“Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. 

 Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground

 and a common bond

 and we cease to be alone.” 

― Wendell Berry,  A Place on Earth

Southern Sky, October

One of my cherished possessions is an inscribed volume of poems by Wendell Berry. It is the happy gift of an afternoon walk and an unassuming signboard on a Chicago sidewalk not far from the old Garrett popcorn shop on Michigan Avenue. Reading tonight, the sign said. Wendell Berry. As simple as that. 

First Breath 54x54 acrylic and charcoal
on canvas

Wendell Berry is many things - a poet, a playwrite, a professor, an organic farmer, an unexpected activist. Mark Bittman, lead food columnist for the New York Times, has called him an American hero. A fierce political voice for living in tandem with the rhythms of the land, Berry is passionate about the importance of supporting local economies and small farmers, and believes that community is fundamental to our survival.

That October night, he was a simply-dressed man with an unhurried voice – reading articulate, powerful, unapologetic words underscored with a deep chord of gratitude.  He spoke of the turning of the seasons, of family and old friends, of things to be changed and things to be savored. It was my first real introduction to his work, and I left both humbled and inspired. 

This morning, I am reminded of that evening. My studio looks out on farmland and overnight, in one thick frost, the fields have turned to a silvery sea, broken by purple brambles and curving, still-green blades of grass. It is so impossibly lovely that one heart can hardly hold it.

"All bend

in one wind."

― Wendell Berry, Given

Gratitude is a beautiful place from which to view the world, and to be reminded that we are not alone.

Frost Field, November

A MEADOW

It was a riverside meadow, lush, from before the hay harvest,

On an immaculate day in the sun of June.I watched for it, found it, recognized it.
Grasses and flowers grew there familiar in my childhood.
With half-closed eyelids, I absorbed luminescence.
And the scent garnered me, all knowing ceased.
Suddenly I felt I was disappearing and weeping with joy.

                                               Czeslaw Milosz
                                               Facing the River

Fields at The Abbey of Gethsemani 

I first read this poem while in a time of silent retreat at The Abbey of Gethsemani---a Trappist monastery in central Kentucky surrounded by rolling farmland, walking paths, and carefully tended gardens. One hundred fifty years of prayer is cradled in the hills and valleys there. It is a palpably sacred place, and the only place where I have ever experienced the slowing of time.  On a late-summer morning, I paused while walking through a hay field and turned the page of my book to A Meadow.

The Polish poet and Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz was in his late seventies when he penned The Meadow. He had returned for the first time in fifty years to an independent Lithuania, to the land of his youth that he never expected to see again. Inspired, he speaks of the quicksilver paths of memory, and of the mystery and wonder of the human experience. The language is richly visual, shimmering like heavy glass lit from within. I read it with the smell of warm grass all around me, and felt tears upon my own cheeks.

Crow Egg, Wood Rose, Water (from the Wisdom Series) 2013
Acrylic, charcoal, and mixed media on canvas 

It was a beautiful moment of synchronicity, a reminder of the transformative power of nature and of the threads that connect us through time and across continents. That same day on the monastery grounds, I photographed a number of leaf shadows falling in the midday sun. For over a decade now, they have alternately appeared in my work as hearts, amoebas, masks, forms within the body and, occasionally, even leaves.

Leaf Shadows
 at The Abbey of Gethsemani

The Abbey of Gethsemani continues to offer a program of silent retreat for both men and women. If you are inclined to contemplation, it is a wonderful gift that I would recommend.

Heart Song/The End of Winter 2004
Charcoal on tea-stained paper