The Moon rises as we begin anew.
From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
—Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut
Even if nothing happens—which is unlikely, because things usually happen—there will still be some kind of guidance, from within and/or without.
When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.
He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.
You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides . . .
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.
—Tom Hirons, “Sometimes a Wild God”
Dreams are through the roof. It’s one of the most intense nights of dreaming I’ve ever had: a firehose of horror, excitement, fun, intrigue, relationship . . . all in vivid color and steeped with meaning. I wake up coursing with energy, glad to find myself in a more sedate reality for a breather, like hanging onto the side of a pool after exhausting myself in the water. I ask the Night-Sky Cat, Maybe dial it down a notch? I can’t keep up! I don’t even know where I’d begin to analyze it all.
Cats have a sense of appearance. Even when they’re sitting doing the wash in that silly position with one leg behind the other ear, they know what you’re sniggering at. They simply choose not to notice. I knew a pair of Persian cats once; the black one always reclined on a white cushion on the couch, and the white one on the black cushion next to it. It wasn’t just that they wanted to leave cat hair where it showed up best, though cats are always thoughtful about that. They knew where they looked best. The lady who provided their pillows called them her Decorator Cats.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, “Dogs, Cats, and Dancers: Thoughts about Beauty,” in The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
Funny how Mountain Lion has become a guide and protector.
Come live with be
And be my mountain lion
And we shall all pleasures prove
And we shall all our clothes remove
—Alan Dienstag, “Lion Love Song”
I’m reminded that they not only strike fear into the hunted but aid the hunter—not that I’m a hunter in the physical sense now. I hunger in other ways; I hunt other fulfillments.
Your spouse was busy
elsewhere that day
but still wanted you
to tour houses because
houses don’t get sold
to lazy hunters. As soon
as you stepped through
the front door, you knew
this house was the one.
You’re not a mystical
person but the house
was conscious. The lumber
of the walls and floors
and ceilings welcomed you
like the trees they used to be.
—Sherman Alexie, “Every Map Folded and Unfolded”
What brings on the dreams? I had only beans and rice for dinner. No alcohol in a couple of weeks—which might be part of it.
Then again, consider the Irish Ogham letter Muin, thought to have originally represented the blackberry and now associated with the grapevine, though grapes are not native to Ireland.
It should not be a surprise then that the grape, indirectly through wine, becomes a symbol of the greatest religious fusion tale of the Western world. This is the tale of the Holy Grail. . . .
Nigel Pennick believes that Muin is the gathering together of various items that are needed on one’s path or journey. Robert Graves says . . . that wine, the transformed grape, is the “poet’s drink” of poetic inspiration, which may send one “spiralling towards immortality.”
. . . I personally find that the legend of the Holy Grail and the eleventh few, Muin, are inseparable and even symbiotic. The Grail is many things, but most important of all, it is the symbol of healing brought to us from the Otherworld.
It is the drink of the Grail, which is wine or blood, which heals the wounded king and ultimately the land itself.
—Shanon Sinn, “Muin (Grape Vine)”
I return home to the cacophony of my landlord bulldozing the adjacent site. Did somebody break up with him again? He’s a good guy, but things like this make me want to move. Then he’d most likely do the same thing to the Tenterraces, though. My presence literally protects the nonhuman people of this place—a thought that makes me feel a little better. I’m here for a reason.
There was always some extra dimension of a natural process that could not be explained with recourse to the material or chemical mechanisms of the process, just as there was always some extra dimension to human life that could not be reduced to its constituent parts. Separate a human into his constituent parts and no matter what how well you put him back together, it won’t be him any longer. That’s because there’s some irreducible element to a human—his vital essence, his life—that flees from him the moment you’ve hacked him into bits.
It was this apparently very subtle shift that initiated our “modern” era of disenchantment. What really happened is that we stopped including a reverence or even mention of natural processes as vital (living) forces. Everything in the world could only be explained only through inert, mindless mechanisms (the machine), and there was no longer some irreducible vital force, presence, or spirit involved in the world.
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “The Mysteria, Part 8: Ghosts in the Machine”
“Some of my best friends are rocks,” says my friend Ethel. What is your definition of alive?
—Andrea Gibson, “Why Self-Love Is So Hard to Achieve”
If I’d stayed in Ireland as I thought I wanted to (despite a lukewarm reception), I’d have missed out on all this real reciprocity.
WITHOUT TEA THERE IS NOTHING BUT DARKNESS AND CHAOS
—Text on a mug
It’s not like Ireland hated me.
I just didn’t belong there long-term.
Why that sense of eternity in the drop of water hanging from the dry leaf suspended from a spiderweb barely clinging to the broken branch of a dead tree in the middle of the fog?
