. . . We’ve all got a hill in the distance.
For some, that hill is a mountain, not a hill. But let’s all be honest: the hill in the distance might as well be a mountain for each of us, because we act like it is. We look at it, and dream about it, and think that one day it might be nice to climb it, to go see what our world looks like from there.
And then we don’t.
There are literal hills in the distance, and symbolic hills in the distance. Either way, they’re the same thing, and we don’t climb them. The hills in the distance seem too far away, and we’re certain it would anyway be quite an ascent, and who knows if there’s even a path up to it?
There is a path, though—quite a few of them. You just need to know how to look for them, and more importantly need to finally want to find them.
. . . Our time is the time of clocks and machines that tell us we don’t actually have time to go up into those hills. You have other things to do, the machines tell us. And we listen.
The time of those hills and those who dwell there isn’t like this. . . . But only sometimes do we hear them.
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “The Hill in the Distance”
There are letters of relationship questing across to the wild blue yonder.
I share a long moment with a gray squirrel who comes to the birdbath to quench his thirst sometimes—in close enough proximity that I determine he’s probably a he and not a she as I thought. He skittishly dines upon sunflower seeds I’ve scattered there, occasionally pausing to peer at me, so I remain still until deciding to see if I can slowwwwwly keep giving peanuts to the jays at the same time, as they’re wondering why I’ve stopped. Shrieker lands at the side of the birdbath opposite the squirrel and shrieks at him. The squirrel pauses to consider the jay’s point and then resumes eating seeds.
I’ve discovered recently that the squirrel is the one making the quick BRRR sound I hear sometimes, especially at night: he thuds the railing with his hand. Is it an expression of unease—a warning—as his nerves are on alert with my proximity? Is it to establish territory?
Now the acorn woodpecker is sipping out of the birdbath. Chickadees arrive. I’m basically Snow White over here. But where’s the witch? Oh right, I’m a witch, too.
What if the witch is not evil and is in fact in cahoots with the dwarves to draw Snow White’s true love to her? What if that union benefits everyone, crumbling hierarchy into alignment with the wilds?
On a visit to a cove, I wander around and then sit on a rock. Gulls keep a buffer of space between us but otherwise go about their business.
The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter, and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis vanish; all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved persons. Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures
Eventually a woman and a beautiful little girl arrive. They’re quiet, but nonetheless the gulls, almost without my noticing, move out onto the water, safest among their kind.
I dip my toes in the water before moving onto the next course.
The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
—John Steinbeck, in a letter to his son Thom on November 10, 1958, published in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters
Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening. . . . Respect the naturalangsamkeit which hardens the ruby in a million years, and works in duration, in which Alps and Andes come and go as rainbows. . . . Let us approach our friend with an audacious trust in the truth of his heart, in the breadth, impossible to be overturned, of his foundations.
. . . When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures
Everyone knows on some level that the foundation is rotten and is handling it, consciously or subconsciously, in different ways: from silent retreat to moaning machines of despair. When you’re hurting, it’s hard or impossible to do anything beyond attending to or distracting yourself from the pain.
During one of my stays with an aunt and uncle while my parents are visiting, my aunt spots a gopher, so my uncle grabs a BB gun. I beam warnings to the gopher. When my uncle returns, I don’t inquire as to the result, although ravens in the distance discuss it in great detail. I warn them that if they find a dead gopher, either to resist eating the meat or to avoid the small lead balls in it.
Later, my dad recklessly cuts up a watermelon. The blade skitters and slips, threatening fingers and the hair-trigger of his temper.
As I flee with anxiety, my aunt says, “You’re not supposed to run away from stressors.”
“It’s one thing if there’s something I can do about it,” I reply, “but there’s no reason to stand around helplessly and be stressed.”
The next day, my dad and uncle, using a power drill, tighten screws on the deck outside my window: BRR-BRR! BRR-BRR!—orders of magnitude louder than the squirrel. Why now? Are they sounding an alert? Are they establishing territory? It’s a good moment to clear out the room for another aunt who will soon arrive. Out I go to the treehouse, which is more my style, anyway. I’ve been staying in the house for the proximity to the bathroom and to maximize time with the visitors, but I’m not sure it’s worth the tradeoff of being immersed in their ways of being, many of which are anathema to mine.
Inside the treehouse door, emerging from among old tunnel webbing and molted exoskeletons, my dear friend Hacklemesh Weaver waves a greeting.
She shows me a glorious spangle of egg sacs.
You and your beautiful creations are safe with me as long as you stay clear of my accidental movements, I assure her. Are you eating enough?
