Let me tell you about a perfect morning. We rose naturally, not with an alarm but with birdsong and morning sun filtering in through the curtains. This is the first morning of our women’s weekend at the cabin. We each gravitate to our usual breakfasts (yogurt, fruit, granola). Michelle and Jessie both settle in with their books. I go outside to sit on the big rock in front of the cabin, the rock that is cool in the morning and sun-baked in the afternoon.
I sit cross-legged on the rock, a book of Mary Oliver poems in my hand. I intend to read some poetry aloud, so that the words can meld into the warbles and chirps of the birds and the rustling of the trees. But not before I spot the first one – an orange salamander with its feet like tiny amphibian stars.
“Guys! Come quickly!” I shout.
Jessie and Michelle join me outside, expecting something more dramatic than a salamander cupped gently in my hand. For weeks building up to this retreat, I have been waxing poetic about how much I love salamanders (weird, I know), how if the weather is cool and damp enough we might see a few.
Soon it seems salamanders emerge from the rocks and moss to greet us, a welcoming committee. We are all three sitting on the rock (henceforth named Salamander Rock), each cradling a salamander in our hands, marveling at their color, their shape, how such a tiny creature can hold such sway on us in that moment, how everything has a place in this world, including us.
The moment is brief – we gently place the tiny amphibians back among the rocks and dewy grass. We linger and hardly say a word. I open the book of poems, momentarily forgotten to our new acquaintances, and select one of my favorites – Summer Day – and read it aloud. Jessie takes the book from me, flips open to a poem and reads it aloud. Michelle does the same. None of this is planned; it is simply instinctual. While each of us reads, we sit still and listen to the sounds of our words becoming part of the forest, this sacred landscape.
This is perfect and pure and holy. When we arrived the night before I gave each of these dear women a welcome bag that contained, among other things, a poem by the sacred Mary Oliver – How I Go to the Woods. In that poem, Oliver writes that if she goes to the woods with you, she must love you very much. The same is true here. If I share this place, this space, this quiet with you, you are precious to me.
This morning was one of the holiest moments of my life. It felt more like church than any brick-and-mortar church I’ve ever ventured inside. In this church, if you show up and listen, the tiniest of wonders present themselves to you, to remind you of your very precious “place in the family of things.”*
*from Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese