THE WELL WITHIN WORKSHOP

By now you’ve probably heard the story, that eagle-eyed readers perusing the most recent edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary spotted the disappearance of a number of nature-based words. Words like blackberry, acorn, minnow, and fern—gone. Why? To make room for words from the lexicon of digital technology, such as analogue, broadband, cut-and-paste, and voicemail.

Petitions ensued with over 50,000 signatures garnered. An open letter to Oxford University Press, the publisher of OJD, signed by Margaret Atwood and twenty-seven of her well-published compatriots, urged “that a deliberate and publicised decision to restore some of the most important nature words would be a tremendous cultural signal and message of support for natural childhood.”

We recognise the need to introduce new words and to make room for them and do not intend to comment in detail on the choice of words added. However it is worrying that in contrast to those taken out, many are associated with the interior, solitary childhoods of today. In light of what is known about the benefits of natural play and connection to nature; and the dangers of their lack, we think the choice of words to be omitted shocking and poorly considered.

The Guardian

And then there’s this:

The Lost Words, a large, enchanting book by British writer and University of Cambridge Professor Robert Macfarlane, with illuminating watercolors by Jackie Morris, celebrates twenty of the nature words that had been removed from OJD. The Lost Words is a “spell book,” poetic celebrations of each of these words that are meant, according to Macfarlane, to be spoken aloud, encouraging young and old readers alike to rekindle their connections to kingfisher, otter, weasel, and wren, beckoning them back into common use with something akin to poetry or song.

Speaking of song:

We humans don’t often head for the watercolors or the piano when we find ourselves up against something we oppose, to say nothing of the deeply disturbing or even horrifying. Not every problem lends itself to the elevated response, though memories of Vera Lytovchenko playing her violin in that Ukranian cellar as bombs dropped overhead remain clear in my mind.

I often think the gap in our speaking about and for justice, or working for justice, is that we forget to advocate for what we love, for what we find beautiful and necessary. We are good at fighting, but imagining, and holding in one’s imagination what is wonderful and to be adored and preserved and exalted is harder for us, it seems.

Ross Gay, in conversation with Krista Tippett

I only know that when I come across this kind of elevated, transcendent response, I’m so deeply moved, so indelibly touched by what’s possible, for the human spirit, for our world and our future. Art can do this, as it so often has, reminding us of what we’re made of, the stuff of stars.  

Do you, though? Do you have to explain? Right now?

Vital, irreplaceable energy is expended in the act of explaining, and especially so in explaining too soon. Canadian author and painter Robert Genn observes: Your own words can steal the thunder of your idea more easily than the negativity of others. 

The rush and even a palpable urgency to get fresh creative work out on social media, to invite everyone into one’s own creative process as it’s on its way to becoming, has been the unquestioned standard practice for some time. Artists well-served by this approach describe the generous climate of community afforded by IG and other creative platforms, along with the warm feelings of support found in these spaces where it’s become possible, in Lynda Barry’s words, to do this thing alone together. Too, there’s the tactical, instructional, information-sharing supports made readily available, i.e. How do I protect my watercolor paintings from UV damage? And the exposure and reach for sharing one’s creative work with the world has been a game-changer on virtually every front.

I’m less convinced, though, that the press to be public, especially in the early stages of the creative process, serves all makers. I know of a number of practicing artists, and have read about many more, who go to almost any length to protect that precious arena of initial creative incubation, that private domain of curiosity and imagination that these makers feel is best inhabited alone. 

We’re all hungry hunters, active participants in this mysterious, astonishing life, all of us hard-wired to be captured by enchanting curiosities, to find ourselves irresistibly drawn to those singular mysteries and fascinations that hold as-yet-not-fully-understood significance for us. We find ourselves drawn though we’re not always sure why at the start. An enlivening process in its own right, this inner summons for some of us needs protection now, in a noisy world that can place greater importance on influencing and collecting followers than that more vital task of following one’s inner creative Northstar.

