lessons in faith.

[the photos in this post are credited to Luck Photography, and were taken a few weeks ago at the farm. thanks, sarah!]

It's been a hard week here at the farm. Since feeling ill last week, I just haven't been able to bounce back in the way that I normally do. Even a week later, I feel weak and tired easily, have had trouble sleeping even though I'm exhausted, and just generally feel sort of spent, and out of (full) commission. It's hard to feel sick, no matter the circumstances, but it's been an especially painful week for me as I've struggled in vain to get all of my work accomplished while feeling so physically down.

I think I'm beginning to feel better, as I try to rehydrate my body and pump myself up with electrolytes so that I can begin this new week with the full force of my passion, hard work, and dedication. However, in all honesty - I'm really feeling worried!! There's so much to accomplish, and I feel weary from both physically and spiritually, still slightly battered from the frustration of getting barely a thing accomplished this past week.

However - the flowers are blooming, and my corn is just beginning to form its husks. Tonight, rather than focus on my concerns or fears, I'd like to think about the concept of "faith."

I've recently started to explore Quakerism, but am generally not a religious person. However, I think of faith as something more than just tied to the Divine, but rather a fundamental trust in the magnificence, connectedness, and eternal hope of the world. This is a kind of faith that I've needed this week, and still need so fully in this present moment - faith that there is a rhyme and a rhythm to life, and to the work that I throw myself into each day.

The two following poems express this sentiment so beautifully. I hope you'll find solace in them, just as I certainly have.

Faith ~ David Whyte
I want to write about faith
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night,


faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.


But I have no faith myself
I refuse it even the smallest entry.


Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and 
barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith

Every summer

I listen and look 
under the sun's brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can't hear

anything, I can't see anything -- 
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green 
        stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,

the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker -- 
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk. 

And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing -- 
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves, 

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet -- 
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum. 

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear? 

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.

-- Mary Oliver

Thanks for listening, sweet ones. I hope that this week finds us all brimming over with faith in the power of each passing moment, and in the basic goodness that is accessible within it. G'night!