Exceed.

Scott, Pixies Dancing in a Ring by the Firelight, 1885

The National Trust has the traditions of Midsummer ...

A time when the normal laws of nature or divinity could be suspended, when spirits and fairies could contact humans, when humans could exceed the usual limitations of their world.

Wonder.

We all have a thirst for wonder. It's a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I'm saying is, you don't have to make stories up, you don't have to exaggerate. There's wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature's a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.

Carl Sagan, from Contact

Happy Birthday, William Cullen Bryant

Unknown, William Cullen Bryant, 1878

The GLADNESS of NATURE

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,

When our mother Nature laughs around;

When even the deep blue heavens look glad,

And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,

And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;

The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den,

And the wilding bee hums merrily by.

The clouds are at play in the azure space,

And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,

And here they stretch to the frolic chase,

And there they roll on the easy gale.

There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,

There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree,

There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,

And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.

And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles

On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,

On the leaping waters and gay young isles;

Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

William Cullen Bryant, born on this day in 1794

Cleared.

A REWARD

Tired and hungry, late in the day, impelled

to leave the house and search for what

might lift me back to what I had fallen away from,

I stood by the shore waiting.

I had walked in the silent woods:

the trees withdrew into their secrets.

Dusk was smoothing breadths of silk

over the lake, watery amethyst fading to gray.

Ducks were clustered in sleeping companies

afloat on their element as I was not

on mine. I turned homeward, unsatisfied.

But after a few steps, I paused, impelled again

to linger, to look North before nightfall-the expanse

of calm, of calming water, last wafts

of rose in the few high clouds.

And was rewarded:

the heron, unseen for weeks, came flying

widewinged toward me, settled

just offshore on his post,

took up his vigil.

If you ask

why this cleared a fog from my spirit,

I have no answer.

Denise Levertov

Wander.

Firchau, Mum and Dad's, 2023

MY LOST YOUTH

Often I think of the beautiful town

That is seated by the sea;

Often in thought go up and down

The pleasant streets of that dear old town,

And my youth comes back to me.

And a verse of a Lapland song

Is haunting my memory still

‘A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,

And catch, in sudden gleams,

The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,

And islands that were the Hesperides

Of all my boyish dreams.

And the burden of that old song,

It murmurs and whispers still:

'A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

I remember the black wharves and the slips,

And the sea-tides tossing free;

And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips,

And the beauty and mystery of the ships,

And the magic of the sea.

And the voice of that wayward song

Is singing and saying still:

'A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,

And the fort upon the hill;

The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,

The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,

And the bugle wild and shrill.

And the music of that old song

Throbs in my memory still:

'A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

I remember the sea-fight far away,

How it thundered o'er the tide!

And the dead captains, as they lay

In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay

Where they in battle died.

And the sound of that mournful song

Goes through me with a thrill:

'A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

I can see the breezy dome of groves,

The shadows of Deering’s Woods;

And the friendship old and the early loves

Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves

In quiet neighborhoods.

And the verse of that sweet old song,

It flutters and murmurs still:

'A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart

Across the school-boy’s brain;

The song and the silence in the heart,

That in part are prophecies, and in part

Are longings wild and vain.

And the voice of that fitful song

Sings on, and is never still:

'A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

There are things of which I may not speak;

There are dreams that cannot die;

There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,

And bring a pallor into the cheek,

And a mist before the eye.

And the words of that fatal song

Come over me like a chill:

'A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

Strange to me now are the forms I meet

When I visit the dear old town;

But the native air is pure and sweet,

And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,

As they balance up and down,

Are singing the beautiful song,

Are sighing and whispering still:

'A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

And Deering’s Woods are fresh and fair,

And with joy that is almost pain

My heart goes back to wander there,

And among the dreams of the days that were,

I find my lost youth again.

And the strange and beautiful song,

The groves are repeating it still:

'A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.’

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Unique.

Firchau, Chippewa, 2021

I am the only human here witnessing it in my uniquely human way. The squirrels, spiders and birds are experiencing it each in their own unique ways too.

Katherine Parker, from "Becoming Forest"

Quiet.

A quiet, unnoticed, one-man vigil, a direct-action of stillness ...

