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14 July 2025
There is a power much older than social influence, and that is the power of mystery.
—Devon Price, “Being Known, and Not at All”
Seen from an empty outdoor table across a cracked and empty small parking lot, a covered entryway like a portal next to a coiled garden hose in an expanse of stone and brick wall, centered in a menagerie of sculptures: a metal ox head flanked by two metal roosters above the entryway, a heron to the right on the sidewalk, and a multicolored little elephant peeking out of the alcove
A dark opening in brambles, scattered with yellow leaves
Well, hello, and welcome.
Just beyond the square toe of a black boot, between an opened wooden outer door and a brick-red inner door: a welcome mat, on the lower left corner of which is printed “GLAD YOU’RE HERE”
A barn-style interior door, slid open to a blank, shadowy white space with hardwood flooring
I sensed you were coming.
Two boxer dogs from behind, standing side by side at a window, looking out with full attention
A sorrel horse in open pasture in the distance, peering at the viewer through a bright gap in dark brambles
A treetop full of black corvids (crows or ravens), with at least one—the topmost—gazing keenly forward
I am there for what unfolds, a participant in the great shared living, but never an author of it.
—Devon Price, “Being Known, and Not at All”
Standing on mowed grass alongside an airstrip, a woman in black—a knee-length fit-and-flare dress, heels (with white accents), a shawl covered in moons and stars, a jauntily tipped wide-brimmed hat with a bow, and a small camera bag—pointing a camera toward the airstrip
The woman turning to photograph a 1930 biplane taxiing in
If I move slowly, I don’t shift the ground too much, and I don’t scare any creature away.
—Devon Price, “Being Known, and Not at All”
Silent Descent, a full-size bronze sculpture by Heather Söderberg of a mountain lion slinking with a look of curiosity down a shaded mossy boulder, perhaps as though the black-clad photographer in the photos above has shapeshifted and turned to the left to follow the plane’s progress—with a park, a parking lot, and a river beyond
The lion from the front, facing the viewer
A closeup of the lion’s face and front paw
In a museum, a massive old searchlight (unlit except by reflections of lights) pointing like a camera at the viewer
Forget everything. The world does not need you to do everything, or to be everything. The world needs the thing you’re amazing at. So do it. Or hone it. Or at least give yourself permission to search for it, or inch your way towards it, because it is there, waiting to be activated, to become potent, extra strength, the iron core, the red-hot magma, the pure essence of excellence, the thing that makes you exactly who someone else needs—and when you devote yourself to it . . . you will finally feel magnificent and buoyant and elated and free.
—Jason Feifer, “How to Become Incredibly Valuable”
C’mon in.
On the wall of an Airbnb in White Salmon, Washington, as though the mountain lion has sat to regard the viewer: a tall slim painting of a spotted cat by a small stream lit yellow by a full Moon (echoing the shape of the searchlight) directly over the cat’s head and over jagged blue peaks in the distance; artist unknown, to be linked if identified
A crosswalk with white salmon stenciled between the two white lines, as if the fish swim back and forth between the cat in the photo above and the river in the photo below
Seen from the air, a wide river flowing past a small town and among forested hills into a misty distance
In life, it has all happened many, many times before, in many, many places. The two trails lead afar. The story, so very old, is still in the telling.
—Harold Bell Wright, The Shepherd of the Hills
We can sit for a while by the pond, watch the dragonflies.
A smallish pond with goldfish at the edge, partially shaded by a deciduous tree and reflecting white clouds in blue sky
Seen from a taxi strip, a couple sitting in lawn chairs next to a small black helicopter with a gray dragonfly painted on it
A tiny pale-green frog on a weathered plank of a wooden walkway, looking toward green grass just past the edge, as if watching the dragonfly helicopter in the photo above
Here’s a blackberry-mint yerba mate—ahhhh, especially refreshing right now.
A storefront display, in a pale-blue hue, of paintings of a lighthouse, a hedgehog, a robin, two foxes, a kingfisher among cattails, a rabbit, and a barn owl; artist unknown, to be linked if identified
Your company is majestic.
