Thomas Merton, the late Trappist Monk and author, has always been an inspiration to me.
I’m reading a new book about Merton’s writings about nature, in which he saw the sacred work of his God, it’s called Thomas Merton: When The Trees Say Nothing, and it was edited by Kathleen Deignan.
I think this book will inspire me even more, as I decided some years ago that it was essential that I live in nature among animals.
Merton, an author, poet, mystic and theologian, understood what so many of us have forgotten, that nature is so important to human life, to our notions of love and spirituality. Some of us have forgotten Mother Earth, and it sometimes feels as if she is forgetting us.
This passage of Merton’s is one of my favorite’s. For much of his time in Gethsemane, the monastery in Kentucky where he lived most of his life, Merton wrote and prayed in a hermitage in solitude. Often, he wrote about nature.
This passage is one of my favorites, and Ialso read it in the audio below.
“..I live in the woods out of necessity. I get out of bed in the middle of the night because it is imperative that I hear the silence of the night, alone, and with my face on the floor, say psalms, alone, in the silence of the night.
…the silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world.”
The Mansion has posted a new Amazon Mansion Wish List of four inexpensive items for Halloween and Oktoberfest, it’s a fun list Halloween Party supplies, a magnetic dartboard and Halloween LED necklaces that light up in the dark (and the light). The wish list items range in price from $12 to 29.99 (the dartboard).
Because of your generosity and support, holidays like Halloween and Oktoberfest have taken on a completely different meaning for the Mansion residents, who so look forward to them, invite their families, wear the decorations you make and cherish the gifts you send them.
Their rooms are decorated with the things you make and the things you send, things most of the residents cannot afford to buy.
These holidays stand out in the daily stream of life, they are something to look forward to and cherish. Thanks so much for supporting the Wish List, and please feel free to send your own sketches, crafts, favors and goodies. They are all much appreciated, maybe a few scary masks would juice up the Halloween party this year.
You can find the four items on the holiday gift list here. You can see what you are buying and determine just where it goes: The Mansion, 11 S.Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. Tomorrow I’ll post a list of current Mansion names. Our Pen Pal program is a major smash.
It is better to do good that argue about what good is. Check out the new wish list. My guess is that it won’t last too long.
A Message From My Feet. Maria sitting on a stone wall, Rye, N.H.
I was sitting quietly on the beach with Maria Tuesday, the sun was just coming out. I was reading a mystery by Martha Grimes, Maria had gotten up to study the drawings the tide had made in the sand.
I was dozing on and off, we both had been so tired, it was very sweet to just be relaxing, sitting on the beach, even on a cloudy and windy day. Suddenly Maria turned to me and she has a serious, purposeful look on her face.
I was dressed as I always am dressed, shoes, socks, jeans, blue denim work shirt, a cap to keep the sun off my head, camera nearby. I don’t care for the beach in summer, I feel like a lobster sitting baking in the sun, I’ve never liked it much, although I love the ocean very much.
Maria is an elf, she loves to walk barefoot, sit naked in the moonlight, talk to the trees in the forest, and the birds and the bugs.
And her idea of relaxing is somewhat different from mine. It means a half dozen walks to the beach, two or three drives out to explore and look for lunch and an hour or two of reading in between. Our trip was pretty relaxing, but we always relax in our own way.
On the beach that windy afternoon, something was up. She turned suddenly came straight over to me with great purpose, she sat down on her chair next to me and looked me in the eyes, it was clear she had something important to tell me.
I couldn’t imagine what. But it was serious, she looked especially determined, a look I have come to respect, even fear.
In my happy life with Maria, I often hear things I never thought I would hear – sudden stories of beavers and their testicles, the emotional lives of an octopus, observations about the stars and the dinosaurs, the interior lives of donkeys and chickens, questions about the nature of the universe, sex, food and discourses about the different types of seaweed there are in the world.
Maria is an interesting person, she was different, her mother sometimes concedes, and I am sure she was not like the other children. She is not like anybody and I love that about her. I think her uniqueness is what i love the most about her, in fact.
Still, she surprised me by announcing with great seriousness of purpose that she had just received a message.
Lord, I thought, what kind of message could she have possibly been getting walking in the tide? Was she talking to seagulls, or perhaps a random passing seal? Or maybe even the seaweed itself, she just read a whole book about seaweed.
The thing was, I could tell from the way she was looking at me that the message was about me, and that whatever it was, I would end up doing something I didn’t want to do. She was bracing for a battle.
What, I said with some trepidation, was the message?
“It was from your feet,” she said.
“My feet?,” I said a bit at a loss for words.
“Yes, your feet!,” she said firmly and with authority.
She was very serious, she was looking straight into my eyes in the way only a half German, half Sicilian person can do.
I quickly went over in my mind the various things my feet might be talking to Maria about, none of them seemed good. I had little time.
I had not expected Maria to be chatting with my feet, they were happy and dry and safe in my shoes, where I wished to keep them and keep on reading my book. But there was only one thing I could do.
“What was the message?,” I said, fearfully.
“The message is “we want out of those shoes! We want to feel the silky water, the smooth sand, the salt air! We want to get out of those shoes!”
The message was very specific, and for all I knew, it sounded just like my feet.