We live in a time of the dissected soul, the immediate disclosure: our thoughts, imaginings and longings exposed to the light much too early and too often; our best qualities squeezed too soon into a world already awash with ideas that oppress our sense of self and our sense of others. What is real is almost always, to begin with, hidden, and does not want to be understood by the part of our mind that mistakenly thinks it knows what is happening. What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence. 

~ David Whyte, in Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

The energy, vitality, and aliveness that propels the very forces of nature come to life within us, too, made accessible through the quietest of curiosities, these “infinitesimal specks of the celestial,” as Anne Lamott describes them, these “quiet miracles,” John O’Donohue notes, “that call no attention to themselves,” if only we’re awake enough to notice, to feel that irresistible fascination, to sense that deep pull and then to follow, all of which can happen in the quietest of ways, far from the madding crowd.

If I succeed in avoiding the hungry, glistening square eye of the phone for at least the first portion of a day, my thoughts feel unhurried, more gentle, more structured, smoother at the edges and more weighted towards the useful, the interesting, the productive, the creative-without-conflict, the settled sort of dreaming. I like the thoughts and ideas I have if I have steered clear of Other People’s Thoughts—how can a person end up anywhere personal and centered first thing in the morning if they’ve listened or read or scrolled at high speed past a thousand stranger-thoughts before they’ve even had a moment to think a single one of their own?

~ Ella Frances Sanders

These curiosities and their invitation to listen closely and then to follow, are the calling card of the true self, the uncurated self that in these moments of activated fascination and wonderment neither can nor cares to trade the impending adventure for any sort of obligation as to what one’s followers may want. 

True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation. One’s inner voices become audible. One feels the attraction of one’s most intimate sources.

~ Wendell Berry

Heeding the call of one’s own true self is the quintessential followership worth preserving at any cost. Yet how can we attend to the call of the true self against a backdrop that favors the followers—What do the followers want?

In what is perhaps the human version of the Heisenberg Principle, we change a bit, and sometimes dramatically, when we’re being watched, as compared to the unmitigated freedom afforded by those places and spaces in which we’re alone, really alone, without the burden of having to prematurely share any thoughts or instructions, without having to do any sort of persuasion or convincing.

When the followers want what your own true self wants, you’ve landed on the sweet spot, the zone, you’re in the flow, on your way. Too often, though, following the followers can lead too many too far from home.

There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.

~ Howard Thurman

In a world filled with influencers, there’s only one who’s worthy of full possession of you.

We can ignore the call of the soul and still have a fulfilling life, or we can heed its wisdom and experience times of deep joy and contentment. While we go through that process, home remains, whether in our hearts or in reality, the place of security and nurturance necessary for our psyche. It remains the envelope into which we retreat for privacy and intimacy, which reflects who we are as individuals and as members of society; that is essential for our well-being. But it may not be enough. The garden may beckon us also, or the wilderness, the ocean, the landscape, wildlife. We must heed that call too, for deep within it, the soul is asking for attention.

~ Claire Cooper Marcus, House as a Mirror of Self

It happened last month. I’d gotten flowers from my husband for our anniversary, a crisp collection of crimson, ochre, and cinnamon blooms surrounded by russet-colored oak leaves, seed pods and assorted greenery. Captivated by the autumn flowers and foliage, inhaling deeply, fingering the seeded eucalyptus and the golden mums, I found myself, and I know this sounds strange, seized by an inexplicable urge to jump into the vase. For a few fleeting moments, I could feel myself nestled in the warm company of those sunflowers, lilies, and what I thought was a decorative wooden fan but later learned was a large, glorious dried mushroom.  Almost as soon as it arrived, my Alice in Wonderland fantasy faded and so I carried the vase outside and sketched the bouquet in all its radiant glory, backlit by the sun.