Round.

Behr, Stoat on a Branch, n/d

For a dreamer of words, what calm there is in the word round. How peacefully it makes one's mouth, lips, and the being of breath become round. Because this too should be spoken by a philosopher who believes in the poetic substance of speech.

Needless to say, all the poet really sees is a tree in a meadow; he is not thinking of a legendary Yggdrasill that would concentrate the entire cosmos, uniting heaven and earth, within itself. But the imagination of round being follows its own law: since, as the poet says, the walnut tree is "proudly rounded," it can feast upon "heaven's great dome." The world is round around the round being.

And from verse to verse, the poem grows, increases its being. The tree is alive, reflective, straining toward God.

One day it will see God

And so, to be sure,

It develops its being in roundness

And holds out ripe arms to Him.

Tree that perhaps

Thinks innerly

Tree that dominates self

Slowly giving itself

The form that eliminates

Hazards of wind!

Gaston Bachelard, from The Poetics of Space

Legacy.

SUMMER IMAGES

Now swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned, 

Precedence takes of rosy fingered Spring; 

And laughing Joy, with wild flowers prank'd, and crown'd, 

A wild and giddy thing, 

And Health robust, from every care unbound, 

Come on the zephyr's wing, 

And cheer the toiling clown. 

Happy as holiday-enjoying face, 

Loud tongued, and "merry as a marriage bell," 

Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place; 

And where the troubled dwell, 

Thy witching charms wean them of half their cares; 

And from thy sunny spell, 

They greet joy unawares. 

Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude, 

And mantle laced with gems of garish light, 

Come as of wont; for I would fain intrude, 

And in the world's despite, 

Share the rude wealth that thy own heart beguiles; 

If haply so I might 

Win pleasure from thy smiles. 

Me not the noise of brawling pleasure cheers, 

In nightly revels or in city streets; 

But joys which soothe, and not distract the ears, 

That one at leisure meets 

In the green woods, and meadows summer-shorn, 

Or fields, where bee-fly greets 

The ear with mellow horn. 

The green-swathed grasshopper, on treble pipe, 

Sings there, and dances, in mad-hearted pranks; 

There bees go courting every flower that's ripe, 

On baulks and sunny banks; 

And droning dragon-fly, on rude bassoon, 

Attempts to give God thanks 

In no discordant tune. 

The speckled thrush, by self-delight embued, 

There sings unto himself for joy's amends, 

And drinks the honey dew of solitude. 

There Happiness attends 

With inbred Joy until the heart o'erflow, 

Of which the world's rude friends, 

Nought heeding, nothing know. 

There the gay river, laughing as it goes, 

Plashes with easy wave its flaggy sides, 

And to the calm of heart, in calmness shows 

What pleasure there abides, 

To trace its sedgy banks, from trouble free: 

Spots Solitude provides 

To muse, and happy be. 

There ruminating 'neath some pleasant bush, 

On sweet silk grass I stretch me at mine ease, 

Where I can pillow on the yielding rush; 

And, acting as I please, 

Drop into pleasant dreams; or musing lie, 

Mark the wind-shaken trees, 

And cloud-betravelled sky. 

There think me how some barter joy for care, 

And waste life's summer-health in riot rude, 

Of nature, nor of nature's sweets aware. 

When passions vain intrude, 

These, by calm musings, softened are and still; 

And the heart's better mood 

Feels sick of doing ill. 

There I can live, and at my leisure seek 

Joys far from cold restraints—not fearing pride— 

Free as the winds, that breathe upon my cheek 

Rude health, so long denied. 

Here poor Integrity can sit at ease, 

And list self-satisfied 

The song of honey-bees. 

The green lane now I traverse, where it goes 

Nought guessing, till some sudden turn espies 

Rude batter'd finger post, that stooping shows 

Where the snug mystery lies; 

And then a mossy spire, with ivy crown, 

Cheers up the short surprise, 

And shows a peeping town. 

I see the wild flowers, in their summer morn 

Of beauty, feeding on joy's luscious hours; 

The gay convolvulus, wreathing round the thorn, 

Agape for honey showers; 

And slender kingcup, burnished with the dew 

Of morning's early hours, 

Like gold yminted new. 

