The last time I went and sat by the lake it felt so reverential. The water was so still, the air was so quiet. I felt like I should’ve brought an offering, but what? So I just said a weak THANK YOU. I feel so sad to have such a dearth of rituals around the land (love that quote from Priscilla) and next time I will go better prepared!
As ever, so much resonance -- thank you for sharing this! Aren't sandhill cranes the most surreal sounding birds? I feel like they're winking at us from another geological age. Or maybe humouring us. Anyway, thank you!
Smothered in starlight--lately I have been thinking more about this too, that the majority of the world has only had access to electricity for maybe 100 years--and yet we have no understanding of what the dark really looks like without lights in the distance--and not the stars. The designation of dark sky reserves...kind of incredible to think of what we miss in common with all other generations of humans on this earth--a deep knowledge of starlight. I always think--similar to what you wrote--about a line I think William Maxwell wrote to Sylvia Townsend Warner about Ireland, that people said the fairies left when electricity came. They needed the darkness, starlight to exist. And this time of year up here, I begin to try to notice the stars whenever I can as the darkness retreats and we have to say goodbye to darkness, Moon, stars until August. 🌃
I used to tell my ex - who thought I courted precarity (and sometimes I have) - that if things ever got bad, we'd just go camping. It isn't the same kind of freedom as the Indigenous have (I once read a piece by an old anthropologist, possibly Julian Steward, about a Native man gambling away even his clothing, but walking off into the sagebrush as if everything would be fine, which with just a bit of luck, I suspect it was), but it is a realistic and sometimes satisfactory substitute. When the marriage ended, I lived homeless for a few months, camping and crashing, and I confess to a sinful delight in how much that aggravated her.
I would rather sit down beside that lovely river accompanying you in procrastinating on both of our deadlines than do any work in the world. What a beautiful location, I can feel the chills from halfway across the world. To the darkness and the calm of a passing winter 💜
I am over here, welcoming the spring, watching over the harvested paddy farms being burned down for cultivation, listening to the foxes and the Jackals yelp and howl as they hunt when the dusk arrives, fireflies are taking over the bamboo patches again. It’s about to rain.
Beautiful, Antonia. Thank you. Your mention of place-time and space-time reminded me instantly of my long walks in Antarctica, where there is little more than space and time. If you're paying attention to the utter wildness there, it enters you and never leaves. After a while of walking across the margin of ice and sky, both space and time start to feel like different forms of imagination. But as you show here, we don't need to go so far to find the old ways breathing through water and forest and field.
As an odd cross-thought, I'm a renter and often find myself craving the "freedom" of owning a place and some land. That's one of the primary tensions of dividing the commons, I guess. Once it starts to go, you want your piece. Like musical chairs but with the fate of the Earth at stake.
Glad you had your river time. We've been fortunate to have yearly island time here in coastal Maine, but we miss the mtns. Someday we'll head upcountry again.
I go out in the Pines to get grounded. but seeing water helps. I wish I could see the Milky Way. I've seen the Northern Lights, but I haven't seen the Milky Way. I hope to on my road trip this fall.
The last few years have been a journey in place, discovery, home, and ownership. I so enjoyed reading your meditations on this (from a corner of the world I also dearly love). ✨
"...if every human could see the sky like this every night, smothered in starlight, we could all remember what it is like to walk among a living spirit world."
What a beautiful description of what John O'Donohue called a Thin Place. They are magical. Most of mine seem to involve the water's edge, river or ocean. I'm overdue a personal retreat. The last was during Covid, a cabin at Cannon Beach. I was supposed to be in an online workshop, but kept sneaking off to watch waves and sunsets instead. Thank you for sharing this. 🙏
Oh the ignored work we bring on these adventures! I took things with me to Paris last week that I really wanted to read and write and think about -- and while it wasn't a river, it was Paris, and I gave myself over to just *being there* (also, massive distracting foot pain, but that's another topic). I just walked around and looked at things and sat at cafes and had a coffee or a beer and watched people go by. I went and hung out with the Rothko paintings -- I could live in that one big room with the giant red and black paintings -- or alternatively in the room with the grey/black series. I met Robert Ryman's work for the first time.
It was all lovely, but I didn't "get any work done" and that too felt like an accomplishment. Sometimes we need to just go be with the places/rivers/art that feeds us.
I recently found out that I have to move (I rent) and it has put me on a tailspin of moderate existential crisis about all the various choices I have made it my life and how I haven't made "responsible" choices that would have put me in a scenario in which I could own a house. All to say: thinking about private land ownership and all that's wrapped up in it has VERY much been on my mind recently, so of course I appreciated these thoughts. And the idea of grounding in flow. Thank you as always!
I'm currently listening to the audio version of your book, and I'm telling everyone around me they should read it, too! I feel so lucky to have found your writing, and so appreciate how you are giving me a different way to see so many things.
For a long time, I lived a short walk from the Sandy River, near the base of Oregon's Mt. Hood. During a very challenging time, I regularly went to the river to ask it questions, and the answers came when I put my feet into it. I moved away from it because I felt I could no longer afford the luxury of living so far from where I worked. I miss that grounding. It was good to be reminded of it through your words and to have a chance to reconsider my earlier thinking.
I think I started reading you about a year ago when you went to the cabin. A full turning of the wheel later and I am still in awe of your prose.
The North Fork is my favorite river and is a place I go to let go of the burdens I carry that can't wait for my bi-annual trip to the Ocean. I love the moodiness of her. I love her most in the spring when her power is big and I feel humbled by it.
I love that “grounding in flow” 💙
The last time I went and sat by the lake it felt so reverential. The water was so still, the air was so quiet. I felt like I should’ve brought an offering, but what? So I just said a weak THANK YOU. I feel so sad to have such a dearth of rituals around the land (love that quote from Priscilla) and next time I will go better prepared!
beautiful writing, thank you.
