogs out soaking up the sun were as stoical as the cactus-haired damsel, with a stony look on their faces. Still, the sky was blue, with wispy white clouds and the afternoon sunlight streamed across the gardens, highlighting succulents, colorful leaves, and dried plants, and we sat and enjoyed it all.
November is busy with a palette of browns and grays and greens, and occasional notes of glorious crimson. I'm feeling chilly today, and so I am wrapping up in a ruddy afghan and taking comfort in some of November's crimson and scarlet moments.
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My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Archives
August 2020
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