Marcoclicks - images, words

Falling on ice

It was a chance collection and not a surprising one, given the time of year. The night's wind had harvested these objects, dropping them on the Pond's ice. We saw them there and didn't give them much thought. Why would we? Broken branches; dead leaves: what is there to notice?

And perhaps there wasn't much. After all, not everything is captivating. Yet, what we had here - what I saw for a brief moment - was more than just a bunch of dead stuff on the ice. Do I want to make an allegory of that, bring some deeper meaning to what is obviously a common bit of detritus? Maybe...

I sat with it for a while. And here's what I remembered: even the least of these... Even the junk, the garbage, all of it has something to bring  us. This junk is perfect and ordinary and these two are more comfortable together than we might imagine. It goes beyond making judgments of beauty or meaning or importance. It is only about our ability to commit to making and seeing sacredness, the boisterous and meaningless cacophony of joy in everyday objects and moments. As we remember to celebrate these, we bring ourselves back to our true home, which is our eternal task, an internal reflection of the celebration that surrounds us in every present moment.

Good to see you!

Blessings,

Marco

Winter, close and far

When the snow fell and stuck to every surface, it created its usual magic. To walk in that, even in the bitter, biting cool of that melting afternoon, what a wonder. What are the words for something at once so familiar and totally unexplored? How are we to calibrate the impact of this light? Looking back across the ice and water of the Pond to an intimate vista: how can a heart continue in the face of such commonplace and serene beauty?

Just take it in. There's nothing else to do, is there? Why we get the gift is not important; that we recognize its power is.

And yet there is more. (Isn't there always?) Because while our eyes have turned back to observe community, we have yet to notice that there is something happening closer at hand. What we see, when we scale our eyes to this sight closer at hand, is another marvel. It is the work of time and the warmth even in winter. It is the close-in  play of decay that provides us with the promise of what we trust is coming as the days continue their lengthening.

Do you know better than to judge one of these as more beautiful? Perhaps, yet it is so easy simply to not see, to train the eye to follow only particular (and perhaps more comfortable?) paths. We are called to remember that we have this moment only, this day in front of us. We have choices to make about what we do, how we feel, what we bring to our eyes. Let us invest our time in joyous celebration of the full range of what is present in front of us. The rewards go far beyond just what we see.

Blessings,

Marco

Winter, no color

Even though the day is warmer than it's been for some time, we can still be consumed by cold. When we are not feeling cold, we are thinking about cold, protecting ourselves from it. Yet the beauty of cold has as many forms as spring. The Pond, still iced over in many parts even in the days' warmth, has a layer of milky water above the ice, a sparkless opal in the thin sunlight. It hosts more portraits than we could ever dream to capture.

What I know is that this is a time of transition, yet again; a time of openings, even in this frigid moment, or perhaps especially. It is not to be ignored, walked through with hunched shoulders and eyes averted. It is to be celebrated, even when the wind is strong.

What I also know is that today it is possible to walk as slowly as spring, recognizing various messages in the ice, remembering them as old friends and as tender as new leaves that will also come. In this monochrome world, we have the blessing of inviting, inventing, our own palette and walking or praying with thousands of shades of gray.

Blessings,

Marco

Winter, color

A winter's walk in the urban woods means letting go of the warmth of home and inviting in the wind that rustles among the trees. We do this because we have learned that it can bring us to a deeper warmth. If we are patient and without expectation, who knows what we might encounter.

For even now, we are letting go of summer, even on this day well past the solstice. We are accepting the reality of bleak, gray days that penetrate like the chill under a poorly sealed storm window. We know in some strange, silent place near our core, that there is a wealth to enjoy, to celebrate, in this cold. We are willing, just in this moment, to move beyond the fingertips of cold, its tendrils, and to push closer to its heart, remembering always that it is only and forever just cold.

Blessings on this chill day.

Marco