A metal plate (screwed into the side of an antique cookstove) that reads “MAJESTIC M’F’G.CO. ST.LOUIS”
A breeze rustles cattail leaves like octopus arms—mesmerizing, kind of trippy.
Another work of art in White Salmon: a stylized night scene of a spirit horse, spirit birds, clouds, assorted shapes and symbols, and red flowers with tall leaves, which could be water lilies among cattails; artist A. Amit, to be linked if further identified
We people with arms will them to move, and yet there seems to be a type of will in the dance of leaves and breeze as well.
An eight-armed person (garden spider) hanging inverted midair, in their web, which is invisible against a pale background
A weblike net pulled across the bottom half of a vessel’s open entryway to keep passengers from falling into water the boat is moving through
In this moment, the leaves’ motion feels like it has something to do with me—with us—and come to think of it, in fact it does: I gave cattail fluff to my friend on an adventure one time, to put in the pond.
A roadkill raptor with pale-striped brown feathers, head unidentifiable in a mess of down like cattail fluff between the wings, sprawled at a white stripe on asphalt
The raptor carcass relocated—wings respectfully spread as if in flight—onto dried leaves at a green verge
We can be a frenzied mess, can’t we?
In a barstool hip-shot, the two boxers in action on a tile floor: one (Bug, dumb) looking pathetic and confused over a chew toy, and the other (Bill, less dumb) a blur of motion, as is a human foot (intelligent) just beyond her
In time, everything comes to a rest (until it starts up again).
An orange Bug (Volkswagen Beetle) and a red Bill (Willy’s Jeep) displayed between small planes in a museum
We can’t be saved from ourselves, nor by ourselves—but we can leap at a chance for transformation, even if we’re chicken.
In a grass verge dropping away to a steep forested hill, a big, rough, freestanding post—really just a planted log—to which four plywood carvings are attached, so it looks akin to a totem pole: a 3D, painted gray chicken head at the top, under which is a yellow-painted little set of wings, under which is a sky-blue–painted bigger set of wings, under which is a smallish walnut-stained salmon leaping skyward
Seen from the water, a row of wooden riverside Native fishing platforms
A great blue heron fishing from rocks in a river’s shallows
A closeup of the salmon carving, with the notch at the base of the blue wings now holding offerings: a pocketknife and a diamond-shaped Choward’s lemon mint
And the Moon is the eye of the fish up so high, in the ocean above that is the sky.
—My friend Facet 44 (shared with permission)
A silhouette of a small twin-engine plane flying free as a heron across a cloud-swirled sky
I’ll keep shedding these parts of me, lurking in the grasses with all the other creatures where I belong.
—Devon Price, “Being Known, and Not at All”
Two trees growing happily from a yellow blanket of their shed leaves
A doe curled up, resting and gazing at the viewer (whose phone, taking the photo, is reflected on the interior of a window), near the base of a medium-size tree that’s growing in the midst of a juniper hedge and has a birdhouse in it—with a cottonwood grove in the middle distance and dry scrub hills beyond that
Seen through a speckled window (also with smartphone reflection), two of the doe’s shed parts, plus an adoptee: two half-grown fawns snuggled under an overgrown juniper hedge and a third standing near them, looking alertly backward
I am aware that we do not save each other very often. But I am also aware that we save each other some of the time.
—James Baldwin, Nothing Personal
Seen through a fence of vertical black bars, an abandoned swimming pool’s steps under rays of sunlight, with a hint of garbage congealing at the deep end
If it doesn’t feel balanced to bail someone out of a mess they’ve made (again), though, it doesn’t make sense to do it, however painful it is to witness a loved one’s hardships and do nothing.
The setting Sun, among out-of-focus blobs of residential-street color, through the close grid of a high window screen
The Sun above a straight two-lane blacktop and haystacks, shining through smoke haze at the edge of clouds, so that it appears surrounded by a blob of lava trickling in an erratic stream down the sky
I know all too well the many times when I was not helped in the way I wanted to be, which ultimately led me even beyond where I dreamed of being.