I’m doing okay but would like more.
More is likely. All the openings and closings of doors and windows that have been jarring your soundscape create ways for creatures of air to come in . . . or would you like to go out?
Out? Oh hmm, I don’t think so. It’s safe in here.
In the morning, though, as I lean over the sink in the bathroom, who should emerge from somewhere in my clothes but Ms. Weaver! “Ah!” I exclaim. You did decide to move out of the treehouse! I’m glad you survived the journey—a courageous act!
Because she is docile (as are her kind in general), I show her to everyone in the living room—which fortunately is absent my cousin’s wife, who suffers from arachnophobia—and release her into the wide world, on the back deck where St. Murph the Cat used to hang out. You will love it under here, I’m sure, I tell her.
Though my parents’ visits are worth it, they exhaust me, with little communion with the birds and trees who usually refuel me after bouts with human worlds. Still, even one songbird twitter or raven caw, or the arch of trees leaning over the road on my way to and from work, makes a difference.
Even if I only hear birds from within a house or see trees from within a car, their presence strengthens me.
It’s like they’re all saying they miss me and will be there for me on the other side.
The network news comes on my aunt and uncle’s TV: bombings and political strife. My spirit retracts further, and then a friend sends a self-care reminder and I ask myself, Why am I watching this? I beg off for a shower, still feeling the old weary grief in my gut but with more balance than when I’m absorbing tragedy.
I understand the necessary medicine of alcohol at times. Of course any medicine can be poison if misused; the best we can do is respect it and know ourselves: our limitations, our strengths, and what we must eventually face, however unbearable. What cannot be borne as we are, where we are, eventually transforms and transports us.
I haven’t felt this kind of joy in many, many, many years, and I haven’t felt this safe and loved. I’ve been living in survival-mode and trauma-triage for so long that I forget that moments of pure joy are possible.
—Amanda Palmer, “‘Coin-Operated Boy’ Live at Fenway Park and a Soppy Love Note to My Boyfriend.”
In more-homegrown news: I feed my aunt’s cats, a dear friend checks in safe from a hurricane, I’ve been enjoying home-cooked food, my dad and I share funny moments, and I delight in teaching my mom about her first smartphone, because she’s overjoyed when she gets the hang of something.
I am appreciating the little, gentle things. Close friends. Good food. A kitchen of my own.
—Amanda Palmer, “She Has Some Limitations Due to the Way She Was Rebuilt”
And this is a note from my new piano tuner, Leanna, who is salvaging this piano. So even though this piano has been lovingly refurbed, it’s incredibly old, and she says, ‘Amanda, your piano is coming right along. She’s very quirky, and needed some major tender loving care. Glue, clamp, rest overnight, glue in other areas, so the difference may not feel significant yet.’
Oh, this is just like reading a poem. ‘She has some limitations due to the way she was rebuilt.’ Is that hitting hard for anyone today?
‘But I have high hopes. I’ll be back in the near future. Thanks for trusting me with your instrument, and I hope to see you again soon.’
—Amanda Palmer, “She Has Some Limitations Due to the Way She Was Rebuilt”
In moments alone—when the moms are making breakfast and the dads are talking guns and tools and cars—I hold steady, alternately listening to the trees and messing around on my phone, resting with eyes closed, and staring into space.
All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness.
—David Whyte, Consolations
Charles Eisenstein posts a video of a woman sharing about “everyday ministers” who unknowingly saved her from suicide. For my own part, it brings up tears of gratitude for the natural world: for all the furred and feathered and many-legged and green people who have saved me time and again.
Divorced in his trailer, raising three daughters, diabetic, a recent amputee, he is an abjectly powerless person—as the political mind calculates importance. He is someone who may be moved and shaken by world events, but he is not a mover or a shaker.
I bet that some part of you knows that calculation is wrong.
There are hidden angels among us. They hold the world together. Their words and actions radiate out into society, even into politics, through utterly mysterious paths.
This man did not calculate that his kind, jocular words to Allison were his highest-leverage, impact-maximizing use of his resources. . . . He isn’t trying to figure out how to have a positive effect on the world. He doesn’t have to.
There are many like him out there. They are usually to be found in the most humble stations. You probably have met a few, now and then.
. . . They do not require anything from us, but we can amplify their work immensely through the power of gratitude and awe. These emotions open a channel . . . which enters in and sets the stage for our own transition into a higher level of service by bringing down the obstacle of self-importance. That’s a key obstacle, because most of the things that need doing today, desperately need doing, will not accrue to the doer any kind of public recognition, reward, or credit. They will not usually seem “important” to the recognition of the political mind or the save-the-world mind. And when the “important” choice does arise—whether to press the launch button, perhaps—it is thousands of “unimportant” choices that create the template for what that choice will be.
