This is one of my favourite things you've written, which is going up against some *stiff* competition.
Firstly, please start a podcast called The Cupboard Under The Stairs. Thx.
Secondly, my lingering thought here was that I would like to step into the multiverses and emerge where you've written a magical realism book about a coffee-maker in Russia who makes magically good coffee by day (coffee which turns Bad people into Good people) and gathers that magic at night from the Moon. A kind of Eastern 'CHOCOLAT' (Maybe "КОФЕ"?) with the same sensual focus on how delicious the subject matter is, the same battle against mindless bureaucratic Evil, and the same kind of dreamy yet bittersweet vibe and message behind it.
I'm not saying it needs to happen in THIS universe, I know you've got a lot on, but I felt that across all the multiverses, someone needed to say it, so I nominated myself. And what a good thing it would be too. (Sorry. No pressure.)
>>"We’re at the beginning of a thousand-year cleanup..."
Dec 28, 2023·edited Dec 28, 2023Liked by Antonia Malchik
Nia, I just heard the recording and yes I forgot to mention that we also sometimes use goat milk in the turmeric chai, and goat milk and goat ghee is absolutely fantastic for throat congestion.
Moonfall - YES! That’s how it feels when the city lights aren’t flooding out all our cosmic relatives out of sight. As if the radiance can flow down like streams of bright light through the landscapes. One of the fairest deals of being human is to stand still and admire the moon 🌕
“It’s stayed small, and still employs many of the people who started there, a small raft of security and honest work in a country where both are scarce.” I honour this work so much. It is so hard to hold onto our values and maintain integrity in face of a institution as corrupt as the one you talked about here. And these corruptions are only growing more rabid in general corporations too with each passing day.
We can change things only looking backwards and learning from history- our own and of others too specifically if they bring in diversity of perspectives and experiences through their history. Nothing changes if we keep looking forward into the blank canvas of our future while ignoring the bloody canvas of the past.
Thank you Nia for being a starlight of integrity in this dim world. ✨
Thank you Antonia. Reading this I felt like I was taken on a trip.. so visually engaging, so emotionally enriching.. Hope you had a great Christmas with the family..
this is so beautiful. i love how you pull together all these threads--the bison herd, your father’s coffee business, the stars, the Luminaria tradition and even permitting. it’s like a mosaic. happy holidays to you and yours, thank you for being a light on my thinking and reading this year!!
Your line, "what it means to take land that all rely on for sustenance and survival, and turn it into private property, into capital" caught my eye. Just this morning a grandson asked me why I thought there were so many homeless people.
Pull up a chair. I'll brew some tea. We have a long conversation ahead of us.
So beautiful. I love thinking of your kids knowing that no one can truly own anything. It makes me hopeful, as does your commitment to finding community and connections across geography, time, and space.
I've also been thinking about integrity lately. I don't think that I know, exactly, what it means anymore, or, rather, I don't think that it is so much a concrete trait as it is a guiding light that coincides with your personal sense of ethics (such as the Utilitarianism required when navigating a coffee shop in the Motherland). What is integrity, though, to the stars or the eroding cut bank? As the guy said, all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
This has me deep in thought about a lot of things. About belonging, what happens when we strip that from someone and agitate their own sense of self-belonging and how this neighborly belonging has felt elusive most of my life.
The scenes you described, of knowing the sounds of other people’s voices, of gathering and togetherness — I know I have dreamed of something like this but found it massively difficult to step into. Even in our beautiful Colorado mountain life, the instinct to isolate was hard to overcome. And now that I’m plopped into suburbia again, strangely enough, I am finding small glimpses of belonging even amidst some of the saddest trees I’ve ever seen. (They are not sick or withering. They just feel forgotten in a sea of cookie cutter homes, and dare I say, lives.) I do wonder though about the evening we shared hot cider from our front yard with weary parents on Halloween. Or the night that the fire department drove a fire truck with Santa on top for the children to see and wave to. It does feel like there’s some seedling of hope even in this concrete jungle, even as I long to live again in the luminaria of our next home.
Thank you for this. Also I owe you an email or two. 🧡
Antonia, this is sublime. I hope your throat is feeling better! I am mentally sending you a light-filled room of your own, filled with plants to breathe oxygen out to you, within a soft quiet that is palpable in its gift of contemplation and common union. (Communion is too loaded a word to use without lots of disclaimers and reclaimers.)
I so enjoyed your reading, your sharing of your Solstice tradition, and especially referring to Moon and Sun as she and he respectively, without the article "the" to objectify them.
I love the image of starlight as clean and white and of memory; so beautiful! The stars speaking to us from however long ago they actually lived, with the notion of our being fireflies, is so hopeful! It instills the infinite perspective of our microscopic individual roles in our brief flickers of life, which—though not at all insignificant—brings a relief from the pressure to fix and be responsible for everything, while confirming that when we are awake in spirit and we do whatever we can in our little spheres, it adds up, and is enough.
"There was something other-worldly about it, by which I mean this-worldly. The this-world that too much of most of our daily lives washes out and hides from us. The this-world I soak in when I go to forest service cabins or my stepdad’s cabin, far from any electricity, especially electric lighting, where the stars can show their brilliant, miraculous selves." This line! And of course, all of the rest— shining light on profound matters like our connection to each other and to the land that sustains us. This post is beautiful, Antonia. Thank you.
P.S. I, too, have been enjoying that chai recipe since you shared it. I use oat milk. So I'm glad you've found that option. It's heavenly. So, also, thank you for that.
Thank you, Nia, this is beautiful. Great pictures, all of them.
