August 30: "White Flowers," First Week, Super Blue Moon

Mary Oliver blossoms in a field . . . 

White Flowers

by:  Mary Oliver

Last night

in the fields

I lay down in the darkness

to think about death,

but instead I fell asleep,

as if in a vast and sloping room

filled with those white flowers

that open all summer,

sticky and untidy,

in the warm fields.

When I woke

the morning light was just slipping

in front of the stars,

and I was covered

with blossoms.

I don't know

how it happened--

I don't know

if my body went diving down

under the sugary vines

in some sleep-sharpened affinity

with the depths, or whether

that green energy

rose like a wave

and curled over me, claiming me

in its husky arms.

I pushed them away, but I didn't rise.

Never in my life had I felt so plush,

or so slippery,

or so resplendently empty.

Never in my life

had I felt myself so near

that porous line

where my own body was done with

and the roots and the stems and the flowers

began.

I totally understand Oliver lying down in a dark field to meditate on death.  In case you haven't noticed, thinking about mortality is something I do frequently.  I excel at it.  However, when Oliver wakes up, she finds herself covered in white blossoms, as if her body has either taken root or the green world has risen up and claimed her.  Either way, she's transformed.

It is mid-week.  Hump day, as they say.  I've taught three classes so far, with one left to teach tomorrow morning.  I haven't made a fool of myself.  Yet.  The students seem to like me, although maybe I should substitute the verb "tolerate" for "like."  In any case, Friday is fast approaching, and I've survived the first week of the semester.

Tonight, a Super Blue Moon rises in the heavens.  Now, a blue moon usually refers to a second full moon appearing within a calendar month, and a supermoon means that the moon is closer to the Earth, making it appear slightly larger in the sky.  The next time a Super Blue Moon will appear, according to astronomers, is the year 2037.  

So, what do all these things have to do with each other--death, teaching, little white flowers, and Super Blue Moons?  I'll tell you . . . I don't really know.  It's a confluence of happenings, perhaps related, perhaps unrelated.  I often look for meaning in simply random events that occur simultaneously, and I rarely discover that meaning.

One of my best friends texted me this evening.  She sent a beautiful photo of the moon rising over Lake Superior.  It's huge, with a finger of light stretching across the waves to the shore.  She sent it to me because she knows that I've been struggling for a while with darkness.  She sent it to me because we're both Mary Oliver fans, and Oliver would have loved the image.  And she sent it because she's my friend and wanted to share something beautiful with me.

And maybe that's all the meaning I need tonight.  The fact that there are amazing things happening in the world, even with all the darkness.  That fact that my friend and I love the same poet who falls asleep in a dark field and wakes to white summer flowers blossoming from her body.  The fact that, no matter what I say to my students, they have to discover their own paths to light and meaning.  And the fact that someone in this world loves me enough to send me a Super Blue Moon to carry around in my pocket, in case I stumble in the night.

And Saint Marty is transformed by all this.

Photo by Gala Mahlerbe