You are Precious and Wild

“THE SUMMER DAY,” BY MARY OLIVER

Who made the world?
 Who made the swan, and the black bear?
 Who made the grasshopper?
 This grasshopper, I mean —
 the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
 the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
 who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
 who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
 Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
 Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
 I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
 I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
 into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
 how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
 which is what I have been doing all day.
 Tell me, what else should I have done?
 Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
 Tell me, what is it you plan to do
 with your one wild and precious life?
  -Mary Oliver, Devotions

I remember the first time I read this poem by Mary Oliver. The last two lines sink into my soul like water on dry soil.  “Tell me, what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”  I love her question.  The answer is unknown and spacious like a blanket snapped out on the shoreline.  The Summer Day invites us consider ourselves with curiosity and reverence, with the same delight she regards a grasshopper feeding from her hand.  Precious and Wild.  Wild and Precious.  

One morning I was reflecting on this and other things as I was patrolling the garden for weeds.  I knelt deep in thought and started to pull bindweed from the neck of my sage in the front bed.  A little black snake paused under the azalea at my feet as I was weeding.  I was in such a reverie that I did not startle but looked deep into their black eyes.   And we looked at each other.  And were still.  

Earlier that week I was writing in my journal about renewal, therapy, and letting go of limiting beliefs.  The image of a snake skin came to mind.  My husband found an entire snake skin in our garage and brought over to show me.  He laid it out on the table.   I could hardly bring myself to touch it, and it frightened me in a primal way.  The snake skin was entirely whole from head to tail tip. I reached out a finger to touch the papery dry skin and shuddered.  I could not conquer my deeply held fear of it, and yet I was completely taken with this creature who had shrugged off their skin like a man sheds his suit on Friday afternoon. 

All of this was running through my mind as I was kneeling in the garden looking at the little black snake.  The snake poked its head up as if to let me know, “It’s perfectly natural to shed your skin. Sometimes, you grow out of yourself.  When it’s time, you step out and leave it behind.” In the next moment, the snake curves its body around the next clump of sage and is gone.  I stand up, holding a long long tassel of bindweed in my hand.  I felt giddy, blessed, and also very hot from weeding in sunny 90 degree weather.  I decided I was done for the day and went inside to jot down this encouragement given from a little black snake.  Later, I went back and left three strawberries as a thank you. 

You can grow, you can change, you can leave behind old stories that limit you from trying new things and reaching out in friendship.  When the time is ripe, I can step out of my old skin and and become something entirely new, and yet the same.  The garden invites me to this place of renewal over and over again. I think that is why I love to create gardens for myself and my friends.  Nature is right outside our doorstep, beckoning us to come home to ourselves.  Precious and Wild.  Wild and Precious.

Imagine yourself lying in a field gazing up at the trees.  Or perhaps you are by the river on a rock feeling the water nibble at your toes.  Possibilities are opening up and there is no hurry.  Nowhere to be but gazing at the water and wondering what moves you.  You are worth this moment.  You are worth the pause.  Nature is there to hold you.  And if you allow it, provides you with a fierce and gentle hope for the future.  

When when you see yourself as worthy, you also see the worth in others.  When you see that you are untamed, you recognize the world is capable of change and growth.  We are both Precious and Wild.  Right now is a good time to sink your teeth into hope and savor like a blackberry plucked from a vine.   Look for it and keep trusting that the possibilities for ourselves and our world are sweet like a Summer day.  We are still here and we are moving forward.  Wild and Precious. This Summer, I wish for you the time to listen to what your heart wants.  

Thank you for joining me in the garden.

-Wendell