Friday, December 28, 2012

Celebration

There is an affinity among these leaves and this sky and these beasts for the flora of the Nativity, the glow of the manger, and the story of the stable…

by Patrick J. Walsh

In the coolness of the evening, in the bright lights of the season, in the tableau with the lamb and the star, the night wind whispers a promise to the broken heart:

He will bring us goodness and light…

Sometimes when I walk in the park, I feel like the shepherd boy, listening, straining to hear the song above the trees, swelled to the bigness of the sea by a chorus of angelic voices:

He will bring us goodness and light…

© Patrick J. Walsh
In the warm embrace of nature, knowing the trees as if by name, I hear the words…

As I walk I wonder if I am doing all I might do to bring goodness to others. I think of the efficiency of earthly monarchs in reaching people everywhere with the message for which I am but the merest conveyance:

He will bring us goodness and light…

And in the warm embrace of nature, knowing the trees as if by name as well as by their botanical lineage, and aware of the animals all around, I hear the words as they echo like gold and silver bells rung on the wind, as precious as peace among men:

He will bring us goodness and light…

In the warmth of the bright summer, the fresh breath of spring, the melancholy whim of fall, and, as now, in the aching grasp of winter sadness, there is an affinity among these leaves and this sky and these beasts for the flora of the Nativity tableau, the perpetual glow of the manger, and the enduring story of the stable and the lowly animals that shared in that long ago celebration of the birth that is renewed in so many lives each December:

The Child, the Child, sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
He will bring us goodness and light

© Patrick J. Walsh

Friday, December 21, 2012

Anticipation


“The bare branches of the trees cause me 
to think of the straw of the stable…”

By Patrick J. Walsh

There are scant few days left before Christmas, and even fewer before the winter solstice. Time is short for the short days of darkness, and it feels good to anticipate the goodness and light that will arrive with the progress of nature and the promise of the spirit.

My walks in recent days have been littered with “little worries” — items on my “to do” list that are not yet done, for example; or last minute preparations that I have stubbornly refused to let wait until last minute, as though worrying would get them done sooner.

Today there is a fresh, light wind stirring the reedy limbs of some sparse evergreens near the edge of the road. The thin branches wave slightly, as if in greeting, as I walk by.

© Patrick J. Walsh
"...the reedy limbs of some sparse evergreens 
wave slightly, as if in greeting, as I walk by."

In the traditions of my religious faith, this time of year evokes images of a stable, and animals kept for domestic purposes by the keeper of an inn.

Cross-hatched gray across the darkening blue of the sky, the bare branches of the trees that surround the evergreens cause me to think of the straw of the stable, shuffled into rough shapes of nests by the beasts in whatever time they might have had free from their burden.

Not yet touched by the presence of the family that would transform it into a signal site of transformation in the course of human history, the stable was probably typical of the modest accommodation necessary to the upkeep of animals, then and now. And by all accounts of zoology and history, the inhabitants of the stable were likely similar in most details to their modern descendents.

As I walk along the edge of the woodline, I think of the similarities and differences between the animals of the stable and the creatures that inhabit the woods around the park.

They are of course different types of animals; although there are horse paths in the park, the large majority of its inhabitants are common wildlife — squirrels, deer, ducks and geese — that has little in common with any version, ancient or modern, of horse or donkey or oxen.

And yet they are all progeny of the development of nature, and they each play a productive role in the ecology of their time and place.

For those who wish to infer a spirituality in the pattern and direction of their progress, there is a winsome link of familiarity between the meek denizens of the Biblical stable and whatever creatures might be encountered in the modern nexus of metropolis and nature.

Thinking of the straw and the donkey, and the sparse evergreen and the deer, the distance in millennia and the far span of the earth from that time and place to this very spot becomes somehow less distant.

So remote from the straw and the smell and the noise of those long ago animals, yet blessed with the benefits of belief and tradition and history, I move through the park as though on pilgrimage, thinking of the family and the birth and the child that were, at this time so long ago, still on their way toward the stable…

© Patrick J. Walsh

 

Friday, December 14, 2012

Driven

I suppose there are those who would find time spent 
walking in the park an idyll they can ill afford...
  
By Patrick J. Walsh

A patchwork rain accompanies me on my walk this afternoon, dropping chilly little pin-pricks of pure cold water in my hair and across my cheeks and nose.

I am tired. As I push myself forward through the mist, I find myself wondering at some of the things that drive people in life, and some of the things that people strive toward, in these days that are so often so difficult to understand.

