Early December's Quiet - Sigurd Olson

The evenings in early December are quiet, the earth held by the pastel colors in the sky and the broadening shoulders of night. Nature is clothing itself in winter.

I stand on my backyard deck and gaze into the woods. Thoughts drift among the trees. Dusk fills the snow-covered woods with shadows and presence enough that no discernment on my part is needed, only openness to what this is. If feelings should rise inside me, that would be alright. And if this quietness should bring back a dear, forgotten memory, or spark an insight into something that seemed impenetrable, that would be okay, too. But nothing is needed tonight. The presence is enough.

The silence of the woods, and the journey of the earth through the dark, silent cosmos, remind me of Sigurd Olson’s words, written from his listening point on the shore of Lake Superior:

The movement of a canoe is like a reed in the wind. Silence is part of it, and the sounds of lapping water, bird songs, and wind in the trees. It is part of the medium through which it floats, the sky, the water, the shores.

December is a time of taking stock of the year, of listening to our dreams again and believing that if we take risks and step forward, some of them will come true. It’s a time of looking at our lives and seeing if we’re headed where we want to go. It’s a time of feeling the presence of community, of renewal, and believing again that the dispirited can be comforted, the wounded can be healed, and relationships be made stronger.

Soon people will walk the streets of my neighborhood, caroling of hope and joy. Houses will fill with people and lights will glow from every decorated window. Holiday parties will overheat, people will open the back door to come out onto the deck to cool down, and find themselves listening to the quiet celebration of the woods.

(This blog is shifting its focus to nature. For entries that focus more on spirituality, please see the new blog that I am constructing called Cabin Monk – cabinmonk.blogspot.com. It should be finished in a couple of days.)

Boundaries

I do not make the transition between seasons easily. I get comfortable with the season I’m in, having rediscovered its unique beauty, and I don’t want to let it go. The last couple of weeks we’ve had brief snowstorms that changed the woods behind my house from brown to a white wonderland in a matter of hours. Yet the warmer days tell me that we’re on the boundary with spring, and I begin to miss the snow.

I remember one winter day in Yosemite:

I am hiking the Yosemite Falls Trail up the canyon wall. A scattering of snow has fallen to the 6000-foot level and it gets deeper the higher I go, feeling like the French Voyageurs battling harsh weather on Lake Superior. I think of when I canoed in the Boundary Waters above northern Minnesota, and I think of Sigurd Olson canoeing there, listen to the voices of nature.

Near the top, the trail is covered in ice and I have to dig my feet into the snow on the sides and waddle the last hundred yards. On top, the snow is deep and unbroken. Apparently no one else was curious or foolish enough to hike up. At 8,000 feet, everything is hushed. Whatever sounds arise are quickly muffled by the foot of snow.

My plan is to find out which trail is open--the one heading west for the top of El Capitan or the one going east to North Dome, but neither trail is anywhere to be seen. I also realize that if there is ice and deep snow here, then it’s likely that the same conditions exist over the length of both trails. I head off anyway thinking that if I can find something of one of the trails, I’ll be okay. But after ten minutes of tromping and struggling through snow that is now above my knees, I find no evidence of any trail and stop, unwilling to continue when conditions are so risky. The trails run along the rim of the valley wall and any slip could be fatal. Carefully I make my way over to the lip of Yosemite Falls and watch it flow over the edge and pour down into the valley. I also gaze at the distance, over the stark, slate-gray mountains of the Sierra Nevada, entranced by the rawness of the view.

Quietly it begins to snow and covers the tops of Half Dome, Glacier Point, and hundreds of mountain peaks that stretch to the horizon. What I’m seeing is the boundary that exists between my city life and the wilderness world, a world that exists on its own and follows its own rules. I come here for a week at a time to glimpse its otherness and to feel part of something greater than my life. Yet this view scares as much as inspires me. It’s another boundary that I face.

Vision

Progress happens when people take blind steps into the unknown. They notice that something is missing and set out to fill in the gap. They turn their lives over to figuring out how to make their vision happen, moving by trial and error through possibilities, and putting up with people unable to see what they do, or who are trying to protect their special interests.

John Muir saw sheep destroying the flowering wilderness meadows of the Sierra Nevada, worked to save them, and help create the National Park system in the process. Rachel Carson discovered the devastating effects of pesticides and alerted people to the problem. Aldo Leopold tried out different strategies for reclaiming barren land in Wisconsin and kick-started the ecology movement. Sigurd Olson worked to save the wilderness, especially the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. Wendell Berry figured out how one could do sustainable farming, feeding people while doing minimal damage to the land. John Burroughs wanted people to see nature that exists around them, even in the city.

Stepping into the unknown involves taking risks because we don’t know where we’ll end up. Yet trying something new uncovers paths into the unknown areas of our abilities. The witness of the land prophets and elders who have gone before us tell us that this is the only way that change happens.