Mindful

Every day

I see or I hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light,

It is what I was born for--

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world--

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation,

Nor am I talking

about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful;,

the very extravagant--

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these--

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean's shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?

Mary Oliver

Why I Wake Early

There have been many teachers in my life - more than I can remember- coaxing me this direction or that direction. "Let me show you a way" "if you learn this, happiness will follow" "Lean this way. You'll be better" And each has brought me lessons or lesson plans. Engaged my intellect,and given mer fodder. Each so valuable in the final mural of my life.

There were teachers who didn't know they were my teachers (and vice versa) - friends, family, situations, non-friends, people I watched, movies i saw, , books that made it to my lap, husbands and lovers and their friends and their families, co-workers, bosses, dogs, Sienna, cats, Diablow, llamas, alpacas, green beans that wouldn't grow, crowded cabbages that just wanted more room (dummy). But the stars shine bright (like Christmas night) over these generous ones who have opened their lives to me so that I might hear a new song: David, Keli, Alisen, Monika, Diane, Paula, Leia, Patty, Martin Prechtel, Debby, Michael, (more and more, I will miss naming so many. I am grateful), all of the natural world, AND Mary Oliver - who sees with the eye of a naturalist and the heart of a poet. All blessings.

It was Martin Prechtel, I'm sure, who taught me we are always beginning in the middle - and so I begin this ether-line storybook - in the middle. The Middle of What? asks the Mad Hatter. The Middle is the Middle - replies the Wizard of Oz.