From The Innkeepers

August 2019

In a poem by May Swenson, the poet encourages us to:

“Enter each day as upon a stage

lighted and waiting for your step”

It is with relative ease that one can enter the day in this way at the Rustic Gate.  Our wildlife friends set the stage for the opening curtain call in such a lovely manner.  It all begins with the birds at around 6:15-6:30am- Sand hill cranes, cardinals, Canadian geese, barn swallows, red winged blackbirds, red breasted grosbeaks, green and blue herons, trumpeter swans and a whole host of the 50 plus other species that have been sighted on our land. They begin with the sounds akin to an orchestral prelude to the day.  If we are really fortunate we hear the loons from nearby Hungerford Lake joining the chorus with their sweet melancholy.

“Give your eyes to agony or rapture” Swenson says.

Personally, I prefer the rapture myself- life having brought us enough of agonies like war, homelessness, discrimination, and hungers of many kinds.  Some days my eyes do not know where to go first.  Rapture evoking visual scenes are everywhere you look, from our pine forests and hardwoods to the wetlands and green meadows.

“Take earth for your own large room

And the floor of earth carpeted with sunlight

And hung around with silver wind

For your dancing place.”

It is our most sincere desire for our retreatants that the floor of our earth at the Rustic Gate becomes the dancing place for all our souls.

Blessings be. Marcia, Pat, and Sharon