The twilight excursions of swifts echo the solemnity of certain spiritual rituals, when the earth is quiet enough that we can relocate our own bearings in relation to the world.
Tag: nature
All Real Living
BY JOHN JACOBSON A husband and wife live together with a rare neurological disease. The illness profoundly changed their love and brought about a search for meaning.
David Whyte – The Bell and the Blackbird
The call of awakening can come in any form, even from something as simple as the voice of a blackbird, in David Whyte's poem, The Bell and the Blackbird.
Holly Allen – Michigan Green
Holly Allen's poem Michigan Green recalls the summers spent in Michigan with her great-grandmother.
Wendell Berry – The Peace of Wild Things
Berry's poem looks to nature for release from world-weariness and despair, and suggests a kind of liberation through reviving our relationship with the wilderness.
David Rosenheim – Pineapple Sage
Pineapple Sage was written in David Rosenheim's 'postage-stamp-sized back garden, which he says, 'continues to unfold as a canvas for close inspection.'
Mary Oliver – When Death Comes
Mary Oliver's poem When Death Comes is a meditation on death and an uplifting reminder of the joy and importance of a life well-lived.
Smelling the Flowers in Dogen’s Gardens – Marcia Lieberman’s ‘Clean Slate’
Photographer Marcia Lieberman's new book, Clean Slate, is a meditation on nature and temple gardens made in the footsteps of 13th century Japanese Zen master Dogen.Â
To Name and Describe, You Must First See
Writer and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass is a call to awakening to ecological consciousness and an awareness of our interconnectedness with nature.
Holly Kelso – Suspended
Holly Kelso's Suspended takes place in the space of a pause, walks during a period of isolation near the poet's home at the base of a mountain, and at the edge of both a desert and a lake.