Can you remember the last time you were seized by beauty? Stopped in your tracks by the colors, the textures, the scents and the sounds? Compelled to touch, to really look, to know with your nose? Intoxications like these, to borrow Beryl Markam’s words, feels like extra life. Do you remember autumns as a kid, captured by the reds and golds against a cloudless chilled-blue sky, rolling in crisp umber leaves, the crunch so close to your ears, that earthy smell, pulling leaves out of the collar of your coat? It occurs to me that my looking glass fantasy was most likely my own body remembering some of those early immersions into fall, into life, and longing for them still.

Attention generates wonder, which generates more attention and more joy. Paying attention to the more-than-human world doesn’t lead only to amazement; it leads also to acknowledgement of pain.

~Robin Wall Kimmerer

What seizes me most, though, about the particular beauty of autumn is that I succumb to it again and again with fully-informed consent, knowing all the while that this splendor will end, and almost always before I’m ready. I began this post a month ago and already the crimsons have dimmed, same for the ambers and saffrons, imperceptibly at first, but there’s now a fuller fading underway that won’t stop until the whole scene is one muted brushstroke of cool, uneventful gray.  That beauty fades, though, only magnifies the urgency of surrendering to loveliness now, what Brian Eno refers to as The Big Here and The Long Now. Why should the certainty of an end dilute by even a single drop our willingness to be captured and enlivened, even ignited, by beauty? If Dostoyevski is right, our world will be saved by it.

Nobody Cares

Nobody cares if you stop here. You can

look for hours, gaze out over the forest.

And the sounds are yours, too–take away

how the wind either whispers or begins to

get ambitious. If you let the silence of

afternoon pool around you, that serenity

may last a long time, and you can take it

along. A slant sun, mornings or evenings,

will deepen the canyons, and you can carry away

that purple, how it gathers and fades for hours.

This whole world is yours, you know. You can

breathe it and think about it and dream it after this

wherever you go. It’s alright. Nobody cares.

~William Stafford

My husband and I have harbored the same wish for almost 30 years now—that owls would build a nest in our yard. We’ve heard them in the distance, as we’re falling asleep and sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, the air poignant with their deep, minor-key hooting and cooing, and yet we’ve never seen signs of a nest. Occasionally we’ve spotted one soaring across the sunsetting sky and there have been a couple of times over the years when a pair of them appeared to be circling over our yard during nesting season, only to settle in at a property across the way.

Then last year, almost overnight, a fortress-of-a-nest appeared at the top of the old growth oak just behind our garage and for a brief moment it seemed as if our owls had arrived, only to learn that the builders weren’t owls but rather a pair of peregrine falcons, known for their voracious appetites, favoring songbirds as a particular delicacy, soon to include the beloved orioles and finches that frequented our hanging feeders (which we had no choice but to resolve by leaving them empty).

So imagine my delight when about a month ago, as I was filling the tea kettle one morning, just before dawn, I glanced out the window and saw this:

A great-horned owl, perched right next to what had been last year’s falcon nest. I hightailed it over to Wikipedia to learn that, yes, owls will do this, take over the nest of another bird.

Soon to be followed by this:

Preened by their mom and fed by their dad, these owlets had earlier on taken to careening their fuzzy little necks over the side of their crib to see where their folks go when they take off. I’d catch their gaze, too, every morning as I stared back from just outside our back door, a practice that continues today.

I wish so much that I could capture the magic that these exquisite creatures lend to my life. I bolt out of bed in the morning and rush home at the end of the day with unbridled eagerness to see them. The inescapable wildness of their existence—unprotected as they are from icy snows and torrential rains, feeding on prey dropped from the talons of their elders and facing the screeching return of the peregrine that yesterday circled the two young ones who stared up with fixed gaze from the coveted shelter of that falcon’s former home, permeating the atmosphere with such palpable threat and fear, in these owlets and also in me, only to fly off without incident—all of this somehow offers extra life, something altogether vibrant and alive, something ancient and eternal breaking through the ordinariness of what had heretofore been my regular life.