—Tomás González
The human race [is] shown as one great network or tissue, which quivers in every part when one point is shaken, like a spider’s web if touched.
—Thomas Hardy, in a journal entry in 1885
My time there wove the beginnings of this life here.
Some seven years ago, I had a really odd conversation with an immigrant occultist in France. The man ran a very tiny magic shop, too small for more than two customers to enter at a time. It had no signs directing you to it, nor were there any real markings on the windows. You just had to feel your way to it . . . .
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “A War No One Will Win”
“What is that over there?”
“It’s the wild,” said the mole. “Don’t fear it. Imagine how we would be if we were less afraid.”
—Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse
“So you know all about me?” asked the boy.
“Yes,” said the horse.
“And you still love me?”
“We love you all the more.”
—Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse
Ireland’ll always be part of me, like a cat who insists on both leaving and staying.
Cats know exactly where they begin and end. When they walk slowly out the door that you are holding open for them, and pause, leaving their tail just an inch or two inside the door, they know it. They know you have to keep holding the door open. That is why their tail is there. It is a cat’s way of maintaining a relationship.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, “Dogs, Cats, and Dancers: Thoughts about Beauty,” in The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
It’s part of the mixture of a new foundation.
When we stop chronically trying to prepare ourselves for future pain we become far more equipped to handle that pain when (and if) it comes.
—Andrea Gibson, “Why Self-Love Is So Hard to Achieve”
Or perhaps more accurately, a new-old foundation.
. . . I look at men and women my age and older, and their scalps and knuckles and spots and bulges, though various and interesting, don’t affect what I think of them. Some of these people I consider to be very beautiful, and others I don’t. . . . It has to do with who the person is. More and more clearly it has to do with what shines through those gnarly faces and bodies.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, “Dogs, Cats, and Dancers: Thoughts about Beauty,” in The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
But, that’s my life and it too shall pass. Like an overdue turd, shot sideways outta my ass.
—My friend Facet 44 (shared with permission, as are all words from friends)
I guess shit doesn’t always shoot the way we hope.
—Me, in response to Facet
My landlord continues bulldozing until almost 9 p.m.
Sometimes the Bluebird of Happiness must know defeat to reach the solidity of Grounded Joy.
Then [psychotherapist Katherine Morgan Schafler] says: “. . . The speed and efficiency with which we recover isn’t the thing that matters. What matters is that people see us trying, people see us making mistakes, and people see us making reparative measures. The reparative measure is what matters, not whether the reparative measure is immediately efficient.” . . .
You’re not measured against perfection. You’re measured against something deeper, more human, more realistic, and more lasting. So in difficult moments, move towards that thing. Don’t worry about whether you do it well, or quickly, or beautifully. Just worry about doing it.
—Jason Feifer, “How to Recover after You Screw Up”
Parts of us fall away so that other parts might grow.
Parts of us burn out so that we might eventually shelter and buttress others.
Parts of us fall for tricks so that the story might be woven.
Heaven hails in the dust of departure.
A person whom one has loved seems altogether too significant a thing to simply vanish altogether from the world. A person whom one loves is a world, just as one knows oneself to be a world.
—Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity
Even a dead snake lives, in a way.
My mother died at eighty-three, of cancer, in pain, her spleen enlarged so that her body was misshapen. Is that the person I see when I think of her? Sometimes. I wish it were not. It is a true image, yet it blurs, it clouds, a truer image. It is one memory among fifty years of memories of my mother. It is the last in time. Beneath it, behind it is a deeper, complex, ever-changing image . . . . I see, for a moment, all that at once, I glimpse what no mirror can reflect, the spirit flashing out across the years, beautiful.
—Ursula K. Le Guin, “Dogs, Cats, and Dancers: Thoughts about Beauty,” in The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
Even eagles convert to ravens.
I didn’t know “why” I was doing it but I knew the bright pain gave me something. I knew this forbidden act was a key of some kind and I kept returning to it. I started to touch the electric heater in my bedroom, feeling in that sharp sudden pain some other reality. Something impossible that was right here. Something that could not be known or looked at directly but which was bursting from my body and needed a way out. . . .
Cutting was ecstatic in its relief. Cutting was a doorway, a portal, a way out. Part of what was different about cutting from the other types of pain was the blood, bright and real. The cutting was different in that it left marks. The blood hardened and scabbed and the cuts all over my arms and legs were like a beacon. Impossible to ignore. Leading somewhere.
The physical experience of cutting was more than anything else relief. Imagine running well past your capacity for running and then collapsing into rest. Imagine being desperately thirsty and then tipping a water bottle back to your mouth. Cutting was like that. It finally felt like I could breathe. And in those intimate moments with my own body, feeling sharp, bright sensation, I knew that what I was feeling was real and I knew that my body was mine. Cutting was never about self hatred or shame. It was certainly not about death. Cutting was always about escape, survival, and saying NO. Cutting was my first doorway to bodily autonomy and I know that makes no sense to many people who were not sexually abused.
