A Patch of Woods

I love you, gentlest of Ways,
who ripened us as we wrestled with you.

You, the great homesickness we could never shake off,
you, the forest that always surrounded us,…
Rilke, excerpted from 'Ich liebe dich, du sanftestes Gesetz'

After a good soaking rain, the crickets are full of delight this morning, singsawing their chorus from roosts in the trees that swells and ebbs to a rhythm only they understand. Here in the woods, the tinny sound provides the background music for summer. Even in suburbia, given just a few trees, they manage to take up residence in a proprietary sort of way as a reminder despite all our advancement, we are still part of the Real World.

Woods are a universe all their own and something good and nourishing happens to us when we spend time there. They buffer us from the daily onslaught of noise and chatter and offer us an opportunity to hear quieter sounds including those of our own hearts. Walking under their branches can provide a feeling of protection and shelter in those times when we feel vulnerable and lost. But the greatest treasure they bestow is the gift of sanctuary. Groves of trees were among the earliest holy places. When we step out of the ring of daily life, bruised and bloodied by the burdens of our cares, we find there a confessional corner of bark that can listen without judgment to everything we say and feel. With the crickets for a choir we can empty our troubled hearts, and begin to realize that what is underneath is more than a desire for solutions. We are homesick for something more lasting and essential that understands the mystery of our lives in ways we cannot. Something that can salve our wounds with the assurance that what we are experiencing does have purpose and meaning. There in the shifting leaf light, the quiet air, we can spend time off the ropes of life with God however we envision that numinous entity to be. In return through the communion of our prayers, in the sanctuary of leaf and trunk and bark, we are offered renewal enough for yet another round when the bell rings.

It's here in all the pieces of my shame
that now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart—
Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God—spend them however you want.
Rilke, Book of Hours