Wild Geese: What We Need is Here
 Rev. Ted Tollefson
©January 11, 2009 @ UU Society of River Falls

In this written version of a spoken sermon, I have chosen to turn my interpretive answers back into questions.  My hope is that the questions and exercises will lead you back into the poems and the field of your own experience.  Reading and reflecting on and through poetry invites us to artfully connect the linear logic of the left brain with the associative logic of the right brain.  When these two parts of ourselves work together, "heart" and "mind" disclose a path of healing wisdom which is close at hand.  "What we need is here".

1. Messages from my flying neighbors
For the last week or so, the wild geese have been preparing to leave Lake Pepin.  When Gryff and I walked on Monday, we saw a huge flock of honkers taking off from the chilly water and flying south.  We cheered them on, hoping we would join them in Florida soon. Then they turned west and flew towards us.  More honking and they turned north.  More honking, they turned east, then south. We figured they must be a flock of Unitarian geese who were holding a committee meeting on the wing. Despite there disagreements or perhaps because of some more subtle form of communication, they left about a day later, just before Lake Pepin started to freeze over.  No doubt, we'll see them flying up river next March or April when the channel opens.

2.  Reflections on Two Poems about Wild Geese
We are lucky to have two poems about Wild Geese, from two of the most powerful voices of our time: Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry.  I invite you to read these poems aloud before looking at the questions that follow.
"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
               from Dream Work

Questions for Mary Oliver's Poem
1. What religious orientation does the poem set aside in the first three lines?
2. What alternative way does the poem offer in line 4?
3. What form of secular salvation is set aside in line 5?
4. What alternatives are offered by the three "meanwhile" clauses?
5. Why is it important or useful that the "world" and/or the  "wild geese" call out more than once? (last 3 lines)
6. What alternative path does this poem offer that speaks to and through our body (lines 4-5), senses (the 'meanwhiles')
and imagination (lines 13-15)?
7. What does it mean that the invitation in to take our place in the "family of things"?
8. How might the last three lines be related to the Dakota blessing: "Metokrewsin" (' all my relations')?
"Wild Geese" by Wendell Berry

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
              from The Country of Marriage

Questions for Wendell Berry's Poem
1. What common thread links "abandon" with love, sleep and the migratory patterns of geese?
2. How can these deeply implanted patterns be an "ancient faith"?
3. Compare to Emerson's description in his essay "Nature" (1836) of the nature within us as "dreams, sleep, sex...." etc.
4. What do you make of the twice repeated affirmation: "What we need is here"?
5. Compare to Thoreau's proverb: "Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads".
6. Why does the poet pray?  To whom or what does he pray?
7. What is a "new earth or heaven" NOT what is prayed for?
8. Why does the poet pray to be "quiet in heart" and "in eye clear"?
9. What brings you in a calm,quiet and clear state (Kuan/undivided attention) in which the deep patterns of Nature ("Tao") are self-evident?
10. How might your life be changed if you acted as if "what we need is here?"

3. Messages from our neighbors on Prairie Island
I began these reflections by recounting a story of some wild geese from my neighborhood who seemed to use a consensual processd to decide when to take flight.  I'd like to close by listening to our Native American neighbors who have live on Prairie Island, just 20? miles from where we gather.  In recent weeks our neighbors have begun to say "NO" to the plans of Exel Energy to increase the storage of nuclear waste on Prairie Island.  For Excel Energy, that decision would mean more profit.  For those who live by, it means more radiation, more risk and probably more cancer.  I say "our neighbors" because if there ever is a major accident or incident every living being within 50 miles will be impacted.  Those down-wind or down-water will also be affected.  So we our lives are inextricably connected to our neighbors on Praire Island.  Together we are part of "the family of things". 

Our lives and our deaths are bound together, for as our Dakota neighbors say: "Metokweessin",  we are all related, our are all relations. This principle, which we Unitarian Universalist call the "interdependent web of life" is the great unspoken truth connecting our lives to the wild geese, our Native American neighbors and the poems of Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry. Whether we like it or not, what is done to our neighbors will be done to us even unto the 7th generation. 

Will we listen with an open heart and mind?   Will we care enough to act?  Will we act to create nonviolent, constructive change?  I hope so. 

4. Wild Geese: How Beauty and Justice join to serve Interdependence
These two poems and two stories of listening point to a deep conviction implicit in the flight of wild geese.  It takes two wings to fly and those wings are joined by a common body and a common guidance system.  As Unitarian Univeralists, we also are carried  on two wings.  One wing is Beauty: when focus our attention with the awe and wonder of what-is and give it back in poetry, song or movement.  The other wing is Justice:  when we focus our attention on what is broken, wounded or unfair and attempt to attempt to "give life the shape of justice". What holds these two impulses together is the shared body of 'the web of life' and the guiding principle of Interdependence. 

Beauty, Justice, Interdependence: what we need is here!

5. Taking Flight: Words on the Wing
This talk was punctuated by our best version of wild geese honking.  It led to a brief workshop in which listeners were asked to assign themselves to either Beauty or Justice.  Those in the Beauty group were asked to pick a single line from one of these poems that moved them, repeat it inwardly for several minutes, and then just write for 5 minutes.  Those in the Justice group were invited to repeat the question: "What needs to be mended, fixed, made right?" for several minutes.  They were then invited to just write for 5 minutes. 

Here's  samples of our words-on-the-wing; please send along your own responses for future updates:

(1) Broken is the knowledge that the well-being of each animal is directly and intimately related to the well-being of you and of me.  Each child with autism is an indicator of fractures in the well being of each of us.  Current reports indicate that 1 in 150 children are viewing the world through the eyes of autism.  Yet, we are failing to acknowledge our vulnerability and the fragile nature of our planet.  We are forging ahead rapidly on a track to utter destruction because of clouded consciousness.  We must awaken before it is too late!  (Paula Lugar)

(2) In the drearieness of the clouding of feeling and the covering of  snow???, the brightness of song and the the beauty of the earth make a monochromatic life full of vivid colors and sound.  The joy of Bach and the cry of the wild geese echo through my ears and my heart and soul and give me joy in being alive... (Ron Sutliff)

(3) Applications of "What we need is here":
1. heating more with firewood, less with LP gas
2. putting on extra layers and keeping the day-time temp at 63*
3. gathering firewood when I walk Gryff
4. recycling and reusing what I already have, rather than buying something new
5. reducing clutter, extra driving and waste   (Ted Tollefson)

(4) Be quiet in heart--find the peace in stillness--be aware of the beauty
that surrounds you, in the snow, the sky, the waters of earth, in
music that lifts your soul, in the eyes of a child. Let the Christmas
lights remind you the light within you.  Find the beauty in listening 
to the soul of someone you love--of granting them their being, just
the way they are.  Feel the beauty of holding someone dear, touching
them with your love. (Beth Ray)

(5) Above the sound of the water flowing
Even as the daylight let out a long sigh
We built a fire of wood we gathered
And took the cold out of the winter sky

We had no place better to be
And reminded ourselves of the better place
As the quiet flames held our gaze
We realized we were right with the world

Just a fire for a little meal
Just a fire to touch our souls
Just a step forward into the next moment
Comfortable with all that we could feel

I leaned into my love and she into me
And we felt the warmth of a fire burning
It was our fire, so we could feel "our"
And feel righted and realigned in this life
Having taken the time to be reminded of the beauty
We promise to honor and carry into tomorrow
As together we look into the flames this winter night
(Paul)

Blessed are the peace-makers