Gail Force: The Irrefutable Invitation

The call
The caw
It issued forth
          from the Crow's mouth
          but it was prayer
               on my lips.
It pierced the morning
          separating night from day.
I clung to its echoes
     the way a bird clings
     to a ferocious wind
          no choice
     as it cleaves its space from the air. 
          Slicing the indivisible
               the way a moment
               slices future from past
     yet changes in each instant
     always different, always the same.

I knew the day'd be bright
     whether or not the sun shone
for I'd spent my ~time~
     in the blackness of that night. 

 

"A Song Taking Flight"

  

"Wonderful how completely everything in wild nature fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and; tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love." - John Muir

'Downy Woodpecker' 2007

    the following from this site on the artist REMEDIOS VARO   Excerpts from The New York Times-Science Forum    "Creation of the Birds."

by Remedios Varo

"A woman with the feathers and face of an owl in one hand wields a paintbrush that extends from a violin hanging where her heart should be. In her other hand she holds a magnifying glass that refracts light from a star onto the page where her bird-in-progress is about to fly away. A Rube Goldberg-type apparatus collects stardust from another window and transforms it into the red, yellow and blue pigments from which the bird is drawn. Here, Ms. Varo portrays the three ingredients necessary for the origin of life: matter, made up of complex molecules that scientists have determined were formed by stellar fusion, deep in the interiors of stars, thus her stardust becomes paint pigment; energy, again the gift of suns, beaming from the star through the magnifying glass and onto the page; and organization, the anti-entropy principle, represented by the Owl Woman's cardio-violin. Thus, through Ms. Varo's profound artistry, the origin of life is transformed, so that it can be seen for what it is: a warm-blooded miracle, a song taking flight."

Oecology...

 "...the branch of biology that studies the relationship of organisms and environments"

This past Father's Day my family and I camped along the Shenandoah River

 and I took some pictures of the marvels to be found:

 “The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. ” - John Muir

 

All leaves above: young Sycamore

"Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the Earth are never alone 
or weary of life.”“ - Rachel Carson

Two photos above:  Horse Nettle, Solanum carolinense - a poisonous relative of the tomato

 “Experience the beauties of nature, 

and in doing so, learn about yourself.”

- Japanese proverb

Magical Datura

"Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? 

Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. 

If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. 

If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. 

Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation." - Lao Tzu

Tiny Toad

Mullein Verbascum thapsus

"Wonderful how completely everything in wild nature fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and; tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love." - John Muir

Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta

“Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things,

 it will come and sit softly on your shoulder…” - Thoreau

Zebra Swallowtail  Protographium marcellus

“I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self contained;
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;
Not one is dissatisfied-not one is demented with the mania of owning things;
Not one kneels to another, nor his kind that lived thousands of years ago;
Not one is responsible or industrious over the whole earth.” 

'Animals' - a poem by Walt Whitman

Sleeping in the Forest I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better. -  Mary Oliver                                                     "His labor is a chant, His idleness a tune; Oh, for a bee's experience Of clovers and of noon!"  from 'The Bee' by Emily Dickinson Walnut  Juglans nigra “The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see.” - Abbey 'Desert Solitaire  Hops  Humulus lupulus Ageratum   Prickly Lettuce  Lactuca serriola " If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive."  - Eleonora Duse Redtop Grass  Agrostis gigantea "This is a test to see if your mission on Earth is over: If you are still alive, it's not." - Sir Francis Bacon Squash?  seeds must've washed in Magical Datura Bud “Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "I, the fiery life of divine wisdom,  I ignite the beauty of the plains,  I sparkle the waters, I burn in the sun,  and the moon, and the stars."  - St. Hildegard Von Bingen    "I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you,  and that you will work them,  water them with your blood and tears  and your laughter 'til they bloom,  'til you yourself burst into bloom."  - Clarissa Pinkola Estes Virginia Creeper  Parthenocissus quinquefolia

Tengri & Eje

"Divinity is everywhere all the time.  

You can't take Divinity out of nature 

and put it in a book or between four walls."

 - from Paulo Coehlo 'The Zahir.'

And you cannot take it out of us either, those deemed good and bad.  Underneath this duality is One
and we are all connected.  All humans.  All beings.  The plants and the mountains, the waters and
those who ride the wind...

Eternal Blue Sky

"We share the air we breathe with all other living creatures and every breath we take is a confirmation of the essential unity and interconnectedness of life.  Air is a universal for which we neither have to forage nor to till.  By a miracle of plant alchemy, solar energy is taken in by green leaves, acts to convert water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrate, releasing oxygen into the air." 
- Richard Mabey 'The New Age Herbalist'

Plants eat sunlight giving us food to eat and oxygen to breathe.  Have you thanked a plant today?

Axis mundi

  

 "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us,
our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar."
- Wordsworth

“The Mountains and Waters Sutra .... Dogen turns this traditional reading on its head by insisting that mountains and rivers are the sutra. They are the teachers and the teaching." - Mike Hoolboom

"Nature streaming into us, wooingly teaching her wonderful glowing lessons...every wild lesson a love lesson..." - John Muir

"May your rivers flow without end...where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you..."  - Edward Abbey