The Dance
Summer is not over, but it sure feels like it this morning. It is a brisk 10C outside right now. The trees have begun to dance toward their death song. The hum of spring, the song of summer, the chorus of harvest, builds now to the symphony of gold and russet and copper. Yes, I am mixing metaphors. Fullness does that. Jene Gebser, in his tome, The Ever-present Origin, would call this Integral Consciousness. The death song. Full throated. Ripe and beautiful with the fullest expression possible. Nature herself shows us how to do this. The colossal sunflowers dip their full heads in gratitude toward the earth from which they sprang. The tomatoes ripen heavy on the vines and the summer squash compete for Fair-worthy ribbons. The pumpkins snake across the patches of ground to pop up in surprising places. On the edge of fences, spilling out onto the border grass. Fruit trees and berry bushes offer up their globus wonders. It has been a full and lush summertime of gardening, entertaining, fiction, and industry. FoxHaven is looking her best.
Today is back to school for many. A transition time in so many ways. Outwardly and inwardly so. Our oldest grandson starts High School. More of my teacher friends retire. Courses start. Vacations end. Beginnings and endings and endings and beginnings. The cycle of life. This is the dance. Life is nothing if not a great adventure. The sole purpose of life appears to be to participate. Fully. In it all. While we do not get to choose the music, be it dirge or lament, symphony or ditty, but oh, we do get to decide whether or not to dance. I choose to dance.
I have missed coming to this page, coming to you dear reader. It was good for me to take the time to refill the tank, siphon off the dross, and come back fresh and full. I have feasted these past months on silence, on fiction, on contemplation, on conversation. Thank you for your patience. I don’t know if what I write will resonate, but I do know that writing is a good discipline for me. Maybe it is even a spiritual and psychological practice. Writing here puts me in touch with my interiority, not just in revery or fantasy, but in expression. As Nietzsche says, our human task is full expression. Full expression of the human, the all too human. Whether in word or deed, music or musing, the human task seems to be expression. The conscious human task is endeavouring to make that expression beautiful. And what is beauty? Truth.
I laughed out loud at an internet meme yesterday. It was a social faux pas whereby the eater of butter dripping piping hot corn on the cob failed to say, “Mmmm, this is good corn”. I remember that my sister once told my husband how much she enjoyed cooking for him because he made happy eating noises. Too funny. Too poignant. Too true. Why not make noise? Why not express the joy of the heart? Why not let others in on the delight? Can you look at a night sky dazzling with star shine and not utter, “Wow”? Behold a golden sunset and not whisper, “How beautiful”? See a harvest moon-rise and not “Howl”? Whether in image or word or deed, let us endeavour to express ourselves. Out loud. Apologetically. With beauty. With truth. What if Nature needs the human to express? To behold? What if consciousness is the divine appreciation. We are so much more than a parasite on the planet.More than a cancer. Yes, I read that in a Climate Crisis manifesto recently. How sad. Surely we make our mistakes and what we do to Nature we do to ourselves. But, I do not believe for a second that the Earth is better off without the human. I am in my soul, a natalist. While barren of womb, I believe in expressing oneself. As fully as possible. We as humans surely have a purpose. And it is divine. We are invited to dance with creation. To sing. To paint. To sculpt. To garden. To write. To produce. To populate. To love.