Pond Alchemy

The water at Old frog Pond Farm travels south from the Elizabeth Brook, through a culvert under Eldridge Road, fills the pond, and empties over a waterfall into wetlands that feed the Concord and Assabet Rivers. 

Water Meets Water, Watercolor, 2018, Linda Hoffman

Pond Alchemy

sheets of angled rain

pierce the pond

water meets water

lily pads

host their guests

a frog and beads of water

attentive to water

a blue heron

waits —

the wise say,

‘the way of water

is to flow’

a black cormorant

grasps a snag

winging water droplets

tree swallows

pluck insects

splash of water

the wise teach,

‘water never

harms water’

weaving threads

of iridescent water

dragonflies hover.

Early Morning Pond View, June 2, 2020, Linda Hoffman

Simple Pleasures

“I nurture simplicity among the gardens and fields”
                         —Chinese farmer and poet, T’ao Chien, 365-427 C.E.

These days, many of us have no choice but to bring simplicity into our lives. Many of our favorite activities have been taken away whether this means no gym workouts, no visiting with friends and family, or no shopping at a favorite store. We scrounge through the pantry shelves for something to cook, making do with what is on hand. Or go outside like I did the other night to gather parsley and a bit of coriander that overwintered, new shoots of spearmint, and a large bowl of stinging nettles, to add to some sad looking basil leaves in the back of the fridge. The greens, smushed into the Cuisinart, along with oil, garlic, lemon juice, and pecans made a hearty pesto. Our creative meals can bring us great delight.

Simplicity can also mean living more intentionally, with more discipline and purpose. It can be unburdening our lives as well as decluttering our minds. Usually our minds flit from one thought to the next, from one sensation to another, moving quickly and erratically, but there is the silence when all distractions and desires fade. In many spiritual traditions, one sits in meditation to calm thoughts in order to experience deep silence. Sitting still, not moving, is the aid to find the stability of simplicity that allows for an opening to that great Silence.

For me, the concentration required by sculpting, painting, and writing creates the fertile ground for merging with the work, and within that merging, I find stillness. A musical score gives structure to mark periods of sounds and rests. The German-born pianist, Artur Schnabel (1882–1951) wrote,

“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes—ah, that is where the art resides.”

The great jazz musician Miles Davis said it this way:

“Don’t play what’s there; play what’s not there.”

Lao Tzu, the Chinese sage advises, “Become empty of yourself and realize inner silence.” It sounds straightforward, but who knows how to empty themselves. I can’t sit myself down on a meditation cushion and say, I’m going to find silence: I only find myself in the midst of a great amount of activity. That’s why cultivating the earth always feels like cheating, the back door: the simple act of weeding as the antidote for the anxiety of our present times. But even weeding can be a challenge. I was talking to a friend yesterday and said,

“You know, weeding is not always that easy. It’s not just pulling the long white weed thread. Some weeds like vetch are impossible, impenetrable. It’s exhausting to dig through their density of roots. And when it’s that difficult, there’s no quieting the mind.”

Meister Eckhart, the Christian contemplative wrote,

“It’s not what we do that makes us holy, but we should make holy what we do.”

Ariel, grafting Olympic Asian pear scion wood onto rootstock in the Asian pear orchard.

So I return to the words of T’ao Chien: “I nurture simplicity among the gardens and fields.” I remind myself that he is surely weeding the gardens and plowing the fields, and he is nurturing simplicity. When I only concern myself with getting the work finished, checked off the to-do list, I take no pleasure in it. When I forget the to-do list, then the merging that I so love takes place. We can make holy everything we do. We can nurture simplicity everywhere.

Baby snapper turtle Ariel found when we were moving a pear tree to plant new peaches. The turtle stretched and then we quickly dug it back into the soil.

Forest Tales

Our quartet, my stepfather Bill, daughter Ariel, and partner Blase, returned one week ago from our trip to Tibet. However, condensing two intense weeks of pilgrimage into a brief blog, like making a few jugs of sweet juice from bushels of ripe apples, takes time. The apples need to sweat, I need to distill the experience.

Meanwhile the Catalpa tree with its large heart-shaped leaves outside my studio window is no longer green and leafy, but is sending brown flying carpets everywhere. And in the woods, the sight-lines are clear as tree branches lay bare the sky, and the spiced air welcomes the forest walker.

Next Sunday morning, November 17th at 11 am, I invite you to join me for a forest walk in one of Stow, Massachusetts’ conservation areas, The Leggett Woods. Here along a meandering trail, I installed thirteen sculptures, a world of acorn-capped acrobatics, a mother and child, a boy and a turtle, a frog, each one fixed onto a forest stone. The storyteller sits near the beginning reading to three acorn-capped children.

Caps for Sale

The paths are cleared and covered with wood chips so discovering each one is not difficult. The Stow Conservation Trust, the private land preservation organization in Stow, hopes to attract more families to explore their trails by creating special places to visit and enjoy. 

