my own path

 

driven

I think the secret is to decide who we are

without a puppet-master pulling our strings,

perhaps the louder culture outside us 

who doesn't really know us,

I fear the metaphor where all of us are individuals at a buffet

where we choose whatever feels good to us at the moment,

I also worry about the metaphor that we are puppets,

that we should exist to be following the dictates of another,

that God's plan is for us to just do what the greater requires,

perhaps the metaphor should be that there is a mountain,

and our charge is to hike a path up

that makes the most sense to our full self,

that being "driven" is not as close to truth

as finding one's own way,

that our self-worth comes from how true to our gifts we are,

and that who we are can be not just "driven,"

but driving a unique path forward,

I don't know what my unique path forward is going to be in retirement,

I fear substituting different hoops to jump through

and somehow not quite walking up my own path up this mountain.

by Henry H. Walker

November 26, ‘24

hijacked?

 

emotions in control

emotions hijack,

I can pretend that I am rational, and controlled,

but how I feel determines much of what I do,

it shoves my sure self out of the way

and takes control of thought and action,

in the darkness of the night,

when first sleep has sloughed off,

much of the heavy weight of the feelings I have been carrying

bubbles up, dark currents surface and carry me into fear,

and often I have to work to reground myself

so that not just the dark fears are in control,

I think emotions can remind us

that only sometimes is the left brain captain of the soul,

the reptile brain, the pejorative term for the part of us that recognizes threat,

and galvanizes action, is much of who we are, 

"hijack" seems to me to be the wrong word,

rather it seems our emotions can countermand 

the cocky assurance that will can assert,

we need a consensus within

that somehow holds all of us at the same time,

we might well need to be hijacked when we're going the wrong way,

we need to hold both despair and hope, anger and love,

otherwise who we are is less than who we should be.

by Henry H. Walker

November 24, ‘24

we should apprentice to Nature

 

nature, and revelations

many people view The Bible as God's Word,

proclamations of Truth, truth without error,

so full of what is right

that all we have to do is read in it

and thus find the answers 

as to how all came to be,

as to how we should act upon the world,

we should deny the primary source of our experience

and embrace what has been revealed in its pages,

no matter how many different humans

wrote down the words therein,

doing their best to follow the messages they received,

no matter the different human languages used,

with the different nuances of the wordings,

if it's in The Bible, it is right,

and we should deny our common sense,

our God-given understanding of what makes sense, 

of what doesn't,

meanwhile another book written by God has been open to us,

so that we might marvel, and learn,

it is the book called Nature, 

the world of rock, of plant and animal,

of the impulse toward greater order,

within which we have been born and live,

we should seek the insights, the rules Nature's world lives by,

how does it manifest the way of the Creator?

Ken Burns has told a story of Leonardo da Vinci,

in his documentary da Vinci sings the praise of the Creator,

as he studies, draws, creates meaning with what he learns,

I also celebrate Charles Darwin,

Darwin had the courage to see true and notice the "seeing,"

The Bible did not allow for dinosaurs,

for humans to have a past more than for a few thousand years,

for the idea that we are different from the vision of having burst forth,

full-blown, from God's forehead into Eden,

some of Darwin's last work was of plants,

he observed, noted, and speculated on the agency of the root of a plant,

now we start to fathom that all is connected within God's plan,

that underneath us is consciousness

that works to hold all together,

far better than The Bible's charge to us,

for it says we are in charge, 

that we are all that counts,

Nature begs to differ,

we should listen to God,

not just in the words of The Bible,

but also in the words of the Creation all around us,

that wholeness that we call Nature,

that which should elder us into apprenticing to a Creation,

that, like God, is far larger than us.

by Henry H. Walker

November 26, ‘24

Mama Bear and Two Cubs

 

nearing the end of childhood

we get to the Smokies mid-afternoon,

unpack and start a snack,

on my way to walk the bounds,

just outside the front door,

a movement, down by the creek, grabs my eyes,

a mother bear and two cubs!

the same I watched a few weeks ago up here,

as then, they eat acorn after acorn they find,

binge-snacking, including loud cracking sounds,

as walnuts gave up their calories

for mama's winter milk for the cubs,

the young ones repeated mama's actions,

sniffing out acorns, thrusting dry leaves out of the way,

looking quickly up and around to check for danger,

one cub always stayed near mama,

one ventured further, to explore,

I know which cub left paw prints on our front storm door,

I backpedaled slowly , as the distance to mama increased,

and I didn't want to make her worried,

I must have snapped 60 pictures,

some of an alert impressive mother,

most of cubs I have rarely seen so much,

full of themselves, in their element,

each with a distinct personality,

after 45 minutes  or so, 

they quit foraging in this neighborhood,

crossed the creek and went somewhere, 

as they all followed mama's impulses,

I sit down by the creek and write these notes

as dusk slowly swallows the light,

I feel as alert as the bear,

for I do not know who might come by,

like the bears, I too am an unannounced visitor here.

by Henry H. Walker

November 21, ‘24