May, Wildness, and Profound Mystery

May is abundant in breathtaking wildlife at La Vista. For example, visitors may spot a deer fawn hidden by her mother in the grass – or under a bench as in the picture here. I’ve heard folks exclaim with joy upon an encounter like this that stops them in their tracks and causes them to cry out with pleasure.

May is also awash in a diversity of wildflowers like the mayapple, harbinger of spring, trillium, Virginia bluebells and wild sweet William. I have seen visitors do a double-take, go back, and bend low in awe and wonder over a flower as small as a fingernail and as delicate as a wing. They are brought to their knees in gratitude.

What is wilder than the sound of yipping and howling coyotes in the night? Our study group was peacefully gathered in the barn when a band of coyotes let loose with their vocalizations. We hushed ourselves, enjoying the thrill of such wildness so close by.

May, like every month, is replete in wildness above us in the sky. I have experienced a magical moment when those gathered in the night were drawn as if by invisible ties to move toward the east during the appearing of a full supermoon above the trees on the horizon. How long we stood and gazed in peaceful silence no one recalls.

What is the deep draw of the wild that evokes wonder, awe, joy, happy cries, and deep connection? In the chapter The Wild and the Sacred in his book The Great Work, Thomas Berry answers that question when he tells us he considers the wild to be “the most profound mystery”, a mystery that is also in you and me.

He goes on to consider the past 65 million years a period of wildness beyond compare, and he muses: The human, perhaps, could only have appeared in such a period of grandeur; for the inner life of the human depends immediately on the outer world of nature. He believes that only if our imaginations are activated by stunning natural events and beings – like hidden deer fawn, native wildflowers, and rising moons: …only then will the deep inner experiences be evoked in the human soul….

How will you honor inner wildness, the most profound Mystery that is in the depths of yourself and creation, during this stunningly beautiful and wild month?

(Photo by Brother Pat McGee, OMI)