Green Way

When cold December
Froze to grisamber
The jangling bells on the sweet rose-trees–
Then fading slow
And furred is the snow
As the almond’s sweet husk–
And smelling like musk.
The snow amygdaline
Under the eglantine
Where the bristling stars shine
Like a gilt porcupine–
The snow confesses
The little Princesses
On their small chioppines
Dance under the orpines.
See the casuistries
Of their slant fluttering eyes–
Gilt as the zodiac
(Dancing Herodiac).
Only the snow slides
Like gilded myrrh–
From the rose-branches–hides
Rose-roots that stir.
- Dame Edith Sitwell, When Cold December

December: Poems, Quotes, Lore, Myths, Garden Chores

“I speak cold silent words a stone might speak
If it had words or consciousness,
Watching December moonlight on the mountain peak,
Relieved of mortal hungers, the whole mess
Of needs, desires, ambitions, wishes, hopes.
This stillness in me knows the sky’s abyss,
Reflected by blank snow along bare slopes,
If it had words or consciousness,
Would echo what a thinking stone might say
To praise oblivion words can’t possess
As inorganic muteness goes its way.
There’s no serenity without the thought serene,
Owl-flight without spread wings, honed eyes, hooked beak,
Absence without the meaning absence means.
To rescue bleakness from the bleak,
I speak cold silent words a stone might speak.”
- Robert Pack, Stone Thoughts

Bighorn Medicine Wheel, Wyoming

Sacred Stone Circles: Bibliography, Links, Resources, Notes, Quotations

“Who am I?”

Such a strange question,
uttered endlessly,
by weekend seekers of the Lost Psyche.
Feigning amnesia,
they blather about their true selves,
their Grand Soul lost somewhere outside their petty lives,
hidden away and blocked by fleeting fleshy passions,
stolen away by the finite soma and mundane mind.

Their Real Self: pure, eternal, blissful, free, true, wonderful;
right around the supernatural corner,
waiting for them like a blind date.

You know who you are!

You are a unique body - interdependent with the watery world;
a boxcar of moving memories - a rich history;
known from the fruits of your work;
meshed with some family, holding somebody dear;
Somebody - unique as the fingerprint of your DNA;
named, spoken for, finite, listening, and …
Your search for “my true self”, your anxious questioning,
makes no sense.

A stale mantra,
a face before you were born koan:
“Who am I?”, sterile, silly,
Pointless.
Yet, following an irrelevant spiritual advisor’s advice,
You try to figure it out, for hours and weeks,
befuddled, awed by your confusion, thinking
It’s your puny powers of meditation or belief or determination
that keep you from discovering
The Holy Grail of the Genuine Self.

You know who you are!

You might want to change who you are,
or forget who you were,
or tell others about who you are,
or learn why you get tricked into asking yourself this foolish question …
but those are quite different issues.

- Mike Garofalo, Above the Fog

“Who are you? Who? Who”
- The Who, Who Are You, 1978

“Winter weeks we huddled by the hot stove,
Spring days we shivered in the sunshine,
Summer hours we sat in the shade,
Autumn minutes we stared at the moon.
We had idle thoughts, we had no thoughts.
Life made our hearts cry, and it lifted our spirits high.
The ordinary, the exceptional,
The chosen, the accepted,
The very good, the very bad,
Fresh figs, rotten peaches,
The beautiful, the deformed.
They appeared and disappeared.
Samsara and Nirvana ….
Here and Gone.”

- Mike Garofalo, Above the Fog

“Down the mystic avenue I walk again
Remembering the days gone by
And I’m knocking with my heart

And all the girls walk by
In all their summer fashions
And the church bells chime
On a summer Sunday afternoon

She gives me religion
She gives me religion

And the angel of imagination
Opened up my gate
She said “come right in
I saw you knocking with your heart.”

And the angel of imagination
She lit your fiery vision bright
Let your flame burn into the night
I saw you knocking with your heart

She gives me religion
She gives me religion
It’s all right

And all the girls walk by
In all their summer fashions
And the church bells chime
On a summer Sunday afternoon

It’s all right
She gives me religion
I said she gives me religion
And I’m knocking and I’m knocking with my heart
And I’m knocking, knocking with my heart
And I’m knocking with my heart.”

