“you must
live
and mold your life
with clay and light.”
–Pablo Neruda, from “Ode to a Couple”
I’m sitting on my skateboard on the shoreline of the cemetery looking out at the cove, next to a tree I like to pray and think with. Neruda’s words are an epiphany–something I need to be reminded of: “live… mold your life with clay and light.” For clay and for light, I need to be outside in large stretches of time. We are clay; I am sitting on clay, light is warming my face.
Over the past few days, I’ve watched the magnolia tree in the front yard erupt into full bloom, led a conversation about new life at our Wednesday healing service, and read and sat on skateboards outside on warm spring mornings, skating, reading, listening to birds, breathing in the day.
There are times when skateboarding is pure prayer. There are times when smiling at the sunrise is prayer. Standing under a tree in bloom, mindful and grateful for the short time it goes all out and all in, is prayer. Mindfulness is a big part of prayer for me. It asks me to pay attention.
I watch the magnolia all winter, no signs of life. Then small buds. Last weekend, the buds were pink. Wednesday, they are bursting out with life. Within 10 days, most of them will have dropped off, and the tree will move into the next phase of its process. New life is continuous in nature and looks different at every phase. Even in the bleakest times in winter, life is still present, waiting to show itself.
We go through this same process of letting go of old life and blossoming into new life, but not with the regularity or predictability of flowers or trees. You can’t always tell what stage a person is going through. Even with a lack of outward and visible signs, this life process feels on the inside like what creation shows us with the seasons.
Mornings are the best times to hit the skate park and pump track in town. I have the place to myself or there are just a few like-minded folks there. After my legs tire, I sit down to read Gary Snyder:
“The mind wanders. A million
Summers, night air still and the rocks
Warm. Sky over endless mountains.
All the junk that goes with being human
Drops away…
A clear attentive mind
Has no meaning but that
Which sees is truly seen.”
—Gary Snyder, from “Piute Creek”
I live in the movement between a mind wanders and a clear attentive mind. Recognizing each and the space between helps. Skating allows both for wandering and clarity—navigating the pump track is a practice in focus.
The next morning is wandering mind, listening to and watching birds around the Oxford Conservation park and next to the creek.
Next to the creek, sitting, breathing, listening, the wandering stops. Somewhere in my silence true seeing starts. I read Neruda’s words and life and clay and light.
As I go to leave, God gives me a picture of what it looks like when you put them all in the same frame:
“you must
live
and mold your life
with clay and light.”
Amen.
