What a day to behold! The wind is crisp and clear, birds and trees showing its shape and giving it voice! Chimes swinging and singing! It reminds me just how precious the air is. And the old trees that give us this gift of a world. On blustery days like this, winnie the pooh days, leaves billowing, grasses bending days, a joyous feeling overcomes me, doesn't it you? Energy touches everything, gusting in my face taking by breath away, like days at the beach, a snow storm the air being so cold tears whip from reddened cheeks! And all the beloveds of my life, alive and passed, the breath we shared, which can not be measured in flow or pressure or volume forcing life itself into the body, love into the heart.
This painting is called Sangre del Mundo, Blood of the world. I read an article in the Science section of the NYT. It is about a woman who has discovered/found really, that there is a network of fungi that connects the whole forest floor, connects trees together and they share information and food and water. That the biggest tree in an area really is the Mother Tree, supporting and "motherting" all the trees. And us!! Do the forests not feed and care for us? Do we not breath the air they give us? Did they not make livable this planet that we share? Oh they are indeed the blood of this world!
OXYGEN, by Mary Oliver
Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even,
while it calls the earth its home, the soul.
So the merciful, noisy machine
stands in our house working away in its
lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel
before the fire, stirring with a
stick of iron, letting the logs
lie more loosely. You, in the upstairs room,
are in your usual position, leaning on your
right shoulder which aches all day. You are breathing
patiently; it is a
beautiful sound. It is your life, which is so close
to my own that I would not know
where to drop the knife of
separation. And what does this have to do
with love, except
everything? Now the fire rises
and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red
roses of flame. Then it settles
to quietude, or maybe gratitude, as it feeds
as we all do, as we must, upon the invisible gift:
our purest, sweet necessity: the air.
