Do not listen to the ministers of failure, who promise redemption for their imagined sins. Did Walt Whitman really write these words? In a sense, yes, because, whether those of us engaged in literary pursuits are aware of it or not, his influence is so great and so profound that it’s inevitable, at one time or another, we take up the pen in his name. Not only Whitman, of course; […]
Is there anything better for children than being outside, off of the pavement, and away from all forms of electronics? Is there anything better for adults? Is there anything better than dirty hands and dirty feet that have been made that way by several hours of willing contact with the soil? Is there anything better than absorbing the sights, sounds, and scents in the mountains, at the beach, or beside […]
The Big Dipper is kind to streetlights — lets them boast, as a ghost might. . Now, you should know there’s a great being, gentle, wise, and invisible, who goes out at night and pulls up the roads, and carries them off in her arms, and who leaves trees, grass, and flowers growing in her path — To remind them, she says, and the breeze agrees, Yes. . Read the […]
This fall, like the last, the pine is losing a large amount of its needles. Yet it remains green at the top and at the tips. It’s a gradual process; the needles turn yellow before they drop. This might well be some ordinary housekeeping, because the tree looked good all summer. I think I recall reading somewhere that pines hang onto their new needles for three or more years. Maybe […]
Writing is one more way of living forever, like digging in the garden, making bread, and bathing a child. It’s a city lot, but if I walk the same narrow path through the yard to its every corner each and every day, my footsteps will form a scenic nature trail. Out, back, and around, in every direction and through all the seasons — who knows what I might see? We […]
It’s not that nature answers all questions and problems, though it seems she does. It’s that she disposes of those not really worth asking or solving, and returns us, at least for a time, to a state of harmony with our most basic needs, and an understanding of how we’re connected to each other and all things. If you live in a city, even a single flower or plant near […]
Meditation, enlightenment, reality, truth, self-realization — aren’t such concepts poor, even desperate, substitutes for living our lives as nature intended? I don’t mean this in a critical sense. Piled up in buildings, trapped on freeways, smothered in cosmetics, drugged, poisoned, plugged in, wired, overfed, under-exercised, devoid of basic survival skills, strangers to each other and the environment — we thwart our instincts at every turn. But they can’t be overridden […]
It seems a shame to impose myself on a clean white page. It’s like being the first to leave tracks in newly fallen snow, or where someone has carefully raked a shaded path — unforgivable acts, though unavoidable, perhaps. And what of the garden space beside the driveway? If I’m still alive when the weather warms at last, shall I fill it again with seeds and plants, or let nature […]
Infinite, perfect, effortlessly unfolding — such is life, such is nature, such is the universe. And when I see myself as apart from it, that is my pain, my unhappiness, my curse. . [ 1612 ]
Dark, rich, thick, smooth — a not-quite-full six-ounce cup of pour-over coffee. Dream coffee, slowly consumed. Coffee in the bright light shadow of a setting full moon. The fir tree has a very heavy new crop of green pitch-glistening cones, which, as they mature, are shedding bits of themselves. When I was working under it the pieces fell around me and on me. The garden is engulfed in purslane, which […]
William Michaelian 