A few months, back I decided to reserve a small slice of the internet to put down a few words that would reflect on some important truths that I am trying to recover more fully and apply in meaningful, tangible, and beneficial ways. I made a few half-hearted stabs at a first post, and set writing to the side again each time.
Something wasn't yet right.
So now I am seated on the grassy bank of the tiny but ever reliable little creek that runs below the cabin my wife and I call home. This morning I finally realized that I had to really land more firmly on the earth before I could write. I am barefoot, of course, and it’s barely on the brightening side of the dark solstice — it is an unusually warm early winter morning. I have only a pencil, a sharp knife, and a spiral bound notebook. No doubt it’s spirally spring wound precisely between the punch-outs on the edge of the page was a wonder of technology when it arrived in the stores. For this project I want to not only have my feet on the ground, but my mind slowed down and free from my iPhone, iPad, and computers. It will reduce my word count, I hope
So I am far removed even from the barely audible hum of the dc refrigerator in the cabin. All I can hear is the rustling squirrel above me in the trees, and if I listen closely, the murmering of the water, running very slowly past my little perch.
I am calm. Disconnected. Looking around lazily between scratching out each sentence. I've filled one page of the notebook, and that is about all I hope to do, a few times a week, but no promises.
I will use an OCR app (I am not a luddite, you see!) to scan this page and then post it to substack. I may allow myself the lapse of bringing my phone down here once to snap a picture. And bless airplane mode, for it is to be the default state of my phone from now on. This will not be the only time I walk away from it.
So, I have been circling
But now I have landed.
My feet are on the ground,
On the cold, crumbly earth.
The Earth. . .
This body
Came from it,
Lives upon it,
Will lie prostrate in it,
And be raised again from it.