Dear
Heron Dancers,
A full moon,
Couldn’t sleep.
I went out for a walk
In the night woods
Warm night air.
The woods quiet
Owls hooting
Patches of bright moonlight.
Filtering through trees.
After a long walk
I sat in a chair I keep out there
And thought about friendships
Past and present.
Lost and found.
Without friendships, would a life have much? And yet
many friendships seem transitory, even some that grow
out of a shared deep experience of life.
We’re on the move a lot in this culture. We no longer
need each other to survive. I remember in my teens sitting
with two older native men at a kitchen table on a Canadian
Indian reserve. They sat together, talked and laughed
a little, sipped tea, but there were long periods of silence
between them. They had grown up as children together,
been young men in the bush together and now were growing
old together. They knew what it was like to totally depend
on another human being, faults and all, for survival.
They were lean men, men who had known hard work and deprivation.
Tough men. The time for talking about one another’s
faults and strengths had long since past. Now they sat
together and had tea most mornings.
Go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke
the unused path.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I wondered too, last night sitting in the woods, about
how a love of solitude affects human relationships. Maybe
those who love solitude, who get deep satisfaction from
the company of their inner world, their daydreams, have
less stable relationships. Maybe those of us who love
solitude are less inclined towards compromise.
And now another friendship is ended. I do
not know what has made my friend doubt me, but I know
that in love there is no mistake, and that every estrangement
is well founded.
- Thoreau in his journal,
February 8, 1857
We go through life experiencing ups and downs, joy and
despair, in our connections with others. We experience
fluctuations in our connection with our own selves. It
is an interactive loop—one contributes to the other.
Peace with our own self contributes to peace with others.
When a close friend loses faith in us, it tends to affect
our faith in our self.
Anyway, we need each other. Despite everything, we need
company on this journey through life. Ultimately, the
smile of a close friend, the hug of someone who cares
about us, someone who believes in us, who gains from our
presence in the world, makes a huge difference in our
experience of life, even if we do love solitude.
So sitting there in the warm moonlight last night, listening
to a couple of owls, I considered my successes and failures
at being a good friend.
In celebration of the Great Dance
of Life,
Roderick W. MacIver
Click
here to forward to a friend!
 Annie
O'Shaughnessy, former editor of Heron Dance,
is once again holding Wild Soul Retreats.
The next is in Lyons, Michigan, October
22-25, 2009.
These wonderful gatherings are for soul
exploration, tender care, and connection
on beautiful wild lands. For more information,
please visit
here,
or email Annie at annie@soulflares.org.
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Wood
Thrushes in Love
These
striking 5" x 7" notecards (blank on
the inside), are printed domestically on Reincarnation,
the same premium recycled paper that we used for
our Holiday cards.
 These
notecards feature one of Roderick MacIver’s
most memorable images, Wood Thrushes in Love.
The set contains 10 notecards and 10 matching
envelopes, also made from premium recycled paper,
all of which is tucked securely in a sturdy natural-finish
box embossed with the Heron Dance logo on the
front.
Visit
here to order Wood Thrushes in
Love notecards $17.95.
Visit
here to order a signed, limited edition
print.
Visit
here to order a single matted print.
Birches
II - Blank Journal
 These
durable blank journals feature two of
Roderick MacIver's most popular images.
Two Egrets and Birches II.
They are great for holding your night
dreams, your day dreams, visions and fantasies,
even your grocery or To Do list. Sized
at 7.25" x 5.25", they fit easily
into your handbag or briefcase. Each blank
journal has pages lined on one side and
blank on the other (just in case you'd
like to sketch!).
Visit
here to order the Birches
II Blank Journal $12.00.
Visit
here to view the Birches
II image.
The
Seeker's Journey Back Issue Selection
This selection of HERON
DANCE back issues explores
the seeker’s journey, or what Joseph
Campbell described as the hero’s journey,
the journey where you pay the price of following
your bliss. It is a journey of transformation,
a journey that takes place in both the traveler’s
inner and outer worlds, a journey of trials
and tribulations.
 "When
you walked by a period of life when you could
have been really happy, you should have seized
it. You should have leaped upon it. I just
try to let myself go. It’s not necessary
to live in the moment every day, in a traffic
jam with smog creeping in your windshield,
listening to bad rap music on the radio. But
when it’s there, you have really got
to live it. The best reason for living it
is knowing you are going to die. It’s
no big deal. I have had some sense of my own
mortality for a long time. It’s not
a negative thought. It’s just the way
things are. If you want more life, that’s
fine. But you should get as much out of the
life that you’ve got as you can. ...
I wish I had a clue as how to find happiness,
but I know it slaps you in the face all of
the time."
- Doug Peacock,
author, grizzly bear man, HERON
DANCE interview.
The Seeker's Journey Back Issue Selection
includes issues 26, 38, 39, 42 and 49 of The
HERON DANCE
Nature Art Journal. The price, $15, is substantially
less than individual issues originally sold
for.
Visit
here to order The Seeker's Journey
Back Issue.
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Tell
us what you think!
If you have comments or ideas about HERON
DANCE or A Pause for Beauty,
please don't hesitate to send an email to support@herondance.org.
Although
we do not always have time to respond, your thoughts
help guide us in our efforts. If you write to us and
would prefer that we do not share your comments, just
let us know. You can read a collection of "Pause
for Reflection" letters by visiting
here
I am enjoying your latest publication of Heron
Dance. You've definitely turned the ship in a new
direction. I'm not sure what I think at this point.
Although I will say that I've been more compelled
to read this issue than a lot of others. I think that
possibly because it's not as predictable. I don't
know. I guess there are only so many ways to say,
"I love nature????
I think that possibly Heron Dance had become stale
for me. Kind of like a canned product. Kind of like
I didn't even need to open it up because I knew there
would be the usual quotes from others who were living
in nature, or being true to themselves, etc.
Actually, I had thought about letting my subscription
lapse. But when a person shares their true thoughts
and feelings . . . well, that's an original work of
art, isn't it? And you know what? What I'm saying
probably says more about me than about Heron Dance.
It usually does. Just a few, late night thoughts from
Arkansas.
-Doug
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