Life Instructions

The nest in the photograph is atop a young oak tree across the street, spread across branches that aren’t much more than twigs. What I am unable to show by camera, though, is how amazingly minuscule the nest is. I could hold two of them in the palm of one hand.

It’s not a new nest, and when I recall how many terrific winds have gusted through the neighborhood this year alone, the engineering of the bird home is all the more remarkable. Whose is it? Will they be returning to it, as so many birds do?

I’ll start monitoring it. As the oak begins to bud and leaf, I expect that’s when the home will be reinhabited. I’ll keep you posted.

Until then, I aim to follow these wise words from poet Mary Oliver, and I encourage you to do the same:

“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
—from “Sometimes,” in Red Bird by Mary Oliver

Sixteen Candles…and Counting

Another birthday has rolled in for me; another day to celebrate life and assess what I’m doing with it. (Some Lull readers may remember that my family surprised me this year with an earlier summer birthday, but today it’s authentic. Today I’m older.)

Just in time for my annual assessment, by way of Mary Oliver’s A Thousand Mornings, comes this wisdom—which we would all do well to take to heart:

“The life that I could still live, I should live, and the thoughts that I could still think, I should think.”
—C. G. Jung

[Photo by Robert Doisneau.]

A Love Primer

 





















“…To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go. ”

—from “In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver


[Art by Jamie Wyeth.]

Stuck in an UN-Mindful State

For the past week I have fretted more than usual about my future, the future of those in war- and weather-torn countries, and all the other question marks that can overwhelm our lives from time to time. Living “mindfully” had become an alien ideology instead of a daily practice.

Then, last night, I read the first poem in Mary Oliver’s Thirst, and these lines scooted and squeezed me back into a better perspective of my place in the world:

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.

“Stand still. Be astonished.” Not a bad mantra, is it?