Dear readers,
I hope you’ve had a lovely week! Sorry to be posting a bit late. I’m in the middle of toilet training my youngest, and it’s taking up a lot of mental and physical energy this week. (Leah Libresco Sergeant recently had a fantastic post on toilet training and refactoring over at Other Feminisms. Quote: “Just like refactoring code, [toilet training] means taking a system that works pretty smoothly for now, but which can’t be load-bearing forever, and deliberately enduring a rough period while we try, in concert with our daughter, to transition to a totally different system to, um, handle the same inputs and outputs in a more streamlined way.” Her post considers forms of work that, like refactoring, are necessary but difficult—and often unnoticed.)
This week’s seasonal intention spurred me to spend a little more time stargazing in the evenings, paying attention to the summer sky. My husband and I stood outside and pointed up at ancient siblings of the sun, finding constellations with names and stories older than most countries. I look up and think of Harriet Tubman, courageously navigating sky and land in order to save countless lives from slavery, injustice, and death. I think of Galileo Galilei, writing in The Starry Messenger of his “wondering delight” in observing the surface of the moon and “dancing whirl of stars.”
Sadly, as Michael Sacasas has written over at The Convivial Society, we are seeing less and less of the night sky over time:
The sight of the star-filled sky, a unifying human inheritance across thousands of years, has been all but lost to the majority of people who now live in urban and suburban settings. By one account 80% of Americans can no longer see the Milky Way. In 1994, when an earthquake knocked out power to much of Los Angeles in the middle of the night, some residents were so spooked by the appearance of the Milky Way above them that they called the police to report the strange phenomenon.
One of my goals, before the summer is out, is to revisit Idaho’s Dark Sky Preserve (DSP). For my kids, as well as for me, noticing the summer sky is a way to grow our sense of wonder, stillness, and humility. The stars remind me just how ancient this world is. Much like the trees.
In the latter half of Chapter Six (Parts II-III, pages 86 to 104), Annie Dillard contemplates the difficulty of being present, of crawling out of the self-consciousness fixations of humanity. Self-consciousness, she suggests, “is the one instrument that unplugs all the rest.” Instead of just noticing, breathing, living, we “look over our own shoulders, as it were”—and we lose our sense of place and time.
It’s almost impossible to read this chapter and not think about modern technology. To not think of the temptation to spend our time at the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone National Park recording videos and taking selfies. To not live as people who are worried more about virtual likes and shares than about living quietly in the present and in place. If the temptation to self-consciousness was great in 1974, it’s surely as great—if not greater—now. We are often absent in place.
In Part II, therefore, Dillard asks us to consider trees as our exemplars:
“Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can’t think about them. I live with trees. There are creatures under our feet, creatures that live over our heads, but trees live quite convincingly in the same filament of air we inhabit, and, in addition, they extend impressively in both directions, up and down, shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach. … I want to come at the subject of the present by showing how consciousness dashes and ambles around the labyrinthine tracks of the mind, returning again and again, however briefly, to the senses: ‘If there were but one erect and solid standing tree in the woods, all creatures would go to rub against it and make sure of their footing.’”
Have any of you read The Overstory? It’s a fascinating consideration of the life of trees. Trees may not be as old as the stars, but their lives are far longer than ours. Their deep-rootedness compels us to think differently, live differently. But so do the seasonal beauties of their leaves and seeds. Trees plunge down deep, growing outward and upward in great quietness and calm. But they also dance and shimmer with blossoms in spring, thick leaves in summer, fruit and seed in fall. I wonder: how might trees prompt us to live in both deep and shallow ways?
The shallow: we might do better at soaking up sacred moments, noticing the passing of season and weather, without losing ourselves in the virtual or the distant. We could live more like leaves.
The deep: we might do better at reminding ourselves that seasons pass faster than we think, and peace comes through deep rhythms of resilience and rest. We could live more like roots and branches.
Worth pondering, at least.
In the next 6-7 days, read Parts II and III of Chapter 6: The Present (pages 86-104 in my edition). Consider the following questions as you read:
Where and when do you find it easy to be present, without distraction or self-consciousness? Where and when do you find this sort of presence difficult?
Barney had a great question, based on a quote by Richard Dawkins, for you all to consider. Richard Dawkins alleges, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”
Barney asks, “I wonder if Annie Dillard (at least when she wrote this book) would agree or disagree with Dawkins? And I also wonder how you in our reading community react to what Dawkins is saying?” Share your thoughts in the comments below!
This week’s outdoor challenge: spend at least 2 hours outside this week—and try to spend some of that time doing nothing. No gardening, no walking, no sketching. Just being still. It may only be 15 minutes. But hopefully it will be a worthwhile and lovely 15 minutes!
Another random thought, as I’ve been typing this and thinking about Chapter Six: I’ve never felt more present, more alive, than when I have held one of my children for the first time. I cuddle them close, and breath. I feel the fuzz of their hair, the tickle of their eyelashes. I feel the weight of their limbs and the movement of their breathing, in and out. It’s just the two of us, and nothing else matters. These are not moments you can manufacture or force. Time doesn’t work that way. I don’t remember thinking, This is it. Right here. I’m living in the present. I wasn’t focused on time. I was just living. But that’s the whole point. And when I reflect on those moments, everything else pales. Those moments shine with a glorious precision, every moment and sense heightened. Those moments are a gift.
As Dillard puts it, “You don’t run down the present, pursue it with baited hooks and nets. You wait for it, empty-handed, and you are filled.”
A poem to accompany this week’s reading, from Malcolm Guite:
The Singing Bowl
Begin the song exactly where you are,
Remain within the world of which you’re made.
Call nothing common in the earth or air,
Accept it all and let it be for good.
Start with the very breath you breathe in now,
This moment’s pulse, this rhythm in your blood
And listen to it, ringing soft and low.
Stay with the music, words will come in time.
Slow down your breathing. Keep it deep and slow.
Become an open singing-bowl, whose chime
Is richness rising out of emptiness,
And timelessness resounding into time.
And when the heart is full of quietness
Begin the song exactly where you are.
Reviewing Book Club + Outdoor Challenge Goals for this week:
First: read the rest of Chapter 6.
Second: spend at least 2 hours outside!
Thank you for this, Gracy. When evaluating what has piqued my interest over the years, I often look back to The Overstory and how that book changed my perspective about trees in our lives. My favorite quote is near the beginning:
"That’s the trouble with people, their root problem. Life runs alongside them, unseen. Right here, right next. Creating the soil. Cycling water. Trading in nutrients. Making weather. Building atmosphere. Feeding and curing and sheltering more kinds of creatures than people know how to count.
A chorus of living wood sings to the woman: If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we’d drown you in meaning.
The pine she leans against says: Listen. There’s something you need to hear."
I think this connects well with what you're saying about being present and something I think about all the time.
Unrelated, I recently showed some of my photos and did a brief talk about being present with them and around them and how that has strengthened my desire for community. Here's a link if you care to watch. I start at about 22:10 https://youtu.be/-MUMF1R8TXc?t=1331
Look forward to this everyweek. Working up the courage to go to a new parish after moving and I’ve been a few times and I know it’s not th healthiest or most thriving, but there’s something about being present and looking to root and take the long view that gives me hope in being a small part of it’s story, bumps and all