The genesis of this project began along Old Frog Pond Farm’s woods trails where a series of bronze meditating figures are permanently installed. They are small, and you would think go unnoticed, and perhaps do for some people, but most others notice one sculpture, and then another, and another, and are delighted by the shift in scale, the quietness, and simplicity of these bronze figures on rocks.

Vita Matisse sitting with sculptures.

My granddaughter enjoys sitting on the large rock among them. Other children add acorn caps, a perfect fit for the bowed bronze heads. We don’t encourage interaction with the sculpture on exhibit at the farm, but I thought these acorns caps were a charming addition and have since cast a few figures topped with them. The wood burns out in the lost wax process.

When I was considering a possible sculpture for the Leggett Woods, I thought about a village of sculptures that might encourage children to get down on their hands and knees, and play. Perhaps add some more acorn caps, or build a little house of twigs, or add stones and leaves—an artwork to encourage interaction with the forest life.

The Stow Conservation Trust worked hard to find volunteers to help with the land clearing and creation of the trails. I am especially grateful to the committee I worked with directly, Janet Kresi Moffat, Ann Carley, and Carol Gumbart, and to the Alice Eaton Grant Funds for supporting the commission.

Another person I have worked with for many years is poet, Susan Edwards Richmond. In the first issue of Wild Apples, the journal of nature, art, and inquiry we founded and edited with two other friends in 2006, Susan wrote poetry for a series of my bronze boat sculptures. When I told her about this commission, I hesitantly asked if she might like to write a poem—I knew her creative focus was now on children’s books (Bird Count published by Peachtree Publishing Company came out last month!). As the date for installation got closer, Susan wrote, “Where are you installing the sculptures in Stow?  Could you use another hand? I can meet on the 11th as long as it's after 1:45 pm.”

It was a kind offer, but among Susan’s many talents is not operating a hammer drill or epoxy gun. I didn’t reply. She wrote again a few days later, “What time? Would you like some local help? :)”.  This time I answered, “Sure! Maybe around 11? You follow the trail then take the left fork. Can’t miss.”

Susan arrived when John Lowe, my assistant, and I were well into the installation. We’d been there since 9 am. Of course, Susan and I both knew she wasn’t coming to help with the install, but with notebook in hand she immediately knelt down in front of a sculpture.

Susan will be reading the Forest Tales poems at the opening next Sunday. There will be kids’ activities, refreshments, art, nature, and poetry. Hope to see some of you on Sunday, November 17 at 11 am. And I promise a Tibet blog soon!

Directions: Leggett Woods is on Whitman Street just off of Gleasondale Road (Route 62). If you are driving South on Route 62 from the intersection of Route 117 in Stow, go about a mile, turn left at the fork with signs for Honey Pot Orchards , and the Leggett Woods parking area is on your right.

The Storyteller



January Ice

Ice and cold describe my January 2018. Our dog snores in his bed near the wood stove. The wood pile lowers as we pull from it to feed the flames. I think of Galway Kinnell’s poem, Another Night in the Ruins. The flames in his poem might be our creative spirits, our deeply felt lives. The narrator of the poem remembers his brother’s warning — the day offers nothing; it is the night when the bonfire lights the entire sky.  But to light the flames, we must be the flame. We must, like the rooster in the poem, let go of all of our ‘ink-spattered feathers', our failures, our half-hearted efforts, our old and accustomed habits; we must hurl ourselves into the unknown, and with single-minded effort search for the single grain, the true grain that will nourish, that will deeply warm our souls.

Another Night in the Ruins

1

In the evening
haze darkening on the hills,
purple of the eternal,
a last bird crosses over,
‘flop flop,’ adoring
only the instant.

2

Nine years ago,
in a plane that rumbled all night
above the Atlantic,
I could see, lit up
by lightning bolts jumping out of it,
a thunderhead formed like the face
of my brother, looking down
on blue,
lightning-flashed moments of the Atlantic.

3

He used to tell me,
“What good is the day?
On some hill of despair
the bonfire
you kindle can light the great sky—
though it’s true, of course, to make it burn
you have to throw yourself in ...”

4

Wind tears itself hollow
in the eaves of these ruins, ghost-flute
of snowdrifts
that build out there in the dark:
upside-down ravines
into which night sweeps
our cast wings, our ink-spattered feathers.

 5

I listen.
I hear nothing. Only
the cow, the cow of such
hollowness, mooing
down the bones.

 6

Is that a
rooster? He
thrashes in the snow
for a grain. Finds
it. Rips
it into
flames. Flaps. Crows.
Flames
bursting out of his brow.

7

How many nights must it take
one such as me to learn
that we aren’t, after all, made
from that bird that flies out of its ashes,
that for us
as we go up in flames, our one work
is
to open ourselves, to be
the flames?

             —Galway Kinnell