Amidst last winter’s lettuce, henbit deadnettle flaunts
small purple velvet blooms
unfurling
yet smaller
speckled petals.
The beauty of what I call weeds
startles me into gratitude,
and I sing praise to the earth.
I name you, holy uninvited —
nettle and broom,
thistle and vinca –
and bow before your tenacious ingenuity,
for you glorify the Author of Life
in your surging greenness.
When I looked out my window,
you showed me your loveliness;
your bounty reminded me of our plenty.
All the fearful would surely recognize abundance
if they could see the unstoppable
flowering in this garden,
if they only breathed in the aromas of
sweet peas and angel’s trumpet.
Though the Beloved dwells in paradise,
She cares for the nettle and broom
as much as the jasmine and rose;
both planted and uninvited
are holy in Her sight.
Though I fear scarcity,
you fill this plot with hurtling life.
You offer enough to feed us all,
more than enough to save us.
The earth will make good her purpose for me;
O Sacred Earth, your greening endures forever;
do not abandon the fruits of your flowering.
Audio version of The Holy Uninvited
A note about this poem: In January I started reading the book Understorey: A Year Among Weeds by Anna Chapman Parker, and it inspired me to pay attention to the weeds in my garden. Although oxalis dominates with its neon yellow flowers, when I set out to explore the verdant greenery currently burgeoning in my backyard, I identified twenty other species— many of which I would have considered wildflowers if I’d discovered them on a hike. And now that I know another name for oxalis is Bermuda buttercup, how could I not want to make peace with it?
Then last week, for an online retreat through Abbey of the Arts called Earth Psalter: Writing Psalms for the Anthropocene, I was asked to “bring an object from an outdoor place that is meaningful to your experience of your ecosystem.” Minutes before I was supposed to show up on Zoom, I raced out to the still dewy backyard with my clippers and put together a small bouquet of weeds/wildflowers that inspired this song of praise and gratitude.
Thank you to Abbey of the Arts for this new approach to the psalms!
Some days it seems the only happiness to be found is in the elusive oblivion of sleep. On those days the price for staying awake is high, tears the only outlet for a toxic broth of fear and rage against disaster I’m too small to change. When I feel like my kayak has capsized in the rapids, I try to return to the ritual of lighting a candle to Brigit, a ritual that symbolizes and feeds my faith in the light — that Great Love that kindled my inner flame, that light that can overcome any darkness. Then I’m a little better able to see difficult feelings as potential tools for survival: fear warns of danger, anger powers action, tears are a vital expression of sorrow. To balance and bear these emotions I’ve learned some coping strategies from friends over the last few months that help me access the light and nurture my inner flame.
1. Keep things in perspective.
The sweep of history is long, holding meteor strikes and ice ages, the rise and fall of civilizations, cities destroyed and rebuilt. Positioning the current calamity on that long arc lets you view it in a different way — it may be overwhelming now, but it won’t always be. In my late thirties infertility and divorce seemed like the defining events of my story. Now at age 63 they are simply chapters in a much longer book. If this is the case with a lifetime, it is even more so for a country. In just 250 years the United States has witnessed a successful fight for independence from empire and civil war; Americans saw the excess of the Gilded Age give way to the corrections of the New Deal.
To be clear, the suggestion to keep things in perspective comes with a few caveats. For one thing it can feel limited to the privileged. Perspective might not be available to me if my home had been bombed or burned, if I had just lost my job or feared being deported. Nor should it provide false comfort that things aren’t really that bad. “Pay attention” was Mary Oliver’s first instruction for living a life, which means noticing goodness and beauty but also recognizing tragedy and treachery. Perspective doesn’t minimize calamity, it places this knot of suffering in a larger tapestry. Yes, what is happening now is unprecedented, but as a friend told me recently, we’ve been here before, and we know what to do.
2. Seek sustenance in nature.
My favorite tree when I was growing up was the pine in our backyard. In my essay “The Secret Forest” I describe it as “a bit of the wild in our tract house neighborhood where my sisters and I could climb, build a clubhouse, or imagine elves and fairies. The green needle canopy of that single pine, its sappy branches, duff carpet, and unique scent formed an entire arboreal world, Sherwood, Narnia, Fangorn Forest. And when I tired of company and play, it became a place to hide out, just the pine tree and me, my first hermitage.” Even as a child I understood the solace to be found in nature.
Now more than ever, go outdoors and open your senses wide. Try closing your eyes. What do you hear? Smell? Take off your shoes and find a place to plant your bare feet. As I write, I’m imagining the sensation on my soles of hard-packed sand, cushiony grass, moist and loamy garden soil. Walk among the trees. Press your forehead to the trunk of the redwood and lay yourself down in her duff. If you don’t have a place nearby to forest bathe, look up. On busy days, I like to take what I call “sky breaks” to savor for a moment whatever that immensity above me has to show.
