Relics of Beauty
Microseason No. 33, July 17-21
All the way home, I carried what remained—
A single butterfly wing, what
was a slice of sunlight in motion now softly
leaf-wrapped, severed,
still.
Folded origami envelope, waxed paper
chrysalis, shrouded relic of Beauty’s last flight—
A love note from the forest.
Each time I hike, I try to notice and savor the particular combination of data which stores itself deeply in the sense-memories of my being:
…somber, gray-green light filtered through layers of cloud-cover painting the forest in flat and shadowless forms. early morning air already too warm as Killy and I try to walk through invisible curtains of impending rain. in the absence of new growth, i noticed how tree roots braid themselves into ancient Celtic knot-work along the forest floor…
On a sultry, gray day like this, it can take me a good while to settle into a quiet, receptive state of mind as I walk. I keep hearing my mind asking for what it wants:
please, a crisp breeze…moving shadows…cranefly orchids…new mushrooms…
This is me resisting the current circumstance.
Instead, I must practice being open and receptive to what is unfolding right here, right now—today—to learn to love my life with greater depth and constancy. Unconditionally.
Why, in all of the countless bits of input available in every hour of every day, does the mind save some images, words, scents, feelings—and not others? As I’ve said before:
The Mind is a Poet always writing a poem about its enfleshed experience.
As I walk through the microseasons, I’m slowly building a sketchbook that is equal parts science and art, detail and fairytale, reality and fantasy. It’s a place to catalog the treasures I’ve found while walking in the forest—an object to hold my memories— making them touchable and tangible.
I secretly hope that someday my sketchbook will be hidden inside a trunk in a dusty attic. Eccentric and bygone, maybe it will be an artifact that can move through time, haphazardly, in boxes of random memorabilia from one generation to the next—lost and found—passing through estate sales and junk shops, newly discovered and forgotten, over and over again.
When he taught students at Penland School of Crafts how to make books by hand, Paulus Berensohn was convinced that humans “learned about book-making from the birds” because a book is built one layer at a time—like a nest.
Keeping a micro-seasonal sketchbook gives physical shape to my meditations and wonderings, to the small rituals of an ordinary Thursday, to lines of poetry, prayer and desire. I enjoy it as a tool—a practice space—to ground and root my creative impulses. It serves as a constant reminder of things that I love, care about, and belong to.
We make art to praise, thank, and express our gratitude to the earth.
—Paulus Berensohn
Some pages in my book:
Reader, I would love to hear about what your mind-poet has been doing this summer—feel free to drop me a line.
I’ll see you in a new microseason,
xo Ann
I appreciate this reminder that we cannot carry everything with us, but the process of selecting which details to remember and treasure is its own form of art, its own kind of poetry. Thank you!
I like that idea of a microseasonal sktechbook Ann. A really great way to capture ideas and impressions of Nature and the changes all around during the microseasons.
Love your quote: "The Mind is a Poet always writing a poem about its enfleshed experience."
This Summer, my own mind poet has been trying to expand my encounters in Nature outside of the bird world. In the past, I have focused too much on birds at the expense of everything else in Nature like wildlfe, plants, rocks, etc.