Lyrics by Van Morrison
From the “Beautiful Vision” album, song “She Gives me Religion” by Van Morrison
Warner Brothers, 1982

At times, I listen to this gentle, beautiful song over and over. Aaaaahhhhh!

the angel of imagination ….

“Red boughs bursting everywhere;
Shimmering of seeded grass;
Hooded gentians all a’mass.
Warmth of earth, and cloudless wind
Tearing off the husky rind,
Blowing feathered seeds to fall
By the sun-baked, sheltering wall.
Beech trees in a golden haze;
Hardy sumachs all ablaze,
Glowing through the silver birches.
How that pine tree shouts and lurches!
From the sunny door-jamb high,
Swings the shell of a butterfly.
Scrape of insect violins
Through the stubble shrilly dins.
Every blade’s a minaret
Where a small muezzin’s set,
Loudly calling us to pray
At the miracle of day.
Then the purple-lidded night
Westering comes, her footsteps light
Guided by the radiant boon
Of a sickle-shaped new moon.”

- Amy Lowell, Late September

Green Way Wisdom - September

“Who am I?”

Such a strange question,
uttered endlessly,
by weekend seekers of the Lost Psyche.
Feigning amnesia,
they blather about their true selves,
their Grand Soul lost somewhere outside their petty lives,
hidden away and blocked by fleeting fleshy passions,
stolen away by the finite soma and mundane mind.

Their Real Self: pure, eternal, blissful, free, true, wonderful;
right around the supernatural corner,
waiting for them like a blind date.

You know who you are!

You are a unique body - interdependent with the watery world;
a boxcar of moving memories - a rich history;
known from the fruits of your work;
meshed with some family, holding somebody dear;
Somebody - unique as the fingerprint of your DNA;
named, spoken for, listening, and …
Your search for “yourself”, your anxious questioning,
makes no sense.

A stale mantra,
a face before you were born koan:
“Who am I?”, sterile, silly,
Pointless.
Yet, following an irrelevant spiritual advisor’s advice,
You try to figure it out, for hours and weeks,
befuddled, awed by your confusion, thinking
It’s your puny powers of meditation or belief or determination
that keep you from discovering
The Holy Grail of the Genuine Self.

You know who you are!

You might want to change who you are,
or forget who you were,
or tell others about who you are,
or learn why you get tricked into asking yourself this foolish question …
but those are quite different issues.

- Mike Garofalo, Above the Fog

“Who are you? Who? Who”
- The Who, Who Are You, 1978

“I used to imagine him
coming from the house, like Merlin
strolling with important gestures
through the garden
where everything grows so thickly,
where birds sing, little snakes lie
on the boughs, thinking of nothing
but their own good lives,
where petals float upward,
their colors exploding,
and trees open their moist
pages of thunder –
it has happened every summer for years.

But now I know more
about the great wheel of growth,
and decay, and rebirth,
and know my vision for a falsehood.
Now I see him coming from the house –
I see him on his knees,
cutting away the diseased, the superfluous,
coaxing the new,
knowing that the hour of fulfillment
is buried in years of patience –
yet willing to labor like that
on the mortal wheel.”
- Mary Oliver, Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006)

“Winter weeks we huddled by the hot stove,
Spring days we shivered in the sunshine,
Summer hours we sat in the shade,
Autumn minutes we stared at the moon.
We had idle thoughts, we had no thoughts.
Life made our hearts cry, and it lifted our spirits high.
The ordinary, the exceptional,
The chosen, the accepted,
The very good, the very bad,
Fresh figs, rotten peaches,
The beautiful, the deformed.
They appeared and disappeared.
Samsara and Nirvana ….
Here and Gone.”

- Mike Garofalo, Above the Fog

“I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.”

- Joyce Kilmer, 1886-1918, Trees

Trees, and an enviornment favorable to the growth of trees,
make more trees.

Men pick the fruit or eat the seeds of these trees.
Men cut down these trees for lumber and firewood.
Men even create new varieties of trees.

Men then insist on pretending that something fashioned in their
fertile imaginations into their own image and likeness, a God, actually
makes trees. What a fruitless fantasy!

Joyce Kilmer’s poem is still a delightful rhyme for us tender minded
gardeners and lovers of the Green Way. Who can ever resist:

“A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair.”

Green Way Widsom- Trees