Happy Last Day of Summer!

I heard the call of Cackling Geese  this morning as I arrived at my office in the West Eugene Wetlands on this last day of summer. For the last four years I have lived here they have been my mindfulness bell from the autumn migration to the spring migration. They are returning from the Yukon-Kuskokwin Delta in Alaska where they breed, and will spend the winter in the West Eugene Wetlands and points further south.

Wild Geese

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.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

— Mary Oliver

What is your mindfulness bell in nature?