Last of Graveyard Fields visit

 

This was at the beginning of the steps down. (I may have posted it before, I don't remember.) We only went as far as the cascades of the river, not the whole loop of the trail.

I loved the colors and patterns of this rock...and there's a shadow of a couple of the rails of the bridge banister. But that loose rock in the wet area mimics so well the hole in the face of the rock next to it.

 

A very tall hemlock rises near the stream.

A closer look at the white space under the rock, where water was still and reflected the sky.

Looking up river...from standing on this spit of rock.

Standing on the spit of rock, there was just one flow of water cascading by...pretty fast, but narrow

I'm planning our next trip along the parkway, hoping the weather cooperates. The next time will be going to see the leaves. Yes, I'l join the throng of leaf-peepers.

Today's quote:

To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

by Mary Oliver

1.
Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat of the sweet grass?
Will the owl bite off its own wings?
Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or forget to sing?
Will the rivers run upstream?

Behold, I say–behold
the reliability and the finery and the teachings of this gritty earth gift.

2.
Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water, and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are thrillingly gluttonous.

For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.

And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs.

3.
The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.

Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of the single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life—just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.

4.
Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,
the dancer, the potter,
to make me a begging bowl
which I believe
my soul needs.

And if I come to you,
to the door of your comfortable house
with unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,
will you put something into it?

I would like to take this chance.
I would like to give you this chance.

5.
We do one thing or another; we stay the same or we change.
Congratulations if you have changed.

6.
Let me ask you this.
Do you also think that beauty exists for some fabulous reason?

And if you have not been enchanted by this adventure—your life—
what would do for you?

7.
What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements, though with difficulty

I mean the ones that are thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment somehow or another).

And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

water and rocks and a few people

Happy OCTOBER everyone!

Maybe my friend's shadow is on the closest rock, as we looked at the water from the bridge.

At first I inadvertently captured this young mother carrying her baby...(in the shot I posted before with the comment about the white flat water seen through the hole, HERE.) 

But then I saw the charm in her hat and her infant as she walked over the rocks toward us, then actually passed us on the bridge, with yet another child of about 5.

A view of the steps we would have to climb back up to the parking lot...the very beginning steps that is.

I like how the bridge stops and we have to walk on that big rock. I wonder how long this bridge has been this way...and if it's anchored to the rocks.

My friend, Helen liked staying on the bridge looking at the sights downstream.

Today's quote:

Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. 

I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock-more than a maple- a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.


—Annie Dillard
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Going down a path means coming back up

We went to visit Graveyard Fields on the Blue Ridge Parkway last week.

The map at the entrance shows a loop with the first site to enjoy being some falls, at 0.2 miles downhill from where we start. The stairs lead down to a paved path, which also goes down at a steady pitch. It didn't take us very long to walk down a fifth of a mile, and before reaching the second and third sets of stairs, we heard the water gurgling over rocks. I wouldn't call it a falls, but a cascade, actually.

Of course going back up was quite a task, and I huffed and puffed and stopped to rest as much as I needed to. Helen was keeping pace with me, and she's (ahem) 3 years older than I am, and in better shape.

Some young boys were actually going into the water off down the river a ways. 

I did walk out on that spit of rock to do a small ritual, the one where you throw a rock into running water and give away anything that is no longer of use to yourself. It's similar to the Jewish cleansing gesture to give away sins. As a Pagan, I don't believe in sins, but certainly have a lot of things that I accumulate to carry around psychologically.

It was easy enough to get to my rock by crossing the bridge and going down those steps.

From the bridge, I loved seeing the water flow and the colors of rocks it had carved through many years. I have more photos of the water and rocks to share another post.

We both noticed the little white area of water through a hole in the rocks in the distance to the right.  There the water was perfectly still and white. But we didn't go any further along the path, which loops around behind the trees to the left.  Maybe next time...

A young woman volunteered to take our picture, so we posed...but it's a bit hard to see our smiles! I'm on the left, and Helen is on the right.

It was great to get back to the top and finally get to the car, and we wished we had brought water bottles. But we didn't, and thus just rode home along the parkway and managed to keep on talking. Remember we wore masks in the car as well as hiking!