Two takes on describing perceptions of a drive through the park, and thinking about the word "transcendent, " which came to my awareness listening to Colin Powell's best speech of his life.

Autumn afternoon in the forest

Your love brightens my heart
Like the sun setting on an October afternoon
dapples the golden leaves.

We are beautiful, those leaves and I
Until touched by that light, by that love.
Then we become transcendent.

No longer ordinary yellow leaves
We are glorious. We are golden.
We shine. We dance.
We glow. We are radiant.

We reach for the joyous touch
Of warming love, golden rays,
and become more than we are.


Autumn afternoon in the forest

The oak forest sits still in the quiet fall afternoon,
The canopy full of yellow brown leaves.
As the setting sun dips to an acute angle
The tree tops catch warm golden rays.

Suddenly, the dull fall leaves burst into a new dimension.
They transcend yellow.
They transcend leaves.

The light touches the leaves and gives them life.
Each leaf becomes radiant, glorious
As if encrusted in diamonds.
The entire forest shines and dances
In the gentle touch of the setting sun.

Lammas, the loaf mass


I celebrated Lammas yesterday by doing some A.T. maintainence. I knew it was Lammas, but hadn't researched it past knowing it was the end of summer peak.

In the wake of the UU shooting I have been very sad, and it was so good to spend a day in the high mountain near Clingmans Dome, walking, sling-blading grasses, mining rocks with my hands, eating nuts and fruit, talking to Julie and the others in my little work detail.



Lammas, the loaf


Celebrated on the “cross season---halfway between the summer solstice and fall equinox.
Called “first harvest.
Ends the period of greatest light—6 weeks on either side of the solstice.

Lammas, the loaf mass



The following is from School of the Seasons
http://www.schooloftheseasons.com/lammas.html

The Celts celebrate this festival from sunset August 1 until sunset August 2 and call it Lughnasad after the God Lugh. It is the wake of Lugh, the Sun-King, whose light begins to dwindle after the summer solstice. The Saxon holiday of Lammas celebrates the harvesting of the grain. The first sheaf of wheat is ceremonially reaped, threshed, milled and baked into a loaf. The grain dies so that the people might live. Eating this bread, the bread of the Gods, gives us life. If all this sounds vaguely Christian, it is. In the sacrament of Communion, bread is blessed, becomes the body of God and is eaten to nourish the faithful. This Christian Mystery echoes the pagan Mystery of the Grain God. Grain has always been associated with Gods who are killed and dismembered and then resurrected from the Underworld by the Goddess-Gods like Tammuz, Osiris and Adonis. The story of Demeter and Persephone is a story about the cycle of death and rebirth associated with grain. Demeter, the fertility Goddess, will not allow anything to grow until she finds her daughter who has been carried off to the Underworld

My morning prayer, posted on an east window, so I can do heart opening sun salutions.
Prayer

I breathe in this new day

I exhale hopelessness
And breathe in faith

I exhale indifference
and breathe in gratitude

I exhale insensitivity
and breathe in Beauty

I exhale sadness
And breathe in joy

I exhale harshness
and breathe in kindness

I exhale resentment
and breathe in forgiveness

I exhale isolation
and breathe in love


adapted from Edwin C. Lynn
in Family Prayers: A sampler,
UUA

New Life

Dark in the bosom of the earth
Cradled, protected, nourished
Hiding, safe, secure.
But alone, unfulfilled

A swelling of the heart
A leap of faith
A bursting and breaching
Of protecting walls.

Rushing toward light and life
Tender, fragile, exposed
Trusting, yielding. Hoping
That the offering will be cherished and honored.

New life
The springtime gift
To those with the courage to accept.