Photo by Marilyn Stolberg on a recent visit to the Inn

Summer 2010

In a poem by May Swenson, she encourages us to:

“Enter each day as upon a stage
lighted and waiting for your step”

It is easy to enter the days in this way at the Rustic Gate. Our animal friends set the stage for the opening curtain call in such a lovely way.  It begins with the birds at around 5:30 am: Sand hill cranes, cardinals, Canadian geese, barn swallows, red winged blackbirds, red breasted grosbeaks, green herons, and a whole host of the 50 plus other species that have been sighted on our land who sound the 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” she says.

Personally I prefer the rapture myself- life having seen enough of agony like oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, the Haitian Earthquake, continuing wars, homelessness, discrimination, and hunger of many kinds. Some days my eyes do not know where to land in this environment- feasts for the eyes and loveliness everywhere you look in the natural world, 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 if you do come and visit us this summer that you take with you images of the beautiful pieces of earth that surround us here and make of it your own large room for your dancing place.

Blessings be.
Marcia, Pat, and Sharon