How can such lush beauty be so conspicuous where just three short months ago dead stalks covered acres of barren field? My way to Morning Prayer through the prairie now is quite the trip! Jolly green plants tower above me on either side, and in one stretch it’s as if I am walking through a prairie version of Cecil B. DeMille’s Red Sea. New shapes and colors from indigo blues to bright orange joining yellow and crimson and shades of pink appear and change in the blink of every few days. Goldfinches and little flying creatures with gossamer wings as well as those of the pesky variety weave in and out of the brush as if creating a tapestry of the unfolding wonder. It helps to watch my step to not bother the frogs hopping about; and also to keep my head slightly bowed to avoid the swooshing and feverish flapping and chak-chak-chak of the red-winged blackbirds letting me know I need to just pass on by the family nests hidden somewhere in the tall grasses.

How can such diversity, so infinitely expressed, grow and flourish together in the same place? How does the one thing, even I for that matter, fit into the whole? What do we make of this particular season of life so different from the one before and inevitably becoming quite something else before too long?

I ponder these things, but mostly I am just in awe. Slow down. Look. Listen. Appreciate.  My senses heighten to that which is right in front of me, and at the same time I am beckoned beyond what my mind or any of my senses can fully grasp. In that spirit, I was inspired to write a couple of poems. You might want to find a sunny spot and give it a try too.

One Morning

There it is,
the blue heron.
I had heard about it,
though I am completely
surprised to see it

at lake’s edge –
as if there always,
but I hadn’t noticed.
Today, by some grace
I am held mid-breath,
mid-step, stopped

by feathered glory
mirrored in sunlit waters
and shimmering
unbound, right up
into my heart

gazing at
Eternity.

Pondering Benedict’s instruction
“To keep death daily before one’s eyes”

I relate to that
which is timeless

yet still, situated
in time – birthing,
dying, living today
in ever unfolding

mystery
told in the tales
of the trees, each one,
the grasses,
the creatures
of the air and lake,

you, me,
the other, all part
of some whole

from season to season.
It’s hard to wrap
my mind around;

but thank God,
I can pay attention
now, and perhaps
touch heaven
in the wildflowers.

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The animals that live at the monastery have to change their lifestyle to accommodate the cold and to find their food supply, which is covered with snow. Mice and voles scurry around, under and over the snow to find food. One of the nice things about the snow is that it records past activity for us to observe as we visit the haunts of these other members of our community. In summer it is hard to know that many of them are even there, but now it is clearly written in the snow. You can see little trails from their tiny feet and a few seeds that they drop in their hurry to find food. There are lots of birds that inhabit the monastery grounds in the winter including the usual cardinals (how appropriate for a monastery), nuthatches and chickadees. The sisters have bird feeders near the new monastery where you can often see these birds, even from the warmth of the Monastery Assembly Room. Paul Boutwell, the only staff person working on the grounds most days (along with many volunteers), says he regularly sees red-tailed hawks swirling around over the prairies. He has even seen some bald eagles on occasion. It appears that coyotes frequently visit the monastery grounds at night, as evidenced by their small dog-like paw prints in the snow the next day. Deer have regular trails on the grounds. Paul says they like to visit the rain gardens to scrape away the snow and eat some of the cover crop grasses he planted last spring.

Plants are dormant on the prairies in the winter. They have not gone away, but rather are hunkered down in the form of roots, and underground stems and buds, riding out the cold and dry of winter. They are ready to burst forth next spring when water is available and it is not so cold. Many of the prairies were burned last spring, removing the inevitable woody plants that naturally attempt to take over the prairie. Since the burns have not been frequent enough to clear all the areas of the woody interlopers, Paul and the volunteers will cut back some of these woody plants to give the prairie a better chance in the future. Learn more about volunteer activities at the monastery.

The woodlands are also quiet and dormant for the winter. Here the plants have devised ways of penetrating their buds above the ground, which is a marvelous invention of evolution, so these tall plants can get their leaves out quickly in the spring, above and not in the shade of lower plant leaves.

Celebrate the seasons with the Wisdom of the Seasonsretreat series, that focuses on how the divine enters our lives as the seasons change. The Winter: Season of Stillness retreat January 21-22, 2011 is full, but there are openings for the Spring: Season of Rebirth retreat April 15-16, 2011.

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