"These I Have Loved"
Of course, we try to remember to leave the doors slightly cracked for them.
We planted a pear tree when we first moved into our house in Beaverton, Oregon. It was the first of the fruit trees that we planted in our side yard. I enjoy watching the response of the tree to the seasons. Over the years I have watched as it grew taller and taller into the graceful and beautiful tree that it has now become. Now it produces at least a bushel of pears by the middle of September. We never spray it; just prune it occasionally.
I stare out my window as I write this article and note that is now late October, and its leaves have only now begun to yellow and drop off.
My mother is now quite elderly and lives an entire continent away from me. Our telephone calls have become very precious—as things always seem to do when we are no longer sure how long they will last. Now that I am older also, I enjoy being friends with her and sharing memories of growing up. We are both so much more honest with our feelings. Communication is now a joy.
Sitting meditation in the morning is a time when I get in touch with my inner self. I usually feel more relaxed and find it easier to follow my techniques in the morning. I feel like I find shelter in my true home; reach a place that I cannot explain. When it is truly happening heart and head merge to produce a sense of oneness and I understand the expression, “Be still and know that I am god.”
Visual creature that I am, I love the discovery of the world each day in terms of light and the seemingly infinite manifestation of the forms of the creator spirit. Here--with apologies to Rupert Brooke--are a few of the sights that I enjoy:
Blue shadows drifting over mountain and valley as clouds pass over the sun. . .Sudden stirring under leaves of green shoots in March. . .Joyce’s quick, warm smile. . .Finding wild strawberries. . .tasting them so sweet and almost fierce with tartness. . .Small children delighting in the spray of a fountain. . .Twins wheeled in baby carriages built for two. . .Ravens sprinkled like peppercorns across our lawn. . .The young wrapped in each others arms. . .Soft, muted colors of a rainy day. .
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