Not only was cutting a desperately needed respite from the constant unbearable pain, but it was a successful act of resistance against child sexual abuse. Some kids at my school reported my cutting to the office. I was forced to see the school guidance counselor. At some point I mentioned to her that I was stressed because I had to see my grandfather again soon. She asked why and I told her why. She called Children’s Aid and I never had to see my grandfather again. . . .
Cutting was the best and smartest thing I could have done and I will never regret my choice to do so or see it as crazy. It only looks crazy to those who do not understand.
—Clementine Morrigan, “The Craziest Part of Me Is a Beacon and I Trust Her with My Life”
The next day, upon winding my way back to the tiny home, I begin in a creative zone . . . soon sent up in smoke by neighbors’ WNDs (weapons of nature destruction), compounded by lurking chipmunks’ and jays’ feed-me pressure.
“This storm will pass.”
—Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse
It occurs to me that, as loud machines are cries and whines and moans and groans and screams, perhaps the best thing I can do is abandon what I’m doing and attend to them—absorb and grieve for them, however long it takes, rather than helplessly resist and feel annoyed.
This is my mythical or fairy-tale self, where I become the Feral Forest Mother who inhabits Eternity with grace (and does not act on her urge to strike down loggers with a sudden bolt of lightning).
—Imelda Almqvist, “Bending Reality”
Also sometimes I reach my limits and remove myself from the assault (if I can).
Recently I’ve been listening to my body as an aspect of the natural world. Instead of forcing it to do things, I honor its messages. Want to sleep in? Okay, we sleep in. (I’m fortunate to live off-grid and have flexible work, so my living expenses are low and I wake gradually, like a tree with sap rising.) Want to stretch out on the deck and stare at the sky? Okay, we do that.
Don’t want another alcoholic drink? Okay, we’ll stop. Don’t want to eat that? I’m still working on that one, because I hate it when food goes to waste.
Sometimes I’ll push my body, but only if it agrees that it’s worth it.
I break away to shower and then return to engage in a long peanut-session with the critters and practice balancing myself between bouts of racket and boundary-setting, making what feels like progress. The juvenile jays are slooowwwwww learners, but it seems to be gradually dawning on them that shrill shrieking means no peanuts. If I try to sneak a peanut or two to the quiet ones, it can activate the noisy ones; sometimes it works if I wait until most of them have given up.
Then there are the chickadees. They can also be challenging to serve sunflower seeds to, as they’re mildly scared of the jays, but sometimes they alternate nicely with the bigger birds.
One of the young jays gets their first small (in-shell) peanut and tries to swallow it whole—like, No, wait, that doesn’t work—and then flies off with it to figure it out. One of the mamas comes with a loud youngster in tow and then drops her peanut so the kid will go for it—indirectly tricking me into giving that one a peanut. Anyway, it’s all in good fun.
Human nature is nature, too. We all influence each other.
Nature is the best teacher. That’s what I attribute much of my own development to, and it’s also my philosophy when I take kids into the wilderness. Sure, I can share my expertise; I can say, “this is the best way to stake out a tent,” or “you should really eat a good meal, or you’ll be hungry later,” or “you’d better drain the noodles now.” But young teenagers aren’t known for being the best listeners. Stubbornness, on the other hand—they have plenty of that.
In the world of outdoor education, you’ll often hear the term “natural consequences.” It’s a simple idea: if it’s raining, and you choose not to put on your jacket, you will get wet. Eventually, the moisture will seep through your clothes and into your boots, and you’ll spend the rest of the trip soggy and cold. No human authority figure has enforced consequences on you; the world itself has—and you can’t argue with a rainstorm.
—Max Wilbert, “Nature Is the Best Teacher”
Suddenly the jays all vanish. Is there a hawk? I don’t see one, but I don’t suppose I would be as sensitive to their appearance.
Eventually a jay perches quietly in the ceanothus beside me, not interested in peanuts, just vibin’.
The trees keep whispering, even without a breeze. Raven caws and caws from one area—perhaps keeping buzzards away from a nest . . . ?
In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.
—Tom Hirons, “Sometimes a Wild God”
They must grow weary from such constant vigilance. I grow weary just from listening to them nonstop all day.
“We have such a long way to go,” sighed the boy.
“Yes, but look how far we’ve come,” said the horse.
—Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse
Whatever it is, we keep going.
“Sometimes I feel lost,” said the boy.
“Me too,” said the mole, “but we love you, and love brings you home.”
—Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse
How ’bout you?
Do you make it, too?
Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.
—Tom Hirons, “Sometimes a Wild God”
badge is free from Andy Carolan.