Although it presents no appreciable physical hindrance, the rain weighs heavily on my mood. The dampness conspires with the rapidly approaching darkness to disturb my peace and rattle my bones, as I shiver slightly after every few strides.

© Patrick J. Walsh
"...in the wideness of perspective that is a gift of this 
setting, it often seems that I am not walking alone."

I suppose there are those who would find time spent walking in the park an idyll they can ill afford at virtually any time of year — and least of all in these very short days of preparation and observation that mark the holiday season.

I try to find time to walk in the park even on the busiest days — even when the weather is against me, and the days are appallingly short, and the chill lays heavily on my steps.

Each day, my walk accumulates time and distance, but I seldom consider my daily hike in terms of the investment of minutes or miles.

In a similar way, each day’s sojourn requires both the effort to get to and from the site as well as that which I expend during the walk itself. And again, I pay little heed to the ‘commute’ required, by foot or by car, when calculating the costs and benefits of my daily exercise.

All this evaluation brings to mind my recent re-reading of Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” (1854):

“I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance.”

I am struggling as I near the end of my walk today. My breath is short and quicker than usual. My progress along the paved road is slow and labored.

The last upward slope before I complete my usual circuit seems somehow steeper than usual. The rain has begun to feel heavier, even though it has not, in reality, increased in intensity or volume.

My thinking has also come full-circle as I draw nearer to the lot where my car is parked. Pondering that which sometimes drives others — and that which drives me as well, in other circumstances — I come to some resolution about my inclination to walk in the park each day.

Memories of this place that I have known so long, and of the people who populate those memories, play an important role in the drive that brings me to the park again and again. And in the wideness of perspective that is a gift of this setting, it often seems that I am not walking alone.

In both the perspective and the experience, I find plenty of incentive to walk, regardless of the rain, or the cold, or the early darkness of the day.

© Patrick J. Walsh

 

Friday, December 7, 2012

In the Quiet Part of the Day


"I am aware of the fineness of the texture of the 
scene as I move quietly across the landscape..."

By Patrick J. Walsh

In the morning, the park is quiet. And I am quiet as I walk.

The air is cool, but warming as the day moves forward. The Sun shines with a gauzy benevolence.

There is a stolid indifference to the trees. Not unkind or unwelcoming, they are nonetheless in no particular need of human interaction or indulgence to propagate the quiet dignity they have maintained during the many decades they have stood here in the park.

© Patrick J. Walsh
...there is much that is instructive in 
that part of the day that speaks least...
 
There are birds in the park this morning; the occasional silent shadow in the sky attests to their presence. But they are more quiet than usual. The chill air is for the most part absent of their normal chatter.

Any slight evidence of movement in the air resonates well within the delicate balance of the morning rays and the chill of the season. The wind is but a breeze, and the shrill of the recent harsh weather echoes only in memory.

Gliding across the otherwise placid surface of the pond, a few Canada geese (their proper name, although I freely admit to having always known them as “Canadian” geese from the time of my formative years) seem content in their noiseless idyll.

At this time of year the park is probably a rest stop for the geese as they make their way along the path of their biannual migration. Those who migrate earlier in the chilly season tend to move more quickly through the trip, while geese such as these, taking wing later and thus more exposed to the vagaries of the oncoming winter, spend more time at rest along the way.

The thought of their lingering at this quiet stop along their way is cheering to me as I walk past the edge of the pond.

I am quiet, but not idle. Each step seems somehow more distinct, more clearly measured, than the languid strides of summer. And I am aware of the fineness of the texture of the scene as I move quietly across the landscape of which I presume to be a part, as the morning passes and the day unfolds.

The experience recalls in me some intimation of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden; particularly that section that the great essayist called “Sounds,” in which he wrote of “the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard.”

That language of experience seems the only communication of this particular morning, and in its embrace I am gradually aware that there is much that is instructive in a walk in the park in that part of the day that speaks least to the human ear.

It is the quiet that bespeaks the vastness of the experience. Again deferring to Thoreau:

         “…my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. It was a dream of many scenes and without an end… Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.”

And it is as well in the movement from idle observance to the awareness of one’s encounter with the greater world that moves us forward, as surely as Thoreau found his place in life by abandoning his place in the society of the 1850s:

         What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?  Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?  Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.”

This morning, the park is quiet. And I am quiet as I walk.

© Patrick J. Walsh