Sometimes I grow weary with all the days, with their fits and starts. I want to climb some old gray mountain, slowly, taking the rest of my lifetime to do it, resting often, sleeping under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks. I want to see how many stars are still in the sky that we have smothered for years now, a century at least. I want to look back at everything, forgiving it all, and peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.

All that urgency! Not what the earth is about!

How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only. I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.

In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.

~ Mary Oliver, The Poet Dreams of the Mountain. Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

Photo: NerySoul

Most of us do not live a life of monastic rigor. Our days are full of jagged edges and jangling moments. But most of us do have quiet routines that inform our lives. We rise each morning and greet our day in the same fashion. A first cup of coffee, a glance at the paper, a certain way we bathe and prepare for our entry into the day — these do not change. They are the rituals by which we shape our days. But we do not value them as rituals. To us they are the ordinary — sometimes comforting, sometimes mind-deadening — activities that give a familiar sameness to our life. Far from honoring them, we pay them no heed. We see them as routines, not as paths to awareness. My time in the monastery taught me otherwise. To be sure, the monks lived a life of deep sacramentality…

Dawn breaks. The air is heavy for April. I peek into my bag, and I’m reassured by the pocket umbrella. It’s the second train of the morning. 55 minutes, 2 stops. Destination: Grand Central Station. But for the clack of steel on steel, the train is silent.

We arrive at Grand Central. The masses, bees awakened and agitated, pour out of the hive and race for the exits.

A count of the passersby between Madison and Fifth: it’s 6 of 9, 7 of 10 if you include me. The count is Secluded. Sequestered. White cords are draped from ear lobes to pockets, strapped to the Source, private and away.  One smiling. One solemn. One harried, a Working Mom?  One at peace. One head bobs with lips’ syncing.  And the narrator, Madonna in Strike a Pose.

When all else fails and you long to be
Something better than you are today