And mark by rustic bridge, o'er shallow stream, 

Cow-tending boy, to toil unreconciled, 

Absorbed as in some vagrant summer dream; 

Who now, in gestures wild, 

Starts dancing to his shadow on the wall, 

Feeling self-gratified, 

Nor fearing human thrall. 

Or thread the sunny valley laced with streams, 

Or forests rude, and the o'ershadow'd brims 

Of simple ponds, where idle shepherd dreams, 

Stretching his listless limbs; 

Or trace hay-scented meadows, smooth and long, 

Where joy's wild impulse swims 

In one continued song. 

I love at early morn, from new mown swath, 

To see the startled frog his route pursue; 

To mark while, leaping o'er the dripping path, 

His bright sides scatter dew, 

The early lark that from its bustle flies, 

To hail his matin new; 

And watch him to the skies. 

To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent, 

The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn, 

With earnest heed, and tremulous intent, 

Frail brother of the morn, 

That from the tiny bent's dew-misted leaves 

Withdraws his timid horn, 

And fearful vision weaves. 

Or swallow heed on smoke-tanned chimney top, 

Wont to be first unsealing Morning's eye, 

Ere yet the bee hath gleaned one wayward drop 

Of honey on his thigh; 

To see him seek morn's airy couch to sing, 

Until the golden sky 

Bepaint his russet wing. 

Or sauntering boy by tanning corn to spy, 

With clapping noise to startle birds away, 

And hear him bawl to every passer by 

To know the hour of day; 

While the uncradled breezes, fresh and strong, 

With waking blossoms play, 

And breathe Æolian song. 

I love the south-west wind, or low or loud, 

And not the less when sudden drops of rain 

Moisten my glowing cheek from ebon cloud, 

Threatening soft showers again, 

That over lands new ploughed and meadow grounds, 

Summer's sweet breath unchain, 

And wake harmonious sounds. 

Rich music breathes in Summer's every sound; 

And in her harmony of varied greens, 

Woods, meadows, hedge-rows, corn-fields, all around 

Much beauty intervenes, 

Filling with harmony the ear and eye; 

While o'er the mingling scenes 

Far spreads the laughing sky. 

See, how the wind-enamoured aspen leaves 

Turn up their silver lining to the sun! 

And hark! the rustling noise, that oft deceives, 

And makes the sheep-boy run: 

The sound so mimics fast-approaching showers, 

He thinks the rain's begun, 

And hastes to sheltering bowers. 

But now the evening curdles dank and grey, 

Changing her watchet hue for sombre weed; 

And moping owls, to close the lids of day, 

On drowsy wing proceed; 

While chickering crickets, tremulous and long, 

Light's farewell inly heed, 

And give it parting song. 

The pranking bat its flighty circlet makes; 

The glow-worm burnishes its lamp anew; 

O'er meadows dew-besprent, the beetle wakes 

Inquiries ever new, 

Teazing each passing ear with murmurs vain, 

As wanting to pursue 

His homeward path again. 

Hark! 'tis the melody of distant bells 

That on the wind with pleasing hum rebounds 

By fitful starts, then musically swells 

O'er the dim stilly grounds; 

While on the meadow-bridge the pausing boy 

Listens the mellow sounds, 

And hums in vacant joy. 

Now homeward-bound, the hedger bundles round 

His evening faggot, and with every stride 

His leathern doublet leaves a rustling sound, 

Till silly sheep beside 

His path start tremulous, and once again 

Look back dissatisfied, 

And scour the dewy plain. 

How sweet the soothing calmness that distills 

O'er the heart's every sense its opiate dews, 

In meek-eyed moods and ever balmy trills! 

That softens and subdues, 

With gentle Quiet's bland and sober train, 

Which dreamy eve renews 

In many a mellow strain! 

I love to walk the fields, they are to me 

A legacy no evil can destroy; 

They, like a spell, set every rapture free 

That cheer'd me when a boy. 

Play pastime all Time's blotting pen conceal'd, 

Comes like a new-born joy, 

To greet me in the field. 

