Then A Photograph Is Sent, & You Realize Ky Days Have Made Their Way Northeast

I was sent this photograph from a teacher in Massachusetts who attended the Reading Landscapes: Writing Nature in the 21st Century workshop at Weir Farm in August. I did a morning workshop making a connection between the landscapes we create and the writing programs we establish - all in an effort to attend to communities, individuality, partnership and democracy. The 4th grade teacher wanted to share that her young writers understood the exercise, made magic with it, and used the Project Wet exercise to establish a community of literate learners in her own classroom.

It put a smile on my Saturday and I'm sharing it here on Sunday.

I was a 24 year-old fledgling when I worked fro the Louisville Nature Center and earned a second masters in Environmental Science. I've always said I never did much with that degree but influence my English curriculum and the way I understood the interconnectedness of nature and the earth. I used to do the exercise while camping with freshman at Jefferson Memorial Forest and later at a retreat center in Indiana. All these years later, I'm thrilled to see it still has the same effect.

We are looking at abnormally high temperatures in Connecticut today, a replay of yesterday where I did yard work, walked the dog, wrote, cleaned, ran, and analyzed data. The email from the summer participant, however, put fuel in my step to keep on keeping on as I have. Today, I am channeling Wendell Berry, the KY poet.

Wendell Berry 

  

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.