The Unclad Soul

There is a wonderful native American tale told in the Ken Burns series, The West. Seven siblings are playing. Six girls and one boy. The boy pretends he’s a bear chasing the girls and they pretend to be afraid. Then the boy actually becomes a bear and the girls are then actually frightened. They run past a tree, and the tree tells them to climb up, that it will keep them safe. The girls climb into the tree. The bear claws all the bark off the base of the tree. But the tree only rises higher carrying the girls into the sky until they become stars in the Big Dipper. The greatest lessons in life always bring us back to nature, to the land and the sky, to the place of our origin. What happens when our peers, our protectors, turn against us? We run to the safety of what we instinctively know to be good and right. We go into the arms of nature, to what we can see and feel. And, we also go into the mystery of the spirit world, into what we know deep inside us is of authentic value....

“You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.”   ―   Alain de Botton, British Philosopher

"In my own life, as winters turn into spring, I find it not only hard to cope with mud but also hard to credit the small harbingers of larger life to come, hard to hope until the outcome is secure. Spring teaches me to look more carefully for the green stems of possibility; for the intuitive hunch that may turn into a larger insight, for the glance or touch that may thaw a frozen relationship, for the stranger's act of kindness that makes the world seem hospitable again."  ~ Parker Palmer, Author/Educator

In the name of the daybreak and the eyelids of the morning and the wayfaring moon and the night when it departs, I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace. In the name of the sun and its mirrors and the day that embraces it and the cloud veils drawn over it and the uttermost night and the male and the female and the plants bursting with seed and the crowning seasons of the firefly and the apple, I will honor all life —wherever and in whatever form it may dwell—on Earth my home, and in the mansions of the stars. ~ Diane Ackerman

Autumn is starting its annual transformation.  It seems late this year where I live.   Here, however, in the plum colors of this foliage a lone red leaf pokes its head out into the open.  It is ready to be seen and to declare that the season has changed. I welcome its small presence.  We are never far from nature's stunning sights.  Always nearby are the clear indications of our beautiful world.  And its endless gifts offer armistice to our warring spirits.  Be calm, they say.  Find a place of inner rest.  Stop all ungenerous assaults on one another.  Bend low, the gifts suggest, and listen to the music of the earth's changing scene.  Its voice is soft and carries no harm.   Winter soon approaches.  Until then I celebrate autumn's cozy metamorphosis. © 2012 Timothy Moody   

"There is something incredibly nostalgic and significant about the annual cascade of autumn leaves." ~ Joe L. Wheeler, Writer/Author (Photo taken at Fair Park, Dallas, TX)

After the red leaf and the gold have gone, Brought down by the wind, then by hammering rain Bruised and discolored, when October’s flame Goes blue to guttering in the cusp, this land Sinks deeper into silence, darker into shade. There is a knowledge in the look of things, The old hills hunch before the north wind blows. Now I can see certain simplicities In the darkening rust and tarnish of time, And say over the certain simplicities, The running water and the standing stone, The yellow haze of the willow and the black Smoke of the elm, the silver, silent light Where suddenly, readying toward nightfall, The sumac’s candelabrum darkly flames. And I speak to you now with the land’s voice, It is the cold, wild land that says to you A knowledge glimmers in the sleep of things: The old hills hunch before the north wind blows. ~ Howard Nemerov, American Poet There is so much beauty in the language of this poem. The words carry such solid wisdom. We are in this seas...

Autumn in Dallas has nearly come to an end. Many of the trees here have displayed their final colors and have dropped their leaves like beautiful Christmas ornaments that lay everywhere. As I walked to my car yesterday outside my apartment where all sorts of trees decorate the grounds I could not keep from seeing the leaves. They were shuffling in the breeze like children in brilliant dress raising their hands to be noticed. I stopped and looked at the ones at my feet. Bright yellow and red ones; some speckled with shades of both. I felt as though I was walking past gifts on my way to my car. All of that adornment reminded me that it is the natural things in life that are most enduring. I get bogged down in this disgraceful presidential race, in the snarling Christmas traffic, in the sagging economy, in bills and cranky shoppers and the nightly horror on the news. Perhaps that is why autumn was created, to help us keep our focus on life's truest treasures. The poet W...