If we are to live in the present, being truly alive, then everything recedes except these simple things that we observe, these particular movements that we make: the color of a leaf, the walk in the garden.
R. J. Orwell, O.S.B.

EPHEMERIS
    The Crow Gathering Moon, full on December 12, wanes throughout the period, entering its final quarter on the 19th. Rising in the middle of the night and setting in the middle of the day, this moon comes overhead (its most powerful position) in the morning darkness.
    Dependable as the gathering crows, the sandhill cranes passed over Yellow Springs last week. Casey called at 1:57 p.m. on the 7th with the message: “Get outside right away! There’s about fifty sandhill cranes above the college.” I ran out, but I only heard them for a few seconds as they disappeared south of the village.

GUARD OF THE HEART
    R. J. Orwell’s comment at the top of this column is part Buddhist mindfulness, part Christian monastic wisdom. Attempting to follow Orwell’s  lead, I find that connecting with the most common events and motions helps me to disconnect from negative forces I feel around me.
    I have been reading about “guard of the heart,” an ancient practice which serves as a cautionary wall against acedia, depression or anxiety (or, for the desert monks, sin).
    Guard of the heart assumes that one thought, unless redirected or ignored, becomes another related thought, and then that thought leads to another and another, which finally may lead to emotion and then to action. And that could be good or bad, depending on the matter involved. At the very least, the stream of consciousness tends to remove the thinker from where he or she begins the process. At worst, it feeds brooding and melancholy.
    Orwell’s note about living in the present assumes that unless we pay attention to the simplest acts and objects, then the past or the future will intrude; then we run the risk that unbalancing thoughts will lead to other unbalancing thoughts that take us away from what is right in front of us.
    Rather than suggesting a zen-like emptiness as a means of protecting the heart from its enemies, he simply says, “Observe what you are doing. See what you look at.” Watching the most ordinary things, the color of the fallen leaves or the shape of the winter garden, the condition of the winterberry fruit or the honeysuckle berries, the position of Venus in the southwest in the evening, the falling snow, all guard us well and lead us safely to where we are.