Step into the circle of love
on being fully alive
As we progress through summer, and paying jobs remain elusive, I’m feeling a little less like writing new stuff1…maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the discouraging nature of continual rejection. Maybe it’s the dire state of so many aspects of earth-side living in this era. Who knows. Probably a combination of many factors, really, as tends to be the case. It’s usually not one thing because life on earth is multi-dimensional.
Anyway, last week Eva and I went out to the garden during golden hour to bask in the honey-colored hues that cast their essence over the hayfield that time of day, and she brought her violin (and treated the deer flies to some fiddle tunes).2 It made me think of a short excerpt from Collisions of Earth and Sky:
When it’s warm, sometimes Eva will take her fiddle outside and play it in the garden or while she’s walking through the grass near the hayfield. Those days, when simple music finds the summer air, it’s like, as Rumi said, stepping outside the circle of time and inside the circle of love. Love for earth, love for sky. Love for those who came before and those who are yet to be born.3
And then I got to thinking about what it means to keep feeling fully alive, even when life isn’t going how you want it to go, and things remain harder than you want them to be. Going outside to bask in golden light to commune with insects of all sorts and play music is one way. I dive into this more in the Becoming Earth chapter in Collisions, so I’ll leave you with that today. (And hopefully, take my own advice to heart.)
What is “being fully alive”?
Some days, being fully alive is noticing the way the sun casts dappled light and shadow through still-bare tree branches. It’s watch- ing that light stream through the window, making dancing shapes on the table and on part of my left hand. Other days, it’s sitting in a rocking chair, air dry and warm by the woodstove, listening to a fire crackling as early-arrival sandhill cranes and geese trill and honk overhead as they make their way back home again in spring. It’s noticing the smell of woodsmoke that lingers when I step outside and the sound of the seasonal stream trickling in the ravine by the south side of the house. It’s witnessing vibrant green moss peeking out from the patches of snow that persist and the tiny water droplets that hang on newly unfurled spores. Being still enough to notice these things, these ordinary details, is what makes me fully alive.
Sometimes, though, it’s moving quickly on foot or bike that does it, the rush of wind on my face a reminder of aliveness. Sometimes it’s the giggle or earnest comment from my child—the marvel of her existence and evolution into her own personhood a continual astonishment. Sometimes it’s picking a ripe tomato or digging through wet soil until I find a treasure trove of purple potatoes. Sometimes it’s the buzz of deer flies as I try to stay one step ahead of them on the trail. Sometimes it’s air that feels too hot or too cold or the way spongy moss claims the shadowy parts of the yard.
It all comes back to the noticing—to actively rejecting the pull to numb the unwanted. To be willing to open up to the wonder of walking through a forest at dawn, fog rising from the lake, day stretching out like a canvas waiting for the combination of noticings that will transform it from blank slate to something lovingly and curiously created from the raw stuff of living.
So, my friends and readers, what helps you feel fully alive these days? No matter what hardships are peppering your day to day (because everybody’s got ‘em) I bet there are things to notice that’ll remind you what aliveness is like.
Here’s some fog rising from the lake a few summers ago.
And finally…..coming soon……….
And of course, it’s easy to feel like I *should be writing all sorts of new things given my ample ‘free time’—turns out writing cover letters and updating resumes and interviewing take a whole lot of energy, leaving very little for creative work. Stories from the Trail, which is coming out in August, was mostly an editing project, which is a little different that coming up with completely new writing.
They expressed their appreciation by biting us periodically.
Love for insects of all sorts, even if we don’t like how they swarm.