A vista point on a forested mountainside, looking over a hill in the middle distance and, beyond that, a vast valley
In the extreme, these situations become like my marriage was, where if I didn’t do what my husband wanted, he threatened suicide. I finally disentangled myself from those snarls by the slow but full and visceral realization that if he were to kill himself, that was his choice, not mine. Otherwise we were both going down—and almost did. At least I could save myself: one out of two was better than zero out of two, even if the one was me and that appeared selfish. (Ultimately he stayed alive and went on to climb the corporate ladder and to father children, at which I had drawn a rare hard line.)
A dry grassy lot enclosed with chainlink fencing except for a gap on the far side, which opens—between a big happy deciduous tree and the lowering Sun—toward an abandoned Park Motel, the roadside sign for which is partially obscured by the tree
True gifts—whether tangible or of time, energy, or space—must come wholeheartedly: they can only be offered, not demanded.
Deep-burgundy sunflowers with yellow coronas around their seed-disks, openly offering beauty where they in turn were nurtured: along the inside of a tall garden fence, beyond which are dry pasture and sage-desert hills
It had been forever since I had watched a sunset. I closed my eyes, trying to soak up as much heat as I could. For a few fleeting moments my pain, my hunger and my miserable way of life disappeared. I felt so warm, so alive. I opened my eyes, hoping to capture the moment for the rest of eternity.
—Dave Pelzer, A Child Called “It”
A bumblebee clinging upside down to a bright-yellow tomato flower, surrounded by green tomato leaves, with young green tomatoes growing in the background
The joy I experienced once I freed myself—with the assistance of a kind coworker, the closest thing I had to a friend by then—spread to others, so ultimately my “selfish” action has benefited many, right up to this moment, if any of these words resonate with you.
On a cornflower-blue wall, four items mounted one above another: a gilt-edged round clock showing 3:29, a placard that reads “On Duty,” a placard declaring “Paris” to be on duty, and a small white sign with freeform edges that suggests, in a whimsical font, “Find the Wonderful In Today”
Joy often pours out of me as tears: evidence that I’m where I need to be, doing what I need to be doing. It’s different than bliss: more solid—grounded as well as inspired, and reinforced. I even feel it when facing something grim but important and necessary, like when Gandalf faces the Balrog (“YOU. SHALL NOT. PASS!”). Or like in Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram, when Lin (Greg’s alias) experiences the essence of freedom while being tortured: he’s freed from fear, because he’s already undergoing the worst possible thing, but even more than that, he realizes that no matter what his torturers do, they cannot force him to hate them.
Between a sidewalk and a parking spot, a life-size alligator sculpture of dark metal, chomping on a crane sculpture of light metal
Joy is a type of guidance and strength from wise, powerful forces.
A lone pale-lavender pansy with (from out to in) a white, purple, and yellow center, among deer-chewed stalks still sprouting leaves
Some people consider me borderline homeless, living off-grid as I do, but I feel more at home, more held and appreciated for what I naturally do, than I’ve felt since childhood, or perhaps ever.
The boxers Bill and Bug in a homey living room (on grid), appreciated for what they naturally do: Bug vigorously shaking her head, ears and jowls flopping like silly putty and stub-tail a blur, while Bill, curled up cutely on a dog-bed, looks on with interest
I certainly feel vastly richer than at my monetarily flushest, when I ventured a couple of steps up the corporate ladder myself (and still worried about covering expenses). When people ask me what’s a good donation for a rune reading, I tell them whatever feels good is best, because it’s more about the feeling than the amount. Somehow these and others’ patchwork gifts and reciprocities are always—often miraculously—enough.
On a scratched wooden countertop with greenery out of focus through a window beyond, a big black mug with “STAY WILD” etched into it in white
I do miss something, though (and someone—or some as-yet-unexplored aspect of someone, maybe of the Wild God, the Green Man).
Seen from beneath the boughs of an apple tree, across the edge of a fenced pasture, a buck on a gravel driveway, browsing on low leaves
A place of true belonging—where I will ultimately live out my days, securely rooted after all the roaming, free to follow natural inclinations, probably along a rugged coast—remains elusive.
