It is strange how the world cocks its ear to that sound, wondering.

Volume Up!

“Out of the clouds I hear a faint bark, as of a faraway dog. It is strange how the world cocks its ear to that sound, wondering. Soon it is louder: the honk of geese, invisible, but coming on.  The flock emerges from the low clouds, a tattered banner of birds, dipping and rising, blown up and blown down, blown together and blown apart, but advancing, the wind wrestling lovingly with each winnowing wing. When the flock is a blur in the far sky I hear the last honk, sounding taps for summer.  It is warm behind the driftwood now, for the wind has gone with the geese. So would I — if I were the wind.”

 — Aldo Leopold, “A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There” (Oxford University Press, 1949) (via Jules of Nature)


Geese Migration over Holly Pond. October in Connecticut. October 28, 2024. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. Video Credit: Thank you Susan Kanigan

Lightly Child, Lightly.

Emotions are high…this morning. It is a beautiful morning here. Unseasonably warm. The chickens are happy. The bees are happy. They do their chicken and bee jobs. I wrote last night that the work does not change. Temperance, magnanimity, prudence. Keep going.

— Ryan B. Anderson, @Old Hollow Tree, November 6, 2024


Notes:

  • DK Photo. Sunrise. 6:40 a.m. November 6 2024. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More amazing sunrise looks from yesterday here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Sunday Morning

What colour is this blowing autumn wind, that it can stain my body with its touch?

Izumi Shikibu & Edwin A Cranston, The Izumi Shikibu Diary. (Harvard University Press, 1969)


DK Photo @ 7:30 am. this morning. More photos here: Time Lapse (90 minutes of Twilight to Sunrise in 17 seconds) and Sunrise.

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

The older I get, the less tolerance I have for affectation or insincerity in all things. It is why I am drawn closer to nature, family, and tradition. Give me the earnest, the true, the real.

— Ryan B. Anderson, @Old Hollow Tree, October 26, 2024


DK Photo. Sunrise. 7:32 a.m. October 27 2024. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.

Lightly Child, Lightly.

Every leaf that falls
never stops falling. I once
thought that leaves were leaves.
Now I think they are feeling,
in search of a place—
someone’s hair, a park bench, a
finger. Isn’t that
like us, going from place to
place, looking to be alive?

Victoria Chang, “Passage” in The Trees Witness Everything by Victoria Chang, published by Copper Canyon Press, 2022. (via Read a Little Poetry)


Notes:

  • Video: InnoRecords (via Pexels)
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.