A wellspring you are . Thanks
You might need a desert fix next winter!
As ever, so much resonance -- thank you for sharing this! Aren't sandhill cranes the most surreal sounding birds? I feel like they're winking at us from another geological age. Or maybe humouring us. Anyway, thank you!
So gorgeous. All of it.
Smothered in starlight--lately I have been thinking more about this too, that the majority of the world has only had access to electricity for maybe 100 years--and yet we have no understanding of what the dark really looks like without lights in the distance--and not the stars. The designation of dark sky reserves...kind of incredible to think of what we miss in common with all other generations of humans on this earth--a deep knowledge of starlight. I always think--similar to what you wrote--about a line I think William Maxwell wrote to Sylvia Townsend Warner about Ireland, that people said the fairies left when electricity came. They needed the darkness, starlight to exist. And this time of year up here, I begin to try to notice the stars whenever I can as the darkness retreats and we have to say goodbye to darkness, Moon, stars until August. 🌃
Wonderful!
I used to tell my ex - who thought I courted precarity (and sometimes I have) - that if things ever got bad, we'd just go camping. It isn't the same kind of freedom as the Indigenous have (I once read a piece by an old anthropologist, possibly Julian Steward, about a Native man gambling away even his clothing, but walking off into the sagebrush as if everything would be fine, which with just a bit of luck, I suspect it was), but it is a realistic and sometimes satisfactory substitute. When the marriage ended, I lived homeless for a few months, camping and crashing, and I confess to a sinful delight in how much that aggravated her.
Yes. This. “It didn’t feel lazy. It felt necessary.” 🙏🏻❤️
I would rather sit down beside that lovely river accompanying you in procrastinating on both of our deadlines than do any work in the world. What a beautiful location, I can feel the chills from halfway across the world. To the darkness and the calm of a passing winter 💜
I am over here, welcoming the spring, watching over the harvested paddy farms being burned down for cultivation, listening to the foxes and the Jackals yelp and howl as they hunt when the dusk arrives, fireflies are taking over the bamboo patches again. It’s about to rain.
Let’s not do anything - together 🌾🌴🌧️
Beautiful, Antonia. Thank you. Your mention of place-time and space-time reminded me instantly of my long walks in Antarctica, where there is little more than space and time. If you're paying attention to the utter wildness there, it enters you and never leaves. After a while of walking across the margin of ice and sky, both space and time start to feel like different forms of imagination. But as you show here, we don't need to go so far to find the old ways breathing through water and forest and field.
As an odd cross-thought, I'm a renter and often find myself craving the "freedom" of owning a place and some land. That's one of the primary tensions of dividing the commons, I guess. Once it starts to go, you want your piece. Like musical chairs but with the fate of the Earth at stake.
Glad you had your river time. We've been fortunate to have yearly island time here in coastal Maine, but we miss the mtns. Someday we'll head upcountry again.
I go out in the Pines to get grounded. but seeing water helps. I wish I could see the Milky Way. I've seen the Northern Lights, but I haven't seen the Milky Way. I hope to on my road trip this fall.
Grounding in flow. Yes.
The last few years have been a journey in place, discovery, home, and ownership. I so enjoyed reading your meditations on this (from a corner of the world I also dearly love). ✨
"...if every human could see the sky like this every night, smothered in starlight, we could all remember what it is like to walk among a living spirit world."
What a beautiful description of what John O'Donohue called a Thin Place. They are magical. Most of mine seem to involve the water's edge, river or ocean. I'm overdue a personal retreat. The last was during Covid, a cabin at Cannon Beach. I was supposed to be in an online workshop, but kept sneaking off to watch waves and sunsets instead. Thank you for sharing this. 🙏
Oh the ignored work we bring on these adventures! I took things with me to Paris last week that I really wanted to read and write and think about -- and while it wasn't a river, it was Paris, and I gave myself over to just *being there* (also, massive distracting foot pain, but that's another topic). I just walked around and looked at things and sat at cafes and had a coffee or a beer and watched people go by. I went and hung out with the Rothko paintings -- I could live in that one big room with the giant red and black paintings -- or alternatively in the room with the grey/black series. I met Robert Ryman's work for the first time.
It was all lovely, but I didn't "get any work done" and that too felt like an accomplishment. Sometimes we need to just go be with the places/rivers/art that feeds us.
I recently found out that I have to move (I rent) and it has put me on a tailspin of moderate existential crisis about all the various choices I have made it my life and how I haven't made "responsible" choices that would have put me in a scenario in which I could own a house. All to say: thinking about private land ownership and all that's wrapped up in it has VERY much been on my mind recently, so of course I appreciated these thoughts. And the idea of grounding in flow. Thank you as always!
I'm currently listening to the audio version of your book, and I'm telling everyone around me they should read it, too! I feel so lucky to have found your writing, and so appreciate how you are giving me a different way to see so many things.
For a long time, I lived a short walk from the Sandy River, near the base of Oregon's Mt. Hood. During a very challenging time, I regularly went to the river to ask it questions, and the answers came when I put my feet into it. I moved away from it because I felt I could no longer afford the luxury of living so far from where I worked. I miss that grounding. It was good to be reminded of it through your words and to have a chance to reconsider my earlier thinking.
I think I started reading you about a year ago when you went to the cabin. A full turning of the wheel later and I am still in awe of your prose.
The North Fork is my favorite river and is a place I go to let go of the burdens I carry that can't wait for my bi-annual trip to the Ocean. I love the moodiness of her. I love her most in the spring when her power is big and I feel humbled by it.