Which brings me to the bacon. We were making breakfast yesterday morning and I’d put bacon in the oven, taking note that in about 19 minutes it’d be done. Rounding to the sink, I glanced out the window to see that these little ones were taking their first, tentative steps out of the nest. I grabbed my camera and dashed out the door. Assuming the position, my body a tripod of sorts, the strap pulled taut around my neck and arms extended, steady lens on this moment, I can’t honestly say that I forgot about the bacon. It was a conscious thought, a question really: Which would you rather have? Bacon? Or this?:

I’d sacrifice every slice of bacon I’d ever have in my life to not miss this.

These owls will launch soon and the portal to all of this extra life will have closed once again, for the time being. When these eternal cycles of birth and growth, flight and soaring, decline and death—true for owls and all creatures, and also you and me—break through the temporal tasks of bill paying, laundry, and bacon cooking, life’s as good as it gets. Kairos erupting into chronos—I’m wishing for more of this, for myself and for you, for its nourishment and its sustenance. Can we ever get enough?

Eternity isn’t sometime later. Eternity isn’t even a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal terms cuts off. And if you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere. 

~ Joseph Campbell / The Power of Myth

The winter solstice, now just days away, will plant us once again in the season’s deepest darkness. How best to navigate under these shadowed conditions? “Hope begins in the dark,” says Anne Lamott, and while I agree I also know that hope is stronger when it’s been fortified by the light in all its many vessels–the stars, the sun, the effervescence of the human spirit when it refuses to stay buried for long. Krista Tippett offers a primer on hope, a workout regimen of sorts emphasizing hope’s inherent muscularity and underscoring the need for consistent strengthening if it is to serve when we need it most.

I think about those who embody hope, maestros of hope who unhesitatingly share their supply with the beleaguered or bereft, be it a neighbor or a stranger. I’m appreciating now more than ever those who’ve promoted and practiced hope on a wider scale, whose very lives have been a lighthouse for a community or a nation. On this, the anniversary of his death, I think of Václav Havel:

The kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul: it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.  

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from “elsewhere.” It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.

While it’s true our world needs all the ambassadors of hope it can get, it’s as true that any one of us who can offer a dependable spot of light will help.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers-

That perches in the soul-

And sings the tune without the words-

And never stops – at all –

                                   ~ Emily Dickenson

The health-preserving—and for some, life-saving—benefits of art-making are well established in scientific journals and psychological literature. For this reason, researchers from various fields of study have for over 100 years sustained their explorations into the nature of creativity itself, garnering greater wisdom and insight into the magic elixer of creativity in ways that have fortified the health and wellbeing benefits of making and creating for the betterment of humankind.

Sometimes, though, these attempts to better understand creativity’s life-enhancing components are met with opposition, often from the artists themselves.  In Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, University of Chicago Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes in rich detail the declines he’d received from writers, painters, sculptors, dancers and business thought leaders in response to his invitation to be interviewed for his research:

Mr. Bellow informed me that he remains creative in the second half of life, at least in part, because he does not allow himself to be the object of other people’s “studies.” In any event, he’s gone for the summer. ~ spokesperson for Saul Bellow

Sorry—too little time left! ~ Richard Avedon

He is creative and, because of this, totally overworked. Therefore, the very reason you wish to study his creative process is also the reason why he (unfortunately) does not have the time to help you in this study. He would also like to add that he cannot answer your letter personally because he is trying desperately to finish a violin concerto which will be premiered in the Fall. He hopes very much you will understand. Mr. Ligeti would like to add that he finds your project extremely interesting and would be very curious to read the results. ~ spokesperson for George Ligeti

I am skeptical as to the investigation of creativity and I do not feel inclined to submit myself to interviews on that subject. I guess I suspect some methodological errors at the basis of all discussions about creativity. ~ Czeslaw Milosz

I’m sorry but I never agree to be interviewed on the process of work. Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty applies. ~ Norman Mailer