For Nature's objects ever harmonize 

With emulous Taste, that vulgar deed annoys; 

Which loves in pensive moods to sympathize, 

And meet vibrating joys 

O'er Nature's pleasing things; nor slighting, deems 

Pastimes, the Muse employs,

Vain and obtrusive themes. 

John Clare

Serve.

Uncle Ted declaring independence ...

[T]he best advice would be to think, improvise, adapt and overcome, man up, but by all means, leave me alone. You don't ban electric guitars just because someone may have a lapse in logic, goodwill and decency and spontaneously break out into country and western music. The vast majority of sensible people will use electric guitars as God intended and whip out good, sexy rock 'n' roll licks.

I need my cars, trucks, chain saws, knives, crowbars, blowtorches, scalding-hot water, guitars and guns, thank you. Amazingly, I have mastered them all, and they are all wonderful ingredients for my American dream of rugged individualism, declared independence, and self-sufficiency. They all serve me well, and I am not giving up any of them. Ever.

Last week, Uncle Ted testified before the Michigan House of Representatives about the need for increased accountability by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

I could keep you here for eternity with the people that stop me everywhere I go because they know I've always stood up for radical ideas like God, family, country, Constitution, conservation, law, and order, and so the media and now the government of Michigan has turned on the best families who want to be a benefit for wildlife balance because everyone's air soil and water in this room can come from one source and one source only -- wildlife habitat.  So you need to thank hunters and fishermen and trappers that invest gazillions of dollars to make sure that we're growing balanced wildlife, not just the edible ones, but the ones that cleanse our soul.  I'm just a guitar player and I can name all 66 bird species on my property just by their flight. This is a big part of our life. This is not just recreation, though it does recreate our soul, it is sport because it's an incredible challenge because God made these creatures to escape us. But ultimately it's an escape from the modern outrage of the modern world, to go back to our instinctual responsibilities, to be a benefit to wildlife, which is why there's more deer, more turkey, more cougars, more bears, more geese, more turkeys, than ever in recorded history.  Thank a hunter for that, especially the great hunters of Michigan, who are literally leaving the state and leaving the sport because of the Department of Natural Resources. Shame on them and shame on the Natural Resource Commission. I promise you I've celebrated more November 15ths than all of them combined. It's a sacred time in my life, do not underestimate what it means to us ...

Uselessness.

Firchau, Drew, Pine Plantation, 2009

We shall never fully understand nature or ourselves, and certainly never respect it, until we dissociate the wild from the notion of usability - however innocent and harmless the use. For it is the general uselessness of so much of nature that lies at the root of our ancient hostility and indifference to it.  The evolution of human mentality has put us all in vitro now, behind the glass wall of our own ingenuity.  We lack trust in the present, this moment, this actual seeing, because our culture tells us to trust only the reported back, the publicly framed, the edited, the thing set in the clearly artistic or the clearly scientific angle of perspective.

John Fowles, from The Tree

Recapture.

Harrison on maintaining our inner habitat  ...

So powerful were the sensuous impressions of these early hikes that it is effortless to re-create them more than fifty years later. I was utterly without the opinions, attitudes, and conclusions that so easily blind one to the nature of experience, virtually the nature of nature. “With all its eyes the creature world beholds the open, while our eyes are turned inward,” said Rilke. When we are young, in a natural setting, our eyes aren’t yet turned inward. It’s extremely difficult, but you can recapture this state as an adult.

Renews.

Bush, Robert Louis Stevenson, n/d

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of the air, that emanation from the old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.

Robert Louis Stevenson, from Essays on Travel

I'm beginning to sense Mama Nature's morning breath.

Exiled.

One day there arrived a large parcel for the Emperor; on it was written, "Nightingale".

"Here now we have another book about our celebrated bird," said the Emperor; but it was not a book, it was a little machine, that lay in a box—an artificial Nightingale made to resemble the live one, but all set with diamonds, rubies and sapphires. As soon as ever the artificial bird was wound up, it could sing one of the strains the real one sang, and its tail moved up and down and glistened with silver and gold. Round its neck hung a little ribbon, and on it was written: "The Emperor of Japan's Nightingale is poor beside that of the Emperor of China."

