What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.
I thought of this poem by Mary Oliver as my husband, Tim, and I hiked along the Cascade River a few weekends ago. The river is aptly named as it does cascade down so many ledges and waterfalls. The river drops 900 feet in its last three miles on its journey into Lake Superior. This volcanic gorge carved by glaciers and water truly has an unfinishable story.
Near the mouth of the Cascade River, we came across a field of ferns. Many of them were still curled up tight. Their fiddleheads had not yet opened fully to the sunlight. They swayed lightly in the breeze. There was a song in them.
A few days after our hike I went to a friend’s home to celebrate her birthday. She had harvested fern fiddleheads to be part of our dinner. She wondered the best way to cook them. We agreed on sautéing with a little olive oil. They were delicious.
As we sat at her table the stories unwound just like the fiddleheads. We all had gathered a decade earlier for her 60th birthday. She noted that there were three other women who had been at her 60th party but they had died since then. These strong women’s stories were an important part of our own. It was so very good to remember them- a poet, a chaplain, and a carpenter. They too had all carved away a part of our hearts and their songs continued.
Recently, I have spent a lot of time lately listening to people’s stories as they share their fifth steps with me. A fifth step is an important part of the 12-step program. In this step you “Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” For many people, this is the most difficult step as private thoughts and concerns are spoken out loud to someone you do not know well. Often that person is clergy, hence my presence, especially with the women from the county jail.
It is sacred space as their stories slowly unwind. God or the higher power is defined by the storyteller. Often for the people I sit with God is simply love, or their AA group or the peace they have found in the natural world.
As we begin the fifth step, I always share that we all carry around a lot of rocks of guilt and shame. This is their time to take those rocks out, look at them honestly and then toss them into the lake of grace. This unwinding of stories often takes several hours. We must be patient with the stones.
It is an honor to sit and listen to people’s stories. There is sadness and shame, but the stories move on to strength and hope. Hope in knowing that there is a new story unfolding. Sometimes we end our time in prayer but more often in silence, a hug, and a reminder to take time to walk along the shoreline of our amazing lake.
On Saturday night after a walk by the lake, Tim and I went out for pizza. When I saw the menu, I knew which pizza we would order. It had to be a Bianca pizza with locally foraged fiddlehead ferns. Yes, we all need someone to listen to us as our stories and songs unfold in the sunlight of years. And if you are very lucky sometimes you get to taste them.
Mary Oliver’s poem concludes with these words:
Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.
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