January Delights

Reading Ross Gay's essays in The Book of Delights got me started on a practice in my journal of recording "today's delights." I kept it up for months, learning along the way that if I looked for delights I found them. In any day, no matter what else happened, I could pause and truly pay attention for a moment. When I did, there waited delight.

At some point for unknown reasons I fell out of the habit. I might occasionally note delights in a day but I stopped setting up my journal each morning with that heading that established up front the expectation that I'd find things to put on the list.

I'm now reading Gay's The Book of (More) Delights and restoring my habit of expecting each day to hold some delights. And sure enough, there they are, just waiting to be noticed. 

Sometimes I notice scents or flavors: A hot, good-bitter cup of coffee fresh from the French press. The aroma of bread I'm baking made with my sourdough starter and whole wheat flours grown in the Chimacum Valley on the Olympic Peninsula. Hot spiciness of tofu seasoned with gochujang, sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic and ginger and crisped up in the oven's air fryer setting. The apple ginger jelly I made last fall on a toasted English muffin.

Some of the delights are visual: One tiny white daisy, then another, then realizing the lawn ahead of me was filled with them and it was only January 11th. The very next day spotting a bush full of blush pink flowerheads starting to open. Occidental Square in Seattle full of trees covered with tiny white lights, glowing in the darkness. Sunlight reflecting like dancing mirrors on the waters of the bay when the surface ripples. Reflections of lights seeming to shoot up from the bottom of the bay in the dark like streaks of fireworks when the water is smooth. A stump in the nearby park absolutely covered with turkey tail mushrooms and topped with a bright green moss toupee.

Other delights are tactile: A hot, hot shower. Stepping outside under blue skies in winter and actually feeling warmth from the sun overhead. The silky softness of our cat's fur when he's lying on my lap so I can pet him (rather than being a wildcat trying to stop me from typing on my laptop by swiping at my hands when I'm trying to work—oops, not a delight, more of an anti-delight).

The delight can be sounds: Deep, resonant tones as the windchimes outside my office tap each other. Birds twittering or calling. The knock-knock-knocking I heard on a walk in the rhododendron patch that turned out to be a big pileated woodpecker knocking loose chunks of bark, then cocking its head to one side and then the other to listen for its insect lunch.

Some are social: Riding the train to Seattle with a friend, both of us working away in the dining car and asking each other stray questions. Getting two compliments from strangers in the same day on my dark teal jacket worn over a teal dress, both of them saying how great the color was on me. Talking with people I haven't seen in a long time, in person and not on a screen. Going to a performance of "Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson" with friends and realizing it's been far too long since I watched live theater. Laughing so hard I cried in improv class as two people brought characters to life and kept ramping up to another level of hilarity. Biking to the office and back with a friend, chatting along the way.

Many of them have to do with nature: The bright red flash of spotted towhees at the suet cage hanging in a tree right outside my office window, then the flutter of more wings as dark-eyed juncos and others come in to join the feast. Changes in the weather that give me the chance to take a walk during a break in the rain, or the wind sweeping everything clean. Signs that the world keeps turning and the seasons keep changing no matter what humans do.

Even on days that hold moments (or hours) of chaos, tension, or uncertainty, that day also holds delights. I'll offer up my January 31st list as an example:

• Rain break that let me take a 30-minute park walk
• Revisiting the stump covered in turkey tail mushrooms with its mossy toupee
• Yard bunny!
• Exploring an Asian market, finding spices and sauces
• Heat of Thai food that made me keep taking another bite

May you find delight in each day. It's there, if you look for it. 

A Year of Poems: March

March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb, right? Or is that April? Depends on where you live and what climate change is doing to move your local weather patterns. Although Shakespeare made the ides of March famous in "Julius Caesar" every month has its ides; per Merriam-Webster the ides was the 15th of March, May, July, or October (the four original 31-day months) or the 13th day of any other month in the ancient Roman calendar

March is also the month in which you may celebrate World Poetry Day on March 21, established by UNESCO in 1999.

Many of the poems I found were from the 19th century. I prefer contemporary poetry so I'm not including the ones with the galloping beat and the occasional forced rhyme. 

This first poem is about a very particular March, one unlike any other before it in my lifetime and one I hope not to find echoed in a future month.

"Things That Are Changed—March 2020" by Kimiko Hahn

Empty jar: I think to grow beansprouts and look into ordering seeds. Back ordered until May 1.

