“Do or do not..."

 The scene in the back yard looks about like the picture below. I’ve crossed my fingers that the total accumulation will be at the lower end of the forecast range, currently at 4 to 8 inches locally. We won’t know ’til it’s over, will we?

today’s snow has begun

Photo by J. Harrington

A few minutes ago we had 3 male and two female cardinals at the feeders. I’d guess there may be  a third female sitting in a nearby tree. That’s a pleasant surprise for the new year, since we usually see only one pair at a time. The cardinals have been accompanied by the usual crew of chickadees, woodpeckers, nuthatches, etc. No purple or house finches have been observed so far this winter.

Christmas cookies are almost all gone. Christmas candy supplies are shrinking rapidly. Soon the holiday season will have passed for another year and I haven’t yet sat myself down to fantasize about some goals and objectives for 2023. I suppose one simple solution would be to start with those from last year on which I failed to make much or any progress.. That would include:

• go fishing more often
• practice and improve my fly casting
• improve my sourdough bread baking process
• write more poems

As I look at that short list, it becomes obvious that sitting on my duff reading about stuff is insufficient. I only practiced once or twice; we didn’t go fishing any more often than we had the prior year; I failed to maintain an adequate, accurate baking journal [the same would be true of a fishing journal if we had gone fishing more]; no poems emerged from my pen, pencil or keyboard. Are you beginning to see a pattern here? I am. It’s a classic all talk and no action scenario. So, perhaps my solution is to add Yoda’s dictum: “Do or do not. There is no try.” to my list and call it done.

Red Bird Explains Himself

“Yes, I was the brilliance floating over the snow
and I was the song in the summer leaves, but this was
only the first trick
I had hold of among my other mythologies,
for I also knew obedience: bringing sticks to the nest,
food to the young, kisses to my bride.

But don’t stop there, stay with me: listen.

If I was the song that entered your heart
then I was the music of your heart, that you wanted and needed,
and thus wilderness bloomed there, with all its
followers: gardeners, lovers, people who weep
for the death of rivers.

And this was my true task, to be the
music of the body.  Do you understand?  for truly the body needs
a song, a spirit, a soul.  And no less, to make this work,
the soul has need of a body,
and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable
beauty of heaven
where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes,
and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart.”

from Red Bird, Mary Oliver, Beacon Press, © 2008 by Mary Oliver

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