There are people who can live without goose music, and people who can't. 
- Jim O'Connor reflecting on Aldo Leopold’s particularly beautiful prose:

And when the dawn-wind stirs through the ancient cottonwoods, and the gray light steals down from the hills over the old river sliding softly past its wide brown sandbars — what if there be no more goose music?”
- Sand County Almanac

Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
Or the wind sweeps through a tree,
Or a dog howls in a far-off farm,
I hold still and listen a long time.

My world turns and goes back to the place
Where, a thousand forgotten years ago,
The bird and the blowing wind
Were like me, and were my brothers.

My soul turns into a tree,
And an animal, and a cloud bank.
Then changed and odd it comes home
And asks me questions. What should I reply?
— Hermann Hesse

A field of wildflowers swaying in the wind. The hush of an old growth forest. The wonder of birds in flight, the beauty of their song. The mystery of a flock of geese floating across a wilderness lake at sunrise. We came from wilderness; we evolved in wilderness. A part of us still resonates there.

Frequent walks in the woods can contribute peace and serenity to a human life. A close relationship with nature requires serenity.

Over time, trees can become old friends. Like all friendship, a relationship with big old trees is enhanced by frequent encounters. In the process of making friends with trees, we build a friendship with our own self.

A close relationship with nature contributes to happiness in life.

A close relationship with nature is, in part, a spiritual relationship. Walking in nature and being open to the beauty around us is a spiritual practice, but one difficult to put into words.

A close relationship with nature affects the entire rhythm of our lives.

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least — and it is commonly more than that — sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.
-        Henry David Thoreau, Walking

 I have always longed to be a part of the outward life, to be out there at the edge of things, to let the human taint wash away in emptiness and silence as the fox sloughs his smell into the cold unworldliness of water; to return to the town as a stranger.  Wandering flushes a glory that fades with arrival.
     - J.A. Baker, The Peregrine

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

      Remember thy creator in the days of thy youth.  Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.  Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night overtake thee everywhere at home.  There are no larger fields than these, no worthier games than may here be played.  Grow wild according to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which will never become English hay.  Let the thunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to farmers' crops?  That is not its errand to thee.  Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds.  Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport.  Enjoy the land, but own it not.  Through want of enterprize and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs.
-        Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Journal Notes:

I try to make a daily walk in the woods the center of my day. It adds a huge amount to my life.

Knowing the science of nature is not the same has having a love of nature, and the deep rewards are in the love. Our love can be complete; our science cannot. An eye for beauty in nature is incompatible with an eye for usefulness.

Simple living contributes to an appreciation of nature. Wealth can detract from a close relationship with nature.  A close relationship to nature is a sensual relationship. I try to be open to beauty in all of its manifestations, including the sound of wind in the woods.

Walking in nature builds health. Walking in nature builds spirit and inner strength. A close relationship with nature enhances one’s youthfulness.

Solitude in nature can enhance our relationship to nature.

Nature does not observe man’s laws, just as man does not observe nature’s laws. Wild nature offers a sense of freedom.

We need nature to be whole. We need to be in it, but we also need to know it exists without us, wild and free.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 
By William Wordsworth
(first and last stanzas)

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

. . .

That inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.
Wordsworth is estimated to have walked 186,000 miles in his lifetime.
- Journal note.

I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world.
- George Santayana

. . . the purity of the wildflower and the unspoiled countryside so often puts to shame the high culture of town and court. There is a wild and untamable beauty in man when he is in harmony with nature.
     - Bernard Leach, The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight Into Beauty

For the world is not painted or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe.
   — Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Laws of Nature

. . .

Listen, God love everything you love -‑ and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration. . . I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.          
 - Alice Walker, The Color Purple

In my life the Divine Mystery
Is a feeling that can’t be put into words.
And I don’t think it pisses God off if we walk by beauty and don’t notice it
Because if it did, God would be pissed off all the time
And that wouldn’t be good, or right
God loves the color purple too much
To let the ignorance, indifference of humans upset the flow
Of Divine Rapture.
     - Journal Note

Love all the earth, every ray of God's light, every grain of sand or blade of grass, every living thing. If you love the earth enough, you will know the Divine mystery.
- The Brothers Karamazov: The monk on his deathbed. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

. . .

