Musings from Hickory Lane,  the web site of Brenda Zook, aka Hummin'B
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Winter Ramble with a nod to J.R.R.Tolkien

12/1/2018

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(All bolded lines and phrases are from  JRR Tolkien's book The  Hobbit.)  ​
PictureIce is nice...and not muddy!
I need to ramble along the creek.  It’s the best part of this otherwise walk-deterring cold snap: all the muddy places are nicely frozen, and my feet can make it-
there and back again- 
without getting filthy (or at least staying mostly dry.)

​I walk out my (back) door, in search  of I know not what...


The Road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began.
​

It’s December now, and a creek ramble in the Shire is a different thing altogether than it was midsummer.  The birds are mostly still, mostly absent. I hear a lone chickadee, and one furtive song sparrow darts silently from thorn bush to brush pile.
​
Trees stand stark against a sky that seems to have forgotten the color blue. Most of the weed grasses are tawny and bowed toward the earth. Even the thistles have had their spines and spirits broken by the harsh wind and freezing temperatures of the past week. 

Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can. 
PictureThe lights aren't on, but that doesn't mean nobody's home!
 I find the well-worn paths of small creatures.  Squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, groundhogs, muskrats, these are the dwellers in tree root tunnels and small dens and holes that I’ve seen other days.

​But not today.  

No shining eyes appear from deep shadows, no tail slips out of sight as though it belongs to a four legged wraith.   



PictureI can almost hear the creek singing.
By some measures, this ramble isn’t much of a success, but I’m not so concerned with succeeding as with  seeing, with listening, with paying attention, because I’m learning:

​“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something…​
And it’s true again today. 
Abruptly I realize that the silence around me is, in fact, not silent.  

The creek is chuckling along, rippling just like it did on warm spring afternoons when birds sang and twittered along the brambled banks.


Water music burbles beside me, and I’m smiling. When the creek banks taper inward, and the stream is forced through narrow straits, and I hear a crescendo of melody. ​A rock looms large, and the water swirls around it, ever singing.

The place where the children played  that last warm autumn day, building a dam near the fallen tree- right there, the babbling water laughs and tumbles and throws tiny droplets to form a delicate ice sculpture nearby.   

This is how the meadow stream decorates itself for winter. 

Picture




Overhanging branches reach down, and the stream splashes them with crystal beauty. ​​
Picture
​



And look, here at my feet, the colorful blooms of winter.
Picture
 "You certainly usually find something, if you look,
but it is not always quite the something you were after.”



Today I found creek songs writ full of lessons about...
 persevering, 
choosing the melody of joy, 
listening through the quiet, 
watching for fragile beauty in hidden places.

​

Not all who wander are lost...
HumminB
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Sunday Ramble - still learning to pause...

9/19/2017

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I’ve been trying to be more intentional about pause,
about refreshment, 
about figuring out what it means to rest…and then doing it.
(Or, in some cases, NOT doing whatever it is that isn’t restful.) 

I’m recognizing how easy it is to neglect this kind of self-care, soul care.  I want to be mindful every single day of the wonder of “the holy present,” but it's an unending challenge. 
  
Ironically, this goal is particularly slippery for me to catch hold of on Sundays.  Our household is deeply, (joyfully!) involved in the life/work of a faith community, and keeping track of “the holy present” can get lost in the shuffle of teaching, leading worship, preaching, connecting.  Don’t misunderstand – it’s good stuff; it just gets a little crazy. And finding the way to pause and refresh isn't easy. Sometimes a nap just doesn't do it. 

So, this week, we took to rambling.  


​My online Merriam Webster’s dictionary says a ramble is “a leisurely excursion for pleasure; especially: an aimless walk.”

​Maybe our journey wasn’t truly a ramble, because we were in search of something.  We just didn’t know quite what. But I think we found it.
Picture
We drove through autumn splendor, splashes of brilliant color that I didn't expect to see, not yet. (The first day of autumn isn't until Friday...and it still seems a bit like summer in my garden!?  Oh, broccoli.)
Picture
Our original destination was the Stone Mountain Hawkwatch, but we missed the show for the day. “900 broad-winged hawks,” the spotter explained.  His observation list  continued:“four bald eagles, three ospreys, a harrier...oh, and ?? monarch butterflies.” (They migrate too!  Individually, like the raptors, not in flocks like robins.) 

But apparently the bird migration superhighway shuts down in the late afternoon, as temperatures drop and thermals cease so we watched but spotted only one broadwing who had apparently also taken a longer nap than he intended!


We thought we'd watch the sunset here, but the due west view was obscured by trees. And so, our destination of disappointment was the starting point for our next adventure.  (I want to remember this life lesson...) 

We rambled behind the Hawkwatch on a path I'd never hiked; now I know it's part of the Standing Stone Trail. So much beauty surrounded us. 
Picture
Mountain ash
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the (trail) goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began...(with apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien)
And on and on and on...We stumbled upon a grand amphitheater from which to view the sunset.  "Where am I," I wondered.  
Picture
And who is Sausser?
Picture
Pile?!? The sign seems rather understated.
Picture

Seating options were myriad; the stadium was empty.

But you had to bring your own seat cushion. 

And refreshments.  Mmm. Sweet and salty.


Even without a sunset, the view was vast and varied. We were peering into the 'Shire as I've always imagined it, mellow and soft in the angled rays of deepening day. (Only our 'Shire was behind us...) 

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And then sunset.

Glorious.

Luminous.

Transcendent.

And I've run out of adjectives.....let the sunset speak. 

"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork." (Psalm 19:1) 

​
Picture
Picture
Picture
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The heavens declare...
God did this. 
God is like this:
endlessly creative, 
no two sunsets exactly the same,
and happening every minute around the globe. 
All.the.time. 
From a certain perspective,
sunset is continuous. 
​(Sunrise too...)


My brain gets stuck right there, right here,  and I simply breathe in deep.
The beauty.The peace.
The mystical tranquility.

The sun dips below the last cloud bank, the last mountain range.  It's gone.   
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The soundtrack of Late Summer Dusk is playing, louder now -we're surrounded by crickets and cicadas and intense katydids.  Shadows fall across the 'Shire.  Time to head home.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star, 
​ Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar. 

(from Bilbo's Walking Song in ch. 19 of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien)
Picture
It's much darker as we re-enter the wooded path, and I wonder about nocturnal creatures awakening.  We encounter only two, a large toad probably soaking in the last bit of rock warmth, and a porcupine hustling out of..."oops, who are you??" and rapidly back into an impossible slim rock crevice.  
Right here, right now,
it's dark,

darker,
darkest, 
but somewhere, 
the heavens are
​(still!)
telling the glory of God. 

Picture
I want to keep listening...

HumminB
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    Author

    I'm finding my way beyond the maze of the "middle" years
    (if I'm gonna be 100 and something someday...) 
    ​living life as a country woman who is a
     writer, gardener, wife, mom,  nature observer,  teacher,and most of all a much loved child of God.  

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