These days I am often forced to compromise. I can, for example, walk with my heavy camera for a few kilometers in beloved places if I am willing to pop some pain meds afterwards to calm down angry surgery incisions, and make the following day a rest day. I can also just walk a short round or two in the neighborhood woods without camera and be fine.

On a glorious morning like Wednesday, before the heat descended, I drove out to the wetlands early, willing to pay the price in pharmaceuticals down the road. And was I rewarded! The place was filled with birds doing their morning toilette, visible to all on large snags, fishing for their breakfast in the water. Kingfishers, herons, egrets, hawks and even a Virginia rail (my first ever) – my bet paid off that this would be worth a try.

A favorite stanza (in bold below) of Traherne’s praise of walking sang in my head – to mind the good we see, to taste the sweet, observing all the things we meet, how choice and rich they be….

Was true in the late 1600s when he lived, is true today. The way he expressed his love for nature anticipated romanticism by some 200 years; those words and sentiments about mindfulness seem perfectly at home in 2021 as well.

We had our share of dismaying musings this week, from the expressions of power in naming to the futility of getting people to leave cults (here is another provocative piece that should have been added to the latter topic.) So I thought we’d end the week on this note of rejoicing, to mind the good we see….

Walking

BY THOMAS TRAHERNE

To walk abroad is, not with eyes, 
But thoughts, the fields to see and prize; 
Else may the silent feet, 
Like logs of wood, 
Move up and down, and see no good 
Nor joy nor glory meet. 

Ev’n carts and wheels their place do change, 
But cannot see, though very strange 
The glory that is by; 
Dead puppets may 
Move in the bright and glorious day, 
Yet not behold the sky. 

And are not men than they more blind, 
Who having eyes yet never find 
The bliss in which they move; 
Like statues dead 
They up and down are carried 
Yet never see nor love. 

To walk is by a thought to go; 
To move in spirit to and fro; 
To mind the good we see; 
To taste the sweet; 
Observing all the things we meet 
How choice and rich they be. 

To note the beauty of the day, 
And golden fields of corn survey; 
Admire each pretty flow’r 
With its sweet smell; 
To praise their Maker, and to tell 
The marks of his great pow’r. 

To fly abroad like active bees, 
Among the hedges and the trees, 
To cull the dew that lies 
On ev’ry blade, 
From ev’ry blossom; till we lade 
Our minds, as they their thighs. 

Observe those rich and glorious things, 
The rivers, meadows, woods, and springs, 
The fructifying sun; 
To note from far 
The rising of each twinkling star 
For us his race to run. 

A little child these well perceives, 
Who, tumbling in green grass and leaves, 
May rich as kings be thought, 
But there’s a sight 
Which perfect manhood may delight, 
To which we shall be brought. 

While in those pleasant paths we talk, 
’Tis that tow’rds which at last we walk; 
For we may by degrees 
Wisely proceed 
Pleasures of love and praise to heed, 
From viewing herbs and trees.

Pity he forgot to mention birds…..

Music by a contemporary of Traherne’s, Johann Jacob Walther, titled Wohlgepflanzter Violinischer Lustgarten – beautifully planted pleasure garden for the violin.

And here is a Virginia Rail doing morning stretches….

Observe those rich and glorious things…..