A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

– Albert Einstein

Our farm is surrounded on two sides by a marsh, an area Maria has come to love and explore. At the farm, we are both drawn into a love and understanding of nature.

It is a part of who we are now, and who we are together. There is no living thing that Maria cannot love.

There is so much life in our marsh – birds, insects, frogs, snakes, butterflies, hawks, crows, mice, moles, a thousand other species.

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile, the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”

– Mary Oliver

Living on a farm is living in nature.

I didn’t realize for quite a while that I came up to the country in search of nature, and every day I am in wonder about what I find and see and smell and hear in the marsh.

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, “This is what it is to be happy.” 

-Sylvia Plath

I love to stand outside of the marsh and look in. The soft and uneven ground of the marsh is sometimes difficult for me to walk in, but I can stand to see, and close my eyes and listen to the birds. Zinnia rushes into the marsh ahead of me, it is always muddy and damp, two of her most precious things.

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”

-Lord  Byron

Maria goes out into the marsh every day at least once, she alerted me to the beauty of the wildflowers and green reeds blowing in the winds. She reminds me of Mary Oliver, she can see the beauty I can’t always see, but I feel it and know it is there.

“To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us – and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him.
Gratitude, therefore, takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder, and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.”

-Thomas Merton

I’ve never really known how to write about nature, I feel I don’t yet have the vocabulary for it. Over the next few years, I plant to meditate out in or near the marsh, I’ll get the right boots and shoes and close my eyes and smell and listen.

 

Now close the windows and hush all the fields;

If the trees must, let them silently toss;

No bird is singing now, and if there is,

Be it my loss.

It will be long  ere the marshes resume,

I will be long ere the earliest bird:

So close the windows and not hear the wind,

But see all wind-stirred.

-Robert Frost.