Succumbing to Light Ethereal Influences

 

Now, during these warm summer days at the cabin, when the whole world is alive, I sometimes feel

as if I’m entering an alternate universe.

 

Not wanting to miss one instance of summer in the mountains, a few weeks ago I brought my laptop computer outside, sat on the front porch, and let myself be immersed in this complex landscape: the wind through the pines, stirring up the yellow pollen, which was blowing in sheets across the landscape; nuthatches, hummingbirds, house wrens, and other birds making flight patterns from the trees to the ground and from tree to tree, with bird calls piercing the air all around me;  a new crop of rabbits, their fur brown and soft, enjoying the fresh spring greens (below); all the newly sprung flowers:  purple  and white lupine and columbine and the wild roses; and, best of all, the aspen trees, the sunlight through their leaves casting a clear, holy light on everything and the sound of their leaves shimmering in the wind the most beautiful sound next to silence.

 

At some point, I realized that the rest of the world beyond this front porch where I was sitting had ceased to exist. There was only this thick layered world of pine trees, grasses, and sky—a saturation of smells and sounds.

 

Thoreau says it better than I can. In his journal, my favorite naturalist wrote, “You must walk so gently as to hear the finest sounds, the faculties being in repose. . . .  True, out of doors my thought is commonly drowned, as it were, and shrunken, pressed down by stupendous piles of light ethereal influences.”

 

They may be light, but they feel all absorbing, as if I could drown in all the sensations.

I can see that I have two existences: one is the world of computers, where I spend most of my life and where feelings are subsumed to the hard and cold reality of lines of type, of opening and deleting e-mails, of web pages where information comes in the form of boxed pages. For me, it’s an artificial world, one I can’t touch, smell or feel.

 

And then there’s the cabin and the natural world that surrounds it, where it feels like my mind could go deeper than I can hardly imagine, where I feel everything. There are no borders or straight lines here: the creek weaves its way through this valley, the trees bend to catch the light, the ground squirrel zigs and zags across the yard, its nose alert for food. Not one thing here responds to a punch of my computer key.

 

To be here in the summer is to live by my senses, to abandon any pretense that I have any interest in the artificial world of work, and to succumb to the natural world in all its richness. Let it go.

 

Comments

[Barb]

Kathy, I enjoyed your essay. I can picture you sitting on the porch of your cabin, allowing the scenery and sounds to wash over you. It is very beautiful in the mountains now - our wildflowers are so profuse. I, too, bank every moment against the long cold which arrives too soon.

[Sally Hanson]

THE REAL WORLD!! It's so nice to be part of the natural world, you become part of the web of life and it awakens our total being...at least it does to me. You become part of the wind, trees, animals...life itself. Things flow if we really pay attention to what is going on around us and with time we also begin to flow and be part of the big web. To me it is very healing and soothing to my inner being. I was out camping and when I got there I was still humming with the city life and my worn nerves from life with to many things to do and then after about 24hrs I had let go and was part of my surroundings and feeling alive and content again as if things seemed to have real meaning. Then I came home and the not so natural world wasted no time getting me all wound up again. Would be real nice to find that important balance.

[Laurel Kallenbach]

Ah... the conflict between computer world and natural world. Many times, the artificialness of the computer--and keeping up with never-ending email--seems sterile. However, during my creative times, my laptop is transformed into a tool that helps me express myself. It's not as lovely as an exquisite pen, but it has great capability. And what I love about the laptop, as opposed to my old desktop computer, is that it transcends the confines of house or office. With it, I can work in my yard, or in a public garden--or at a cabin. Then I can be in the natural world while also writing/creating.

That said, I always need to remind myself to power down the laptop and really allow my senses to take in nature all by itself. No screens or email dings to distract.

Thanks for the gorgeous views on your blog post!

[Julene]

Well-said, Kathy. I've been reading this great essay by Wendel Berry from the late 1960s, "The One-Legged House," about a cabin on the Ohio River that he's had a long-term, life-changing relationship with. He also writes beautifully about the way four walls in the right place can serve as a doorway into an intimate relationship with the natural world. I've been savoring his thoughts as a bedtime ritual of late, wishing I could start over and live as he has done, filling myself with so knowledge of other species while burrowing deeply into one place.

[Julene]

Did I say "One-Legged House"? I meant "Long-Legged." Sheesh.

[Kathy Kaiser]

I kind of like the image of a one-legged house. I'll have to read that book.

[Kathy Kaiser]

Laurel, I agree with you about the laptop. It does allow the freedom of taking it outside.