I sputtered for a bit, I knew it was a losing battle. But my fee are happy in these shoes, I complained. It’s cold out there, I whined, and rocky, and I’ll get my pants wet. Maria shook her head, and said “your feet want to get out of those shoes. They told me!”
I knew eve as I fussed about my feet that I sounded like an old man, or as bad, an old lady. And honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time my feet felt beach sand and ocean water beneath them. I think I knew they would like it.
Maybe my feet did want to get out of my shoes. And how would I really know? They didn’t talk to me.
I could stretch this story out for a bit, but why waste your time or mine? I knew the shoes would come off, and just out of pride, I protested a little bit. In four or five minutes, my shoes and socks were off, my feet were walking in the water, my pants were getting wet.
And my feet did seem happy, I can’t deny it.
The sand was silky and smooth and liberating, it did feel good, the water was actually warm and soothing. I am grateful to be loved by someone who talks to my feet and worry about them. We walked up and down the beach several times.
Yes, I kept saying, it does feel silky and smooth.
Even I don’t worry about my feet.
My first marriage lasted 35 years, to a good person, and if at any point she had come up to me and told me my feet had been talking to her, I would have fallen over in a dead swoon. Life is quite a trip if you are willing to really take it.
As I walked back to our cottage and I showered and put dry socks on, I was glad that for the very first time in my many years on the earth that someone I love got a message from my feet.
My life these days is very much about opening up to new experience. I hate fussing, and will resist old fartism to the end. Living with Maria, I don’t think it would even be allowed.
You don’t hear every day that your feet are talking to somebody.
To be “cute” is to be attractive or “pretty” in a youthful or dainty way, as in a “cute” puppy, a child wearing a “cute” outfit or singing a “cute” song. “Cute” has more controversial connotations, it is also used to describe women or men as sexually attractive and unusually appealing or good-looking.
Many thoughtful women are wary of the word, and warier still of using it on their daughters or sons. Many grandparents I know use the term so wantonly it has little real meaning.
The children and dogs who are not “cute” or described as “cute” or seen in that way, have a harder time in the world I think. I was described as “cute” when I was quite young, but not since. I have never thought of myself in that way.
I am viscerally uncomfortable with the word “cute,” I think too many parents and grandparents end up putting unconscious pressure on their children or grandchildren to be “cute” rather than authentic or simply themselves.
I called Maria “cute” in reference to something she said or did once or twice. She didn’t like it.
I rarely, if ever, called Emma “cute” or thought of her in that way.
Once in a while children I know – my granddaughter in particular – do something that is almost ridiculously cute. I have no idea if Robin has any consciousness of being cute, of what it means or connotes. Or if she might feel pressure to be “cute.”
Or if Emma values her cuteness. She seems to me to be a very appealing child.
I do see a danger in any child being “overly cute,” it can translate poorly into adolescence or adult hood where being “cute” is not nearly as important as being grounded or thoughtful. Few young girls I know are praised much for that, although Robin is, all the time.
Is Robin being “cute” when she puts an umbrella over her head, is she playing to the crowd, or is she just being precocious and creative and appealing? How could I really know? As a grandfather, I’m supposed to revere “cuteness,” it’s part of the job, and sometimes I do. But truthfully, it isn’t something I value much.
Emma sent me this video yesterday, and what immediately came into my mind was the word I rarely use – it was so “cute,” I messaged Emma, that it ought to be illegal. I don’t know any other word to describe it.
I loved watching it.
I don’t see Robin as often as I would like, and when I do, I make it a point not to describe her as being “cute” or calling her cute. I am much more impressed by what I see as her warmth and creativity. But I have watched this video a dozen times, and I don’t really have a better word for it than “cute.” It is, in fact, ridiculously cute.
It is not a simple thing for a two-year-old to learn this song by heart and want to sing it.
I hope Robin does not know just how “cute” it is. And the other thing I thought when I saw it was, wow, I can’t wait to put it up on my blog. I do it too.
Maria and I were walking on the beach in Rye, New Hampshire, the closest ocean to our farm in Cambridge, N.Y. We found a shabby and poorly kept-up cottage for $150 a night.
The kitchen was so tiny if you opened the refrigerator door your butt would turn a knob on the gas stove.
The front door was broken as were the front steps. There were few screens on the windows, and the plumbing was barely functioning. The bed was barely big enough for one, let alone two. It was the ugliest and most uncomfortable bathroom I can ever recall in a hotel or motel.
We gave thanks we were not there in the hot weather, it was stuffy and suffocating as it was.
It was interesting because there were nearly a score of 5-star reviews up on Air N’ B. The owners must have a lot of friends and relatives.
We loved the beach though and I had the best lobster rolls I had ever had in my life. Fresh lobster and fried whole clams as well. We had a great time, the cottage reminded us of how lucky we are.
We especially loved walking on the beaches and sitting and staring at the waves.
On our first day, I saw an elderly woman walking in circles on the silky sand as the tide went out. I realized she was drawing a perfect concentric circle with her left toe, she had great balance and perspective, the circle was perfect and as she walked around and around beautiful.
It was a mystical kind of moment for me, a meditation, the making of art, the creative spark, this woman, all alone, making this perfect circle in the sand just for herself. And for me, of course.
The human spirit is beautiful and good, given the chance. And amazing to behold.
