DEERNESS

Photo by S. Auberle

"Last evening, when the moon was rising, saw the warm, burning soft red of a doe in the field. It was still light enough, so I got the field glasses and watched her. Presently, a stag came out, then I saw a second doe, then, briefly, another stag. They were not afraid. Looked at me from time to time. I watched their beautiful running, grazing. Everything, every movement, was completely lovely, but there is a kind of gaucheness about them sometimes that makes them even lovelier. The thing that struck me most: one sees, looking at them directly in movement, just what the cave painters saw--something I've never seen in a photograph. It is an awe-inspiring thing--the Mantu or "spirit" shown in the running of the deer, the "deerness" that sums up everything and is saved and marvelous."

- Thomas Merton

Daily Meditations from His Journals