I am greatly honored and flattered by your kind letter of February 14—for I have admired you and your work for many years, and I have learned much from it. But, my dear Professor Csikszentmihalyi, I am afraid I have to disappoint you. I could not possibly answer your questions. I am told I am creative—I don’t know what that means… I just keep on plodding… I hope you will not think me presumptuous or rude if I say that one of the secrets of productivity (in which I believe whereas I do not believe in creativity) is to have a VERY BIG waste paper basket to take care of ALL invitations such as yours—productivity in my experience consists of NOT doing anything that helps the work of other people but to spend all one’s time on the work the Good Lord has fitted one to do, and to do well. ~ Peter Drucker

Hearing no can be hard. I’ve heard my fair share and two in particular come to mind, the first in the early 1990’s, when I was working on my doctoral dissertation. I’d been captivated at that time to learn that a disproportionate number of accomplished artists had suffered the loss of a parent in early life and so I explored in my research the premise that creativity might be a form of grieving. I focused my study on Sophie’s Choice, a historical novel by William Styron, who’s mother died when he was 13 years old. I wondered whether it might be possible to speak directly with the novelist, rather than relying solely on information available in the literature and press regarding his life and work. I’d send Mr. Styron a letter and not long after received a handwritten notecard that read as follows:

Dear Ms. Bratu,

Thanks for the kind words. I think you have an interesting idea in creativity and early loss and I wish you well in pursuing it in your dissertation. As for myself, I’m afraid I’ve said about all I can say on the subject, so I can’t participate in your project but I do wish you the best of luck in exploring an intriguing subject.

Sincerely, William Styron

The second memorable no occurred in 2015, when the earliest inklings of The Well Within Workshop were beginning to come together, a place where mark-making for its own sake could be championed. I’d long been drawn to the work of a number of prominent mark-makers but none more than Lynda Barry, cartoonist, writer, and professor at The University of Wisconsin, Madison. Then and still, Barry promotes the making of marks and images as a way of amplifying a fuller, richer experience of life (as opposed to mark-making in the service of a finished work of art). I’d hoped to meet with this graphic trailblazer, to discuss how she’d landed on her maverick approach to creative work, to explore the roadblocks she’d encountered from both within herself and the outside world, to learn more about her own personal creative practice, and so forth. I emailed Prof. Barry and received this reply:

Thank you for this good email. I get so many requests like this one and it makes me feel terrible to have to decline but if I didn’t I’d have no time at all for my own work. I’m heartened by the interest in the subject though and I’m glad it’s something that you’re thinking about seriously.

Sincerely, Lynda Barry

If Prof. Mihaly was deterred by the regrets he’d received, it wasn’t for long. He went on to publish Creativity along with other seminal studies for another two decades, interviewing hundreds of creatives, propelled as he was by the desire to learn about and elucidate the very nature of creativity, and then to use this knowledge to enrich creative life for the rest of us.

There’s quite literally no end to what can be said about the foundational nature of creativity or, for that matter, about the power in saying yes to what brings you alive and no to what doesn’t. Having said this, I regret that I can’t say more—I think I hear my watercolors calling.

I pull into one of the few empty parking spots in the lot at the mall and walk with brisk anticipation through the front door of what used to be a Sears department store. The former home of Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools now welcomes this:

and this:

and this and this and this:

I would’ve loved to have been in that heady room when this brainchild of an exhibition was born, swaddled as it must have been in the sure cloth of unbridled imagination and expansive possibility. 