3. Lean into community.
Even an introvert like me needs community. Now is the time to seek deeper connection with yours. Another caveat: social media might not be the best way. Instead gather with friends, go to church, play pickleball. I see people around me engaging in all kinds of ways: singing in a choir, taking a dance class, volunteering, joining a protest. Does all that sound ridiculously beyond what you have the capacity for right now? Text a friend and ask her to light a candle for you. (Or email me, my candle is ready.) Next week you might have the energy to meet for coffee.
4. Find joy in the ordinary.
For several months last year, caring for my aging parents meant spending more time than I ever had before in the emergency room and ICU. My sisters and I were inundated dealing with doctors, insurance companies, and attorneys, trying to arrange at-home care and then assisted living, reacting to one crisis after another. In the midst of this, my mother shared advice that her spiritual director had given her when Mom was caring for my grandmother. You might expect a nun to encourage you to honor your parents or pray the rosary, but that was not this sister’s approach. Instead, she advised my mom each and every day to look for joy.
When I tried it, I had the same experience Ross Gay did when he started writing an essay everyday about something delightful. He discovered “that the discipline or practice of writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle. … Which is to say, I felt my life to be more full of delight. Not without sorrow or fear or pain or loss. But more full of delight.” Now the same thing happened to me: I developed a joy radar. A perfect feather from a hawk on the wing floated down into a crosswalk just as I was about to step off the curb. A friend’s baby granddaughter flashed me a bubbly smile. Soon my sisters and I were texting each other our daily joy, multiplying the effect.
***
As I struggle for equanimity, I find encouragement in a letter written almost two thousand years ago: “Let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” This was St. Paul to the early Christians in Rome, and by light he meant love. Why then does he choose such a martial metaphor? I personally would rather draw a cloak of kindness around me than put on a suit of armor. But choosing love in challenging times takes great courage and fortitude, and I want to feel protected when I go out into the world, not by weapons, not by metal, but by light — the great love that kindled my inner flame.
Nature, community, joy — it may sound corny, but these are rays of light, and you can probably see how they feed each other. Moments of joy are highly likely when you’re stargazing or line dancing at the community center. In the life of a redwood this moment is a blip, and connecting with the world beyond your immediate crisis can shift your perspective.
Darkness does not have the last say. No matter what happens you are held in the great web of life.
The waning moon has sunk into the sea,
and the leaves of the fig tree tremble
in the zephyr come to rustle
the darkness from this mild winter night.
All across this mountain,
through a sunny autumn
and into a dry December,
leaves cleaved to their life-sustaining branches
beyond all reason,
but now,
now a storm is coming.
Raindrops patter on the roof
like the footsteps of exiles,
but then retreat.
Not yet! Not yet!
For a moment the wind holds its breath.
Hills and coastal plains thirst in silence,
and fading leaves await the fateful tug.
All day long clouds flirt with the sun,
and sometimes their private laughter
spills showers from above,
but the deluge does not come.
Instead, across sky and sea,
past fig leaves fluttering in the afternoon breeze,
through the window of my cell at New Camaldoli,
a sunbeam finds my notebook and me.
Leaf shadows dance a mad jig on the wall,
but a poet’s in the spotlight:
the page aglow tells it all.
When I am in nature, I don’t think in words and commas or feel guilty for not being good enough. The forest asks nothing of me, nor does the ocean require an answer when the waves roll to shore. Yet nature seems to offer something for nothing. In the forest I have found holy writ and homily, absolution and communion. Trees soothe my soul in the intangible way that reading a poem by Rumi or listening to the Moonlight Sonata does.
Now, before you accuse me of getting all poetic and gooey, let me point out that many studies have shown that nature is an antidote to the stress of modern life, and forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku in Japanese, is now a thing. The Atlantic and Mother Earth News have published articles about it, and you can even get certified as a Forest Therapy Guide!
Yesterday I sat for half an hour in a friend’s garden. A pair of butterflies danced concentric circles in the air, and aspen leaves fluttered in the breeze like a baby giggling when her feet are tickled. Water murmured sweet nothings to the world as it trickled from a fountain, and all around desire burst forth: of roots for damp earth and of leaves for light. In every moment this desire was quenched and arose again.
The forest vibrates with desire, as does your own backyard. Just looking out the window at trees can deliver the benefits of shinrin-yoku, but it’s best to go outdoors. Breathe the same air as the trees, take in their greenness with all your senses, let the same delicious light touch your thirsty skin. When you put your feet in contact with that same earth where roots are questing, you can breathe in beauty and exhale peace.
The Kingdom of Enough 