Wild Geese

Mary Oliver is a poet of the natural world. In her collection, Owls and Other Fantasies, she observes birds and connects them to her spiritual life. Her poem, "Wild Geese," is especially inspiring to me. "The world offers itself to your imagination," she writes. It "calls to you like the wild geese." We just have to listen, and find comfort in recognizing our "place in the family of things."

You can find the full text of the poem here.

Only more one day to enter the giveaway for the 2011 Zencrafting Calendar, a collection of my photographs that documents observed moments like these, when the wild geese waddling in the field respond to a shared silent signal. They take off as a group against the stripe of clouds, arrow up and high away from the field, only to glide down with a raucous cheer to land on a nearby pond.

Leave a comment on this post before Friday, November 12, at 9:00 p.m. EST for your chance to win a copy of the professionally printed calendar--a great idea for holiday gift-giving or to display as a desk calendar or wall calendar. It's printed on recycled card stock, and each month can be reused as a postcard.

My running clothes are fresh out of the dryer, so I think I'll skip my lunch break and see what my imagination can encounter outside on this breezy early November day.