Bringing 21st century digital technology to this moment of now-palpable hunger for beauty both ancient and enduring wherever it might be found, Michelangelo’s larger-than-life Sistine Chapel frescos have been brought down to eye level in an exhibit scheduled to travel the world, for a moment landing in Oakbrook, Illinois. Some viewers will no doubt find themselves captivated by biblical themes so passionately portrayed. For me, standing in such intimate proximity to these majestic, sometimes haunting figures with their billowing, colorful robes, animated gestures and evocative expressions, to witness this artist’s discerning command of storytelling and darkness and overarching light and to encounter all of this while standing in the same close proximity that Michelangelo himself stood as he created these works, is daunting to describe. I’d studied fine art in Rome as an undergrad and saw many of the most famous works by Michelangelo, da Vinci, Rembrandt and others in what might be considered their proper places, their true homes. This experience was an altogether different kind of immersion. The sheer feat of 5000 sq feet of painting, the painstaking, neck-aching 4-1/2 years to completion, the imaginative reach that propelled this genius’ magnum opus, and in turn the exhibition itself, with the works themselves all so improbably near, felt awesome in every sense of the word. Like being able to reach up into the sky and pull down Orion or Saturn for a closer look.

I caught Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition on the final day of its Chicago run last month. It’s moved on to L.A., leaving the former Sears store empty once again.

Empty spaces are invitational, aren’t they? Too, works of art on almost any level have the power to elevate a space. It happened here—a place that once carried Craftsman now ascended to house the work of a Master Craftsman. Michelangelo took note of all of those empty, divided spaces in that 60-foot ceiling and allowed himself to imagine how they might be filled. Imagination itself is a space, with a ceiling that can always be raised.

The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim to low and achieving our mark. ~Michelangelo

Why does the simple act of filling tiny squares with yellow ochre, raw umber, moss green, dots and dashes, circles and lines feel so soothing and restorative?

If for only 15 minutes you were to step away from the abstracted worlds of thought and digitalia, to distance yourself from the seemingly-intractable sister habits of go-go/do-do, and instead immerse yourself in the easy practice of mark-making, with lines, shapes and color flowing easily from your pencil, brush or pen, you might experience as I do an incomparable level of engagement, often with a feeling of full presence and inexplicable contentment. 

Mark-making is one of the most accessible portals into that enriching alternate universe known as be here now. While I’ve been fortified for over two decades by an imperfect meditation practice, I find that I can as easily (and sometimes more easily) get “there” via mark-making—not to be confused with “art-making” and all the pressures and stress that the prospect of making art can bring. Lynda Barry invites her students to avoid freighting their own marks with the burden of having to be beautiful, instead recognizing their lines, circles and color splashes as “a record of what your hand did on that day.” 

Making one’s mark has a long, illustrious history and it’s possible that vestiges of this primitive practice continue to deliver their soothing, comforting influence even to this day. In conversation with Krista Tippett, Robert Macfarlane talks about how our prehistoric ancestors would place their palm on the wall of the cave and, with fingers spread wide and with a mouthful of yellow or red ochre, blow the pigment on the back of their hand, leaving what’s known as a ghost print, a signature of sorts that says, “I was here.” 

I’ve often wondered whether it’s from this ancient lineage that our own lines are born. Isn’t it possible that the dashes, dots and lines that show up on the page today are impelled from a kind of primordial wellspring running through the ages and arriving here at the present, through our arms, down to our hands and onto the paper or canvas? The deep comfort, groundedness and connection that many experience from the simple practice of mark-making might be understood as our creative elderhood reaching out via lineage and line to a future that they knew they’d never see, the same as your own marks and lines might offer proof of your presence to those who’ll follow you.

Patagonia ghost print image courtesy of Dreamstime.

Bauhaus artist Paul Klee famously described his drawing process as “taking a line for a walk.” In all likelihood, he wasn’t referring to walking as so many of us practice it today—fuel-injected, over-committed, hoofing with a pre-determined purpose, a clear destination, running late. Instead, Klee invokes the sauntering, meandering approach made famous by the likes of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman and Muir, those first-order naturalists who approached walking as an art form in its own right.

In her scholarly, thoroughly lovely World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down, professor, poet and author Christian McEwen illuminates the role played by slow, ambulatory movements led by curiosity and fascination in the creative life.  McEwen notes that novelist Willa Cather “worked at her desk all morning, then wandered the woods and trails all afternoon in search of wildflowers. She told one of her friends that she needed ‘almost to dissolve into nature daily in order to be reborn to her task.’”

