The second chorus of brood XIV
Guide Post No. 1: for and from Mary Oliver
They appeared to me first as colors—these so-called dead that speak. In the mists between the life I was living and the one I was about to lead, a train station between worlds, there were certain colors I kept or found around me that tuned each inner string: the jadeite shades of my fountain pen, longtime favorite dishes, and linen duvet; the vibrant orange of my headphones; the pale pink of a pillow; the soft blue of my Fiesta mug (in Sky); the bright yellow of my phone case. I started swirling these colors next to each other on canvases. I started noting them anywhere in my field. Sometimes one struck me most, sometimes a certain combination, sometimes the whole chord at once.
One day I made a smudge of each color on the wood board on my easel and noted in pencil next to each the names of figures likewise sparking me with something about how they’d lived or worked their craft. Elements I already possess, or else was wanting to learn. I let my intuition discern who was who—which color corresponded to which name.
Georgia, Hilma, Louisa, Ursula, Mary…
I begin here with Mary, because her name and color swam into my mind this week, then the words overtook me in the bath where I duly wrote them down.
The only rule of creation is to work with what is ready.
Another sign that affirmed this readiness: after writing Mary’s piece, as I thought about how and why these colors affect me, I opened the book I’d brought to the bath and found myself on a chapter titled “The Psychological Working of Color.”
Of course.
So quickly, from Kandinsky:
Generally speaking, colour is a power which directly influences the soul. Colour is a keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.
—CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN ART, Wassily Kandinsky
Please note: I wrote about color tuning my strings before I read this passage, or even realized the next chapter was about color.
Take from this what you will.
I take it as proof of my tuning.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
— Mary Oliver, “The Wild Geese”
Mary Oliver links us—like the sign that Gandalf scratches on Bilbo’s door to tell the dwarves where to go. If you know someone who likes her, you know some important things about them—their attitude about nature, the way they attend to the world.
A Mary Oliver quote is a communion wafer we share between us, as well as the nourishment we receive on lonely trails. In the wilderness of my own experience, lines from “The Wild Geese” and “To Begin With, The Sweet Grass” have guided me like stars. I’ve never memorized any of them on purpose, yet once seen they stay behind my eyelids, like the afterimage of a candle. They are summoned as I need them, like nutrient stores. Like alchemical spells they transmute my experiences into gold. When I read “The Uses of Sorrow” gratitude touched every wall. (“Someone I loved once gave me / a box full of darkness. / It took me years to understand / that this, too, was a gift.”)
Mary Oliver gave me the interiority of language that turned me back outdoors—kindred with Annie Dillard. In her watchful solitude, she related the intensity of her inner feelings with what she saw around her.
Kindred with me.
Kindred with my kindred.
To Mary, with love and gratitude.
(9/10/1935 - 1/17/2019)
THE SECOND CHORUS OF BROOD XIV
You do not have to study any certain thing
in order to evolve.
The cicadas have not practiced transformation.
When the time comes, they just go.
The cells of their bodies know.
The cells of our spirits do too
if we will move and not ask why--
or if we ask, let the answer be
because it's time.
We cannot help
but change--
the essence of death
and life.
Mary Oliver’s portrait is part of my Art-chetype Series, available now in my shop.
This post is also in spoken form as an episode of The Inner Dive.
The music at the beginning of the recording is Bright Waking Moon, written and composed by my brother, Ethan Sharp, and used with his permission. You can find the full song and buy the whole album (The Kith: A Lunar Calendar) inspired by my fantasy novel-in-progress here.
The music at the end of this episode is by cicada brood XIV, recorded in May 2025. All rights reserved to them.
“A train station between worlds” 🌌💫
My dear aunt kept Mary’s “Wild Geese” taped to the refrigerator when she lived at Jenkins Drive. The summer I was 19, I lived in the basement - where, as you know, many soul dreams later blossomed from seeds planted. I read that poem almost every day. Not on purpose, but because it was there. In my field. And the meaning spoke to something I had smothered through so much focus upon being good in a spiritual sense, and negating desire. Years later, as that home became ours for a spiral spell of time, Mary’s influence came full circle. With her Collected Works Vol. 1, I began walking a new path - through the forest, back home to myself.
You hit it spot on in saying that Mary links us (and the Gandalf metaphor is 🔥)
“Let the answer be / because it’s time” 🌄
The bell strikes 1:11 on the clocks of our lives at this turning point in the collective flow. The hour of 9:99 passes away as we individually embrace this cycle renewed.
My sense of wonder and deep soul acknowledgement grows, in receiving this glimpse into the vast expanse of your dreaming field 🌅