Breaking to Be Free

27 April 2024
And times will come when the container we’ve inhabited no longer fits, when what was previously nourishing has become confinement. Becoming a father was like this both times for me; the person I had been was the price of entry for who I was becoming.

—Daniel Foor,
Ancestral Medicine newsletter

I think I might be moving soon. My worky-work job has come to an end, so one way or another, you’ve caught me in an in-between space. A blood offering has been given.


Five drops of blood along a wooden floor and one drop of blood on the back of a bag of wildlife peanuts with the words “PREFERRED FEEDER” prominent

Though unsure of who I will be, I’m receding from who I was.


A pair of ravens along a weathered fence on a green headland over a rocky shore

I’m making a break for it.


The ravens from a greater distance, over a green expanse of ice plant

Are you coming?


A return to a closer view, with one of the ravens, on a post, looking back at the other raven, on a rocky rise

Oh good.


A view from a distance again, with the ravens on posts next to each other

I wasn’t sure. I would have been fine if not—I always am—but I like it better when you’re here.


One raven on a post before an expanse of sea

I feel less alone.


The same raven, closer up

Plus you’re endlessly fascinating. Enigmatic.


The raven pecking at something on the post

Nice to look at.


The raven posing handsomely

This is our way, then.


A view up the coast, the other direction, with a wave crashing beyond a crosspost of the fence, which has two locks on it and a heart made of twisted wire, and two picnic tables in the foreground, one of which is engraved with “SWEET CHILD OF MINE”

On my way back to the car to find something to offer, there’s a ringing, with cherry on top.


A package for a cherry-flavored Ring Pop

A feather seems a fitting offering.


A dark-gray one, wedged in with a smaller wire heart on the fence