Ah, where have they gone, the amblers of yesteryear? Where have they gone, those loafing heroes of folksong, those vagabonds who roam from one mill to another and bed down under the stars? ~ Milan Kundera

McEwen offers that walking in this gentle, unencumbered way taps our own innate interconnectedness with the world around us via chronobiology–our body’s entrainment to the ancient, powerful rhythms of the larger universe.

Poet, philosopher and scholar John O’Donohue carries our chronobiological connection to the land ones step further. In Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World, O’Donohue offers that the body is in some primordial way comprised of the same raw material as the landscape itself:

One of the lovely ways to pray is to take your body out into the landscape and to be still in it. Your body is made out of clay, so your body is actually a miniature landscape that has got up from under the earth and is now walking on the normal landscape. If you go out for several hours into a place that is wild, your mind begins to slow down, down, down. What is happening is that the clay of your body is retrieving its own sense of sisterhood with the great clay of the landscape…To put it in a theological way, I feel that the landscape is always at prayer, and its prayer is seamless. It is always enfolded in the presence. It is a high work of imagination, because there is no repetition in a landscape. Every stone, every tree, every field is a different place. When your eye begins to become attentive to this panorama of differentiation, then you realize what a privilege it is to actually be here.

Thoreau was unbridled in promoting the many benefits of his wandering practice. In Walking he writes, “I think I cannot preserve my health and spirits unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and fields absolutely free from all worldly engagements.”

We’ve got a number of local trails and forest preserves near my home and, with the spillover from the year we’ve just moved through, I find myself spending increasing amounts of time in these hallowed spaces.  I welcome the feeling of coming back to my senses—metaphorically and literally—that these pristine parcels of earth provide. I enjoy the break from thinking and the ways in which answers to questions I didn’t even know I had present themselves, seemingly all on their own—solvitur ambulanto, Latin for it is solved by walking. There’s something about immersing myself in nature as a whole that can beckon a feeling of wholeness and completeness within myself, of being held and supported. A feeling of coming home.

Are you walking much these days? What about walking without a destination, or your phone? A walk with just your two eyes, two ears, two hands and two feet is an altogether different kind of experience, possibly one worth repeating. 

I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown; for going out, I found, was really going in. ~John Muir

Think, for a moment, about the tiny treasures in your home. Is it the aesthetics of these beauties that you like? The stories connected to them? Maybe both? If you wanted to hold one of these finds in your hand right now, where would you find it? Stuck in the back of a drawer or out where you can see it?

 

 

Unadorned by deep-pocketed branding campaigns and maybe just sitting there in all their unassumingness, tiny, beautiful things have a way of turning a tabletop into an altar, a corner shelf into a shrine.

My own small gems hold history, craftsmanship, and warm imperfection, having come about either through the work of human hands or the determined handiwork of Mother Nature or one of her industrious creatures. I love the way these wee treasures telegraph their own fundamental sense of completeness, as if to say, This is all there is, and it’s enough. 

I find that I’m able to bring a concentrated, saturated type of attention to a two-inch tall forged brass bell, with its scattered spots of tarnish and intricate leaf motif, in a way that’s just not possible with, say, the Taj Mahal, Grand Canyon, or any number of the more expansive splendors. Too, small spots of magnificence— just-opening seedpods, hand-carved broom handles—have a way of inviting any one of us out of the abstracted world of our own over-churned thinking and planting us more deeply right where we are, smack dab in the middle of the here and now.

How to be what Saul Bellow referred to as a first-class noticer?  Small things can be particularly gratifying to notice, worthy of full, undivided attention and found quite literally everywhere, quietly regal in their presence and often bringing with them, if even for a moment, a welcome, much-needed diversion from whatever it is that’s laying claim to you right now.