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Fatherhood and Mother Nature

Brother Oak and Sister Pine

I walk through a winter scape of hard and soft woods. The Oaks and Elms  are defending their place and holding space.

Barren, angular forms, tense and tight-celled inside. The old ones thick with wisdom, trunks gnarled with knots, covering past wounds. 

Their presence commands respect, and deep down they go, into the ground of truth.  Deciduous, discursive, defining the forest space.

And by their side, the warm green conifers with their rounded, softer shape, create beauty in the barren space, and freshen up the place.

They receive the wind, allowing it inside them and it bends them low and vulnerable. Their brown needles cling together forming a warm nest, to nurture the forest floor.

All the winter-while, the leaves of the Oaks blow far and wide scattering in winter, as do their seeds in spring.

As I walk, I feel the forest coming together in me. The light with the shadow, the hard truths with the softer mysteries, the immanent earth and the transcendent sky, and sister pine with brother oak. 

In the winter of my fatherhood I learn to walk with mother nature too.

 

A comment on the above Poem–

The feminine and masculine are in each person, and held together in a beautiful balance. Strongly masculine men as they grow older need to discover the feminine inside them or they don’t fully mature spiritually and discover their full humanity. If they are fathers, as their kids age they are called to discover the compassionate mother within them. To become more nurturing more accepting of the frailties of humanity that are now more noticeable within themselves and also reflected in their adult children. Nature shows us both the contrast of masculine and feminine and the mature integration. In nature we witness the pastoral beauty and goodness of God the Father. 

 

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Light

“Light exists. But light can not be seen on its own. It can only be seen when there is something else to reflect it, as if light needs a place to rest amid our lives. God is similar. We can’t see Him, we only see where he rests amidst us” J. S. Behrens OCSO

 

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Monastic Retreat

Up at 4AM for Vigils.

Still night. Cold stone church. Vaulted ceiling with columns arched in a ribbed  pattern like the hull of a great ship.

The white hooded men stand at their stations, waiting for the bell to prayer. They are cloaked in solitude, a white army entrenched together in the watch of the night.

Their chant is soft like a gentle breeze. The young monks stand erect and the old lean, necks tilting humbly in reverence to time.

After prayers, I walk the church alone. The columns in gray shadow and only the light of the altar splashes on the floor.

My mind is as still and open as the space around me and a loving presence arises. I can not locate it, grasp it or conjure it, it is just present. I smile gently and nod gratefully.

A Poem written on my mid morning hike :

Enchanting Conifers

I walk among the glorious Georgia pines, standing like monks in ordered rows,  chanting softly as the wind moves high up into their branches.

What is this pine-presence, this soul aching, yet fresh awaking ? I draw it in, chest expanding, feeling a warm welcome in this airy gage of roots and limbs.

The sun was upon me all morning along the open path, but here amidst the pines I can almost see light itself, resting between the poles .

Men of old built stone altars to honor such encounters.  But why search for heavy rocks to construct  images when I am in the airy likeness now.

No, I will gently pass through the monks land and honor these majestic pines by just breathing in and carrying this presence out into the open fields and through the hard woods ahead.