"March 1st" by Larry Schug

A radio weather caster warns his listeners
that tonight will be winter’s coldest,
though spring lurks like a shy suitor,
paralyzed with uncertainty,
shivering on the steps
outside his loved one’s door.

"Dear March—Come in—(1320)" by Emily Dickinson

I got your Letter, and the Birds—
The Maples never knew that you were coming—
I declare - how Red their Faces grew—

"We Like March" by Emily Dickinson

We like March, his shoes are purple.
He is new and high;
Makes he mud for Dog and Peddler,
Makes he forests dry.

"Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself" by Wallace Stevens

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow . . .

"March Thought" by Hilda Conkling 
(this is the entire poem)

I am waiting for the flowers
To come back:
I am alone,
But I can wait for the birds.

"Mid-March" by Mary Ricketson

Surprise is the rule when spring makes promises
and promises are made to break.

"Snowbound, March" by Alice N. Persons

Tomorrow will bring the hard labor of plows,
of shoveling walks, snowblowing a path for the oil man,
the too-familiar weariness
of all that Sisyphean work

but for these few hours there is a kind of peace
in the mostly silent streets,

"March" by Linda Lee Konichek

A few bewildered blades of new grass
Poke through this wet cover, unsure
Of such a cold white-rain world. 

…still there is a softness in the morning air...

"Sprung" by Yash Seyedbagheri

now rich mud of March
pokes through
streams meandering with cheerful indolence
no need to slink straight through snow 

and charcoal nights are replaced
by the lush lavender
evening chill—but not coldness

"Revival" by Luci Shaw

March. I am beginning
to anticipate a thaw. Early mornings
the earth, old unbeliever, is still crusted with frost

"Late March" by Richard Schiffman

Again the trees remembered
to make leaves.
In the forest of their recollection
many birds returned
singing.

A Year of Poems

• A Year of Poems: January
• A Year of Poems: February

Winter Solstice Readings

Without regard for the patterns or demands of modern life, the world turns on its axis and the seasons turn with it. In a group gathering earlier this week someone referred to winter as "the dusk of the year", which is a lovely way of expressing it. Dusk is a time of transition, when things of both the light and the dark may be making their way to where they need to be for the next period of their lives.

Much of my ancestry comes from the places where Celtic people lived, and they would have gathered on this night to light fires in the darkness. On this shortest day and longest night of the year, some of you may gather with friends and family at a fire or hearth to watch flames reach upward.  If I were at an open flame, I might practice a ritual I've read of that seems fitting for this night (more so than for New Year's Eve, which bears no relationship to natural cycles, only to human record-keeping): writing things I want to let go of on pieces of paper and consigning them to the fire to let them turn to ash and float up and away.

I start each day reading poetry, and this morning in addition to the sites I visit daily I went in search of winter solstice blessings, poems, and readings online and in my poetry collection. Sharing here ones I found that resonated for me with a snippet of text from some. These are excerpts only, not the entire poem or reading, and I encourage you to follow the links.

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Wendell Berry: "2007, VI" ["It is hard to have hope"]

Found your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.
Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground
underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls
freely upon it after the darkness of the nights
and the darkness of our ignorance and madness.
Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,
which is the light of imagination. By it you see
the likeness of people in other places to yourself
in your place. It lights invariably the need for care
toward other people, other creatures, in other places
as you would ask them for care toward your place and you.

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Jan Richardson: Winter Solstice: Blessing for the Longest Night

This is the night
when you can trust
that any direction
you go,
you will be walking
toward the dawn.

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Molly Remer: A Winter Solstice Blessing

May you circle and celebrate,
may you change and grow
May that which is waiting to be unlocked
be freed.

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Terry Windling: On Winter Solstice, a round-up of reading, art, and animation

In the mythic sense, we practice moving from darkness into light every morning of our lives. The task now is make that movement larger, to join together to carry the entire world through the long night to the dawn.

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Spirituality & Practice: Winter Solstice readings, poems, reflections, and practices

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Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: Take Five

it is
after all
the longest night
and even though
tomorrow
it’s only one
more minute
of light
it is one
more
minute

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I'll close with a blessing by John O'Donohue. He wrote several that resonate at this time of year, when it's dark and cold in our shared hemisphere. Rather than his blessing for the solstice I'll share the first of his works I ever read.

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Beannacht

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

~ John O’Donohue ~

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Wishing you warmth, and light, and the peace that comes in darkness when we curl into ourselves and rest before new effort, before walking toward the dawn.