A rabbit crouched cautiously on gravel under the axle of a vehicle with a chocked tire
There, my needs, joys, and gifts will fully complement others’ (human and otherwise).
With a green apple on the ground at their feet, a half-grown fawn standing under an old apple tree on short dry grass of almost exactly the same color as the fawn, looking up at the viewer with intense surprise and wonder
I no longer feel in a rush to get there, though.
The rabbit, rear legs extended and hind end up, moving along in no hurry
For one thing, I feel my home solidly within me, to access anytime I need strength.
On a white wall, above a folded white bathroom towel, in a shaft of sunlight, a print of a painting depicting a house nestled among a variety of trees on a rough, rural one-lane blacktop, with big hills beyond; artist unknown, to be linked if identified
Through a small, high window recessed among shower tiles in late sunlight, a view of house- and treetops, beyond which are hills that look remarkably like the ones in the painting
For another thing, although I don’t know how I’ll reach that place from here, I know it will require a massive transition.
Small planes secured to tarmac, beyond which are trees, then forested hills, and then a huge mountain almost obscured by mist
Seen from the right front passenger seat, the biplane taxiing for takeoff
Somewhere deep within me, I know where I’m going and how that path feels, if not how it looks.
Another work of art in White Salmon, depicting a horse painted with colorful patterns and celestial bodies, rearing into a desert night sky with what is probably the Bear Lodge butte in the background, framed with images of prickly pear and the words “THE MEDICINE HORSE APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE / MEDICINE HORSE / DREAM TALKER CARRY US ON THE SPIRIT PATH AROUND AND AROUND THE CAROUSEL OF THE MEDICINE WHEEL”; artist unknown, to be linked if identified
It is the rapture I get when in writing I seem to be discovering what belongs to what; making a scene come right; making a character come together.
—Virginia Woolf, Moments of Being
Seen through a dirty window at which sit a jade plant and a napkin dispenser that looks like a printer or typewriter, a black cat and a black kitten sitting side by side, looking toward a dirt track flanked by a detached two-wheeled axle, a single tree, and a forest of fenceposts
He had left home a lad, and when, after so many years of hard and trying experience, he found himself homeward bound, such was the excitement of his feelings that, during the whole passage, he could talk and think of nothing else but his arrival, and how and when he should jump from the vessel and take his way directly home. Yet, when the vessel was made fast to the wharf and the crew dismissed, he seemed suddenly to lose all feeling about the matter. He told me that he went below and changed his dress; took some water from the scuttle-butt and washed himself leisurely; overhauled his chest, and put his clothes all in order; took his pipe from its place, filled it, and sitting down upon his chest, smoked it slowly for the last time. Here he looked round upon the forecastle in which he had spent so many years, and being alone and his shipmates scattered, began to feel actually unhappy. Home became almost a dream; and it was not until his brother (who had heard of the ship’s arrival) came down into the forecastle and told him of things at home, and who were waiting there to see him, that he could realize where he was and feel interest enough to put him in motion toward that place for which he had longed, and of which he had dreamed, for years. There is probably so much of excitement in prolonged expectation that the quiet realising of it produces a momentary stagnation of feeling as well as of effort.
—Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years Before the Mast
The people of my place, who I already sense, will be overjoyed to see me, having waited all this time, as I have journeyed long for them.
The cats nuzzling each other
Sometimes, at 4 AM, this knowledge is almost enough to force a reconciliation between oneself and all one’s pain and error. Since, anyway, it will end one day, why not try it—life—one more time?
—James Baldwin, Nothing Personal
Seen from the side of a rural two-lane blacktop through dry fields and oak-scrub hills on a mostly cloudy day, a feathery white clump of roadkill on the double yellow center line
The clump, revealed (more or less) to be the remains of a barn owl, complete with feet, now respectfully arranged with a stick on ground cover of dried grass among scraggly clumps of plants with yellow flowers, so that the owl appears to be taking off from a branch, wings spread
[The Baltic tribes] are an extremely humane people. They help those who are in danger at sea or are attacked by pirates. They value gold and silver very little. . . . One could say much praiseworthy about these people in terms of their morality. . . . All their houses are full of pagan diviners, healers, and soothsayers, even dressed in a monk’s robe.
