I DECIDED to go out for a country walk, for as John Muir said, “Going out is really going in.” It would be the sort of walk much favored by me, with no identifiable goal or ambition. Just to see things and think about them, or not think about them as the case may be. Immediately after stepping out the
TODAY I came to the banks of a little stream, a place I like to go for repose and reflection. And to hear the song of flowing water. As I arrived, I came upon a woman bundled up in a big parka, and with her a small boy in an equally fluffy parka. On his back was a good sized
THERE IS A LITTLE ISLAND in the North Country that is the center of gravity for me, for my family. White throated sparrows and loons fill the air with music in the warm months. Ravens and eagles chart their courses through the skies and fish, turtles, and otters haunt the waters. We cherish every moment spent there. Several days ago
‘ONCE, IN A BEAUTIFUL, FAR AWAY LAND, that was, somehow, not so very far… A land where every stone was a teacher and every breeze a language, where every lake was a mirror and every tree a ladder to the stars…’ (From Old Turtle and the Broken Truth) We are born into this land, into such a world. But oftentimes,
‘THERE SHOULD BE at least a room, or some corner where no one will find you and disturb you and notice you. You should be able to untether yourself from the world and set yourself free, losing all the fine strings and strands of tension that bind you, by sight, by sound, by thought, to the presence of others.’ Thomas
A NEW YEAR. Full of new days. Filled with sunrises as well as sunsets. Light as well as darkness. A world full of subtlety and mystery and unanticipated blessings, as much as difficulty and unfairness and loss. It is possible to be grateful for the light and the beauty and the possibilities, while summoning strength for battles and challenges ahead.
THERE IS A PATH I know that leads to the most marvelous series of trees. Northern White Cedar, Arborvitae. Their roots stretch and reach over bedrock—anchoring, holding fast to the earth. To life. I know other paths, many of them, that lead to shadowed haunts and streams of sunlight. A great many people are hurting right now, burdened by doubts
THERE’S NOTHING like the smell of a forest on a misty, foggy day. Be it the Coast Redwoods or the Olympic Peninsula or the humble Church O’ The Pines. It’s a fragrance that reaches inside of you and reminds you that you are a part of everything and everything is a part of you. On a gray, monochrome day, not
WALKING ALONG the stream at dawn, I notice the spider webs—exquisite webs, hundreds of them, every stunted jack pine or ground juniper gilded with a necklace, each necklace hung with lucent pearls of dew. And, whispering in the first breeze, an old question of the night: What of MY webs? What are my choices, my chances; how much effort should
IT IS, OF COURSE, altogether amazing how the entire moon can balance on the tip of a balsam bough. How is it there are so many extraordinary things in this ordinary old world? The world we think we know. There are, as Uncle Bill Shakespeare once said, more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our poor