Prayer For The Wild Voice
for Nina

Poetry is the natural prayer
of the human soul.
                        - Rilke

1

A long dark curve is the poem in your body
       is the river
            is the loon's throat.

Have you ever asked yourself how
the loon's voice
                        opens?

2

You know it first as change in the body.
Even if the blue place you are dreaming
            is no longer there
                        you must begin.

Something that desires to lift
     these heavy bones
            something simple
                        and beautiful

miraculous as a feather
                                    forms along the blade
                                                                        of each wing.

3

Poised, no longer
                                    settled
            you wait as every part of you sheds
                        what once was,
                                    and is no longer
                                                            necessary.

Close to shore you prepare.
            And what will it cost you?
            And what is this --
                                    haunting and wild, now
                        still in your throat, now
                                    trembling--

Set it free
                        whatever it may cost you
set it free
            - by Cheryl Hellner

Years ago Cheryl was a subscriber to the print version of Heron Dance. If you are her, or you know her, please be in touch.

. . .

Journal note:

What will it cost you?
            And what is this --
                                    haunting and wild, now
                        still in your throat, now
                                    trembling--

Set it free
                        whatever it may cost you
set it free.

. . .

Day after day paddling
The north shore of Lake Superior
Sun rising behind us and setting in front.
In a little canoe
On the world’s biggest lake.

Slowly submerging
Into a different reality
Wind, sun, rain and whitecaps.
Huge cliffs stretch for miles along the shore
Petroglyphs
Made by the ancient peoples who summered here
Seeking respite from the relentless inland bugs.
Little coves, miles of islands
Huge trees stretch along the shore
Downed by mammoth waves
A reminder of the power of this place.
Down thirty feet through crystal clear water
You can see the bottom.
Big fish.

Driftwood fires at night
Sandy beaches, rarely visited anymore
Loons and owls and bears
Bears that saunter through camp at night.
Leaving their tracks in the sand.

Storms blow up quickly
You need to be careful
But fear doesn’t help.
Suspend your imagination.
Especially when caught in big swells.
Instead, paddle.

Days spent windbound
Staring at whitecaps
Stretching to the horizon
When will you let us get started again?
The lake, the weather
Traveling companions
You come to love
But not trust.
- Journal Notes

Frazier Hunt writing in Redbook

One July afternoon at our ranch in the Canadian Rockies I rode toward Helen Keller's cabin. Along the wagon trail that ran through a lovely wood we had stretched a wire, to guide Helen when she walked there alone, and as I turned down the trail I saw her coming.

    I sat motionless while this woman who was doomed to live forever in a black and silent prison made her way briskly down the path, her face radiant. She stepped out of the woods into a sunlit open space directly in front of me and stopped by a clump of wolf willows. Gathering a handful, she breathed their strange fragrance: her sightless eyes looked up squarely into the sun, and her lips, so magically trained, pronounced the single word "Beautiful!" Then, still smiling, she walked past me.

    I brushed the tears from my own inadequate eyes. For to me none of this exquisite highland had seemed beautiful. I had felt only bitter discouragement over the rejection of a piece of writing. I had eyes to see all the wonders of woods, sky and mountains, ears to hear the rushing stream and the song of the wind in the treetops. It took the sightless eyes and sealed ears of this extraordinary woman to show me beauty, and bravery.

. . .

Of the challenges of life
Which are many, which we all have
Those inevitable just by virtue
Of being alive
And those that are self-imposed
Unnecessary but no less real
One of the most important
But easiest to avoid
Is seeing beauty.

It’s a practice, like Buddhism or yoga
Except you are focused outwardly.
There are days I’ve walked through a field of wildflowers
Through forests of huge hemlock trees
Barely noticing, absorbed by some problem or other
Some painting not going well
Some piece of writing not coming together.

When I open my heart to beauty
Submerge myself in it
Turn my thought processes over to beauty
I get immediate perspective
On all the other things going on in my life
Which are truly important,
And which are trivial, meaningless, pointless. 

Living in the woods
Surrounded by nature all day long
In a multitude of forms: sounds, smells, sights
You can come to accept beauty as normal
Take beauty for granted
It doesn’t complain.

Beauty offers itself to us
Without price
Other than the price of paying attention
Focus, open heart, time.