—Adam of Bremen in 1075
I wonder about the childless ones who, like me, are the end of the line for our particular arrays of ancestors.
A buzzard flying high overhead, seen from under a silhouette of leafy deciduous branches
Maybe we’re the culminations of those predecessors’ work together: jumping-off points for that unique mixture of energy to take other forms and augment other things.
A cottonwood broken off high up the trunk
Dead branches in mud just beyond the toes of two bare human feet standing on a mossy stone
Two white bowl-like mushrooms growing from a lawn, each about the size of a foot clad in a dusty black boot next to them
Back on the tile floor, Bill and Bug a blur as the latter bops the former on the head
Do you know where you’re going, too, deep down?
Bill the boxer, forepaws on my jeans-clad lap, the joyous question of whether she can jump into it written all over her face
How’ve your nights been?
The two black cats, walking together, tails up
Two framed images of tigers: one with the the tiger looking to the right and the words “FLYING TIGERS” on either side, and one in which the tiger faces the viewer and a sharklike old plane, #47, appears to fly from the face, over several signatures
For three nights in a row, I’ve half-awakened sometime before dawn, wracked with an intense wave of energy coursing through me, at the edge of what I feel I can stand but also weirdly pleasant: a welcome illness.
A long train paralleled by powerlines across a dry remote open landscape with a single tree in the middle distance and purple hills on the horizon
Each time, I’ve practiced relaxing into it and letting it pulse through to muted, misty mornings, which burn off into mostly quiet, sunlit days.
The Sun shining from a clear blue sky through towering ponderosa pines
Speaking of energy flow: At a movie theater recently, I sat in an empty area near the front with a popcorn and a Siberian Freeze. As I tucked into them with gusto and the previews played, suddenly something caught in my throat—a popcorn kernel skin, exacerbated by the drink’s constrictive chill?—and a coughing fit seized me.
A wall display of cough-starting energy-flowers (sparkplugs)
Covid-conscious, I sank in my seat and willed myself to stop, tears streaming and shoulders shaking, but surely people heard and hated on me, thinking I’d brought the lurgy into their midst. The coughs ricocheted through the entire amusement park of my body—a veritable festival! Neither panicked gulps of water nor the previews—violent and creepy—soothed. I feared I might have to step out to get a grip on myself—facing the rest of the patrons both ways—or even give up on the movie entirely, but then I thought of an 80-year-old long-distance cyclist I’d picked up on the verge of heat exhaustion: he’d said, “I’ve learned to trust my body and ask when I need help.” I closed my eyes against all the agitating thoughts and images, effectively asking for and granting myself protection from the onslaught. Then I found I could relax everything, which included my throat. The compulsion to cough stilled. If I opened my eyes to the action, the urge to cough rose again. Finally, after a couple of tries, I could remain relaxed and detached with eyes open.
Another work of art in White Salmon, depicting the piercing gaze of a red male lion (who seems to be looking at the viewer even from an angle), the frame glass of which reflects one end of a set of longhorns mounted on a wall above a small brick structure; artist unknown, to be linked if identified
A closeup of the doe at the base of a tree (shown earlier), still staring at the viewer, left ear now seen to be missing its tip
I made it the length of the movie, even continuing to nurse the popcorn and Siberian Freeze, careful with each bite or sip to retain balance.
A vintage poster with an illustration of soldiers standing hunched under a flare in a war-torn landscape at night, with the instruction: “IF A FLARE GOES OFF WITHOUT WARNING, FREEZE. KEEP YOUR FACE DOWN. YOU MAY NOT BE NOTICED IF YOU REMAIN STILL.”
This trick could come in handy in other ways.
In front of the entertainment center, in the base of which is a green light, Bill now peacefully curled up on my legs and nestled against my pink T-shirt, which depicts butterflies in the heart and stomach areas
To more frolics
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