Thank you to the great souls in humble stations holding our world together.
—Charles Eistenstein, “The Man Without a Leg—A Medicine Story”
It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If he is unequal, he will presently pass away. . . . True love cannot be unrequited.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures
Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you . . . . The only way to have a friend is to be one.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures
And I like you because
When I am feeling sad
You don’t always cheer me up right away
Sometimes it is better to be sad
You can’t stand the others being so googly and gaggly every single minute
You want to think about things
It takes time
I like you because if I am mad at you
Then you are mad at me too
It’s awful when the other person isn’t
I like you because
I don’t know why but
Everything that happens
Is nicer with you
I can’t remember when I didn’t like you
It must have been lonesome then
I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me
Over and over again
—Sandol Stoddard Warburg, I Like You
There is a way to develop and nurture interdependence and trust, to cultivate vulnerable and intentional relationships between everyone involved, to be honest about when it’s hard and to move through those feelings with care, with help, with community, with internal work, with therapy, with love. . . .
I am only just beginning to get a taste of what love feels like when I am not in emergency. . . . I am beginning to feel love as this safe and steady, living and dynamic, non-adrenalized thing. . . .
Love is not something I earn by being “good,” love is not something always under threat by outside forces. Love is freely given, loyal, kind. Love is generous, patient, steady. Love is trustworthy. . . .
When my partner is in a bad mood, distant, busy, or distracted, they still love me and it is not an emergency. When my partner is away traveling and I haven’t seen them for awhile, they still love me and it is not an emergency. . . .
For now I will say that avoidants aren’t monsters (just like you’re not a monster), and that their withdrawal is not a sign of lack of love. It is a protective mechanism. . . .
I can’t even explain the pleasure of safety, the way my very bones sing with it. Learning to move through conflict with my partner, learning to move through my nervous system and return to my window of tolerance, finding myself in safety breathing against my partner’s body: there is nothing more beautiful than this. . . .
We know all about excitement. We know all about danger. We know all about fighting for the recognition that the ways we love are legitimate. . . . But we don’t have a lot of space to talk about the staggering beauty of learning to feel safe.
—Clementine Morrigan, Love Without Emergency
Nature and nonhuman animals can be safe places to get attachment needs met.
—Clementine Morrigan, Love Without Emergency
Music is the flashlight. I’m in the cave, but I see a shape, a path, a way out.
—Amanda Palmer, “The Cure, quickie shots from the tiny NYC show, and rescheduling Tarrytown & Fairfield”
Be gentle. Remind yourself that you are a human being having a human experience. You are not a failure or a problem. Many have walked this path before you and found solutions that work.
—Clementine Morrigan, Trauma-Informed Polyamory
After my parents’ visit, I return to my happy place: a quiet little deck, with an organic kombucha, surrounded by jay friends, polite chipmunks, and sweet chickadees. The temperature drops and a faint breeze picks up, gently caressing. I spill kombucha on the chair and cushion, so now they’re sanctified.
Here in Greenland the giggles often become so uncontrollable that they morph into hiccups and loud shrieks. Outside our windows the arctic winds respond, vociferously, to the high spirits and creative chaos energies. I hear the voices of spirit children tinkle in the growl of the Wolf Winds.
—Imelda Almqvist, “A Church of Women”
Back on my regular trails, this one wending through coyote brush, a bobcat appears in front of me, twitches their tail, trots ahead—hardly nervous—and disappears back into the vegetation.
becoming jaguar is to abandon the certainties of domestic life and step into a forest of gazes
—Küpa (@kupaye@zirk.us) on Mastodon
I think the mainstream art world is on the wrong track. More precisely: the elite travel on the highway, but their cars fail to drive up winding mountain roads, they fail to end up getting lost in fog, or call at villages where no one stops. In those villages women spin both tales and yarn, sing blessings over herbs, carve symbols into bread, pray to rivers, deliver babies and tend the dying. . . .
Here women comb out
each other’s hair
Unravel cosmic tangles and whorls
and gently remove abandoned birds’ nests . . .
—Imelda Almqvist, “A Church of Women”
Usually when there’s a statue of some really famous person, and very often when that famous person is a saint, some spirit takes residence there. Well, with very old statues, it’s usually the other way around—there was a spirit there, and then someone builds a statue in its home.
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “The Giant by the Black Gate”