"That is charming!" said everybody. And the man who had brought the artificial bird immediately received the title of Chief Imperial Bringer of Nightingales.

Now they must sing together; what a duet it will be!

So they had to sing together; but it wouldn't go right, for the real Nightingale sang it its own style, and the artificial bird went off into waltz-tunes.

"No blame attaches to it," said the bandmaster; "it keeps excellent time, and is entirely of my school." So the artificial bird was to sing alone. It made as great a success as the real one, and was, besides, far prettier to look at; it glittered like a bracelet or a brooch.

Three-and-thirty times over did it sing the self-same melody, and yet it was not tired. The people would have liked to hear it over again, but the Emperor said that now the live Nightingale should sing a little—but where was it? Nobody had noticed that it had flown out of the open window, away to its own green wood.

"But what is the meaning of this?" said the Emperor. And all the court people scolded, and said the Nightingale was a most ungrateful creature. "Still, we have the best bird, after all," they said; and the artificial bird had to sing again. It was the thirty-fourth time they had heard the same piece, but they didn't quite know it yet, for it was very difficult, and the bandmaster praised the bird in the highest terms, and assured them that it was superior to the real Nightingale, not only as regards the plumage and the many beautiful diamonds, but also internally.

"For observe, your lordships, and the Emperor above all, with the real Nightingale one can never calculate what will come next, but with the artificial bird all is definite; it is thus, and no otherwise. It can be accounted for; one can open it up and show the human contrivance, how the waltzes are set, how they go, and how one follows on another."

"Exactly what I think," said everybody; and the bandmaster got permission on the following Sunday to exhibit the bird to the people. They too should hear it sing, said the Emperor. And they did hear it, and were as delighted as if they had got drunk on tea (which is the genuine Chinese fashion), and everyone said "oh" and pointed the finger we call lick-pot up in the air and then nodded. But the poor fisherman, who had heard the real Nightingale, said: "It sings pretty enough, and it's like it too; but there's something wanting, I don't know what!"

The real Nightingale was exiled from the land and realm. The artificial bird had a place assigned it on a silk cushion close to the Emperor's bed. All the presents that had been made to it, gold and jewels, lay round it, and it had risen to the title of "High Imperial Nightingale Songster" and in precedence was Number One on the Left Hand Side; for the Emperor accounted that side to be the most distinguished on which the heart lay, and even an Emperor's heart is on the left side. And the bandmaster wrote five-and-twenty volumes on the subject of the artificial bird. The work was very learned and very long, full of the most difficult words in the Chinese language, and everyone said they had read it and understood it; for otherwise they would have been accounted stupid and would have had their stomachs stamped upon.

Hans Christian Anderson, from "The Nightengale"

Always.

A.W. Hosmer, Walden Pond, Looking southwest from Thoreau's Cabin, 1908

My profession is to always be on the alert to find God in nature.  I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the corn grows.  Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Henry David Thoreau

Keeps.

The elk that you glimpse in the summer, those at the forest edge, are survivors of winter, only the strongest.  You can't help imagining the still, frozen nights behind it, so cold that the slightest motion is monumental. I have found their bodies, half drifted over in snow, no sign of animal attack or injury. Just toppled over one night with ice working into their lungs. You wouldn't want to stand outside for more than a few minutes in that kind of weather. If you lived through only one of those winters the way this elk has, you would write books about it. You would become a shaman. You would be forever changed. That elk from the winter stands there on the summer evening, watching from beside the forest. It keeps its story to itself. 

Craig Childs

Enter.

Munnings, The Old Oak, 1959

What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives? 

E.M. Forster, from Howards End

Convince.

Luigi Lineri collects stones ...

You convince yourself more and more each day that somebody in a past ordinary day sculptured those stones, gave them particular shapes while today they give you a sweet and tormented obsession and people’s astonishment astonishes you and you find incredible their incredulity but all the stones you’ll pick up, more and more and more, will finally convince them as well.

Pleasure.

Tischbein, Goethe in the Roman Campagna, 1787

To-day I have had a scene, which, if literally related, would make the most beautiful idyl in the world. But why should I talk of poetry and scenes and idyls? Can we never take pleasure in nature without having recourse to art?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Excellent.

An excellent documentary ...