I understand your struggle "to explain, for people who don’t already get it, that wrongness—of ownership itself". I can say that while I saw many of the pieces, the concept of ownership is so built-in to everything around us, even, as you point out, the language we use to tell history, that I couldn't see the whole until you pointed it out. Please keep on illuminating!
Hey Nia, thanks for another lovely column - and really enjoyed all of your photos (esp the one along the frozen river - quite magical) and your kiddo took a super image, good eye! I'm so impressed at what your dad has done - WOW! I'd love to learn from his wisdom on acting with integrity in a corrupt system and being successful. What a difficult balancing act, and I am sure you are facing a lot of balancing acts in your role on the Board of Parks.
I love Waxwings!! We used to get them yearly for a few days and I loved watching them, taking photos of them - beautiful birds - and wondering how they got her and where they were going. Bird migrations and navigation are just so phenomenal.
Good stories and good cognition, I will have to remember that. Best, Paul
This: "These traditions create what’s called culture. They bring people into relationship with one another, and into relationship with this-world. The land and water, animals and moonlight." I've been thinking so much about how well we've been conditioned to separate from the land, from relationship, to not pay attention to ritual, to not believe that these traditions have value that we have lost and no longer experience. The stars as memory, each one a light from other times, that have been shining in other time, literally. I just love thinking of each one as a point of memory, to be treasured--and how the electric light we use blinds that memory from us. ✨
This is one of my favourite things you've written, which is going up against some *stiff* competition.
Firstly, please start a podcast called The Cupboard Under The Stairs. Thx.
Secondly, my lingering thought here was that I would like to step into the multiverses and emerge where you've written a magical realism book about a coffee-maker in Russia who makes magically good coffee by day (coffee which turns Bad people into Good people) and gathers that magic at night from the Moon. A kind of Eastern 'CHOCOLAT' (Maybe "КОФЕ"?) with the same sensual focus on how delicious the subject matter is, the same battle against mindless bureaucratic Evil, and the same kind of dreamy yet bittersweet vibe and message behind it.
I'm not saying it needs to happen in THIS universe, I know you've got a lot on, but I felt that across all the multiverses, someone needed to say it, so I nominated myself. And what a good thing it would be too. (Sorry. No pressure.)
>>"We’re at the beginning of a thousand-year cleanup..."
Well, that hit me in the feels. Damn.
Moonfall✨this-world✨sunrise on that river! So much to love. Loved hearing you read it from your Harry Potter cupboard as well. ❤️
Nia, I just heard the recording and yes I forgot to mention that we also sometimes use goat milk in the turmeric chai, and goat milk and goat ghee is absolutely fantastic for throat congestion.
Moonfall - YES! That’s how it feels when the city lights aren’t flooding out all our cosmic relatives out of sight. As if the radiance can flow down like streams of bright light through the landscapes. One of the fairest deals of being human is to stand still and admire the moon 🌕
“It’s stayed small, and still employs many of the people who started there, a small raft of security and honest work in a country where both are scarce.” I honour this work so much. It is so hard to hold onto our values and maintain integrity in face of a institution as corrupt as the one you talked about here. And these corruptions are only growing more rabid in general corporations too with each passing day.
We can change things only looking backwards and learning from history- our own and of others too specifically if they bring in diversity of perspectives and experiences through their history. Nothing changes if we keep looking forward into the blank canvas of our future while ignoring the bloody canvas of the past.
Thank you Nia for being a starlight of integrity in this dim world. ✨
Thank you Antonia. Reading this I felt like I was taken on a trip.. so visually engaging, so emotionally enriching.. Hope you had a great Christmas with the family..
this is so beautiful. i love how you pull together all these threads--the bison herd, your father’s coffee business, the stars, the Luminaria tradition and even permitting. it’s like a mosaic. happy holidays to you and yours, thank you for being a light on my thinking and reading this year!!
A lovely read. Thank you.
Your line, "what it means to take land that all rely on for sustenance and survival, and turn it into private property, into capital" caught my eye. Just this morning a grandson asked me why I thought there were so many homeless people.
Pull up a chair. I'll brew some tea. We have a long conversation ahead of us.
So beautiful. I love thinking of your kids knowing that no one can truly own anything. It makes me hopeful, as does your commitment to finding community and connections across geography, time, and space.
Integrity is costly, but self-respect is priceless. You do what you can in a corrupt system.
I've also been thinking about integrity lately. I don't think that I know, exactly, what it means anymore, or, rather, I don't think that it is so much a concrete trait as it is a guiding light that coincides with your personal sense of ethics (such as the Utilitarianism required when navigating a coffee shop in the Motherland). What is integrity, though, to the stars or the eroding cut bank? As the guy said, all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
This has me deep in thought about a lot of things. About belonging, what happens when we strip that from someone and agitate their own sense of self-belonging and how this neighborly belonging has felt elusive most of my life.
The scenes you described, of knowing the sounds of other people’s voices, of gathering and togetherness — I know I have dreamed of something like this but found it massively difficult to step into. Even in our beautiful Colorado mountain life, the instinct to isolate was hard to overcome. And now that I’m plopped into suburbia again, strangely enough, I am finding small glimpses of belonging even amidst some of the saddest trees I’ve ever seen. (They are not sick or withering. They just feel forgotten in a sea of cookie cutter homes, and dare I say, lives.) I do wonder though about the evening we shared hot cider from our front yard with weary parents on Halloween. Or the night that the fire department drove a fire truck with Santa on top for the children to see and wave to. It does feel like there’s some seedling of hope even in this concrete jungle, even as I long to live again in the luminaria of our next home.
Thank you for this. Also I owe you an email or two. 🧡
I just read Sand Talk myself in preparation for that Yellowstone workshop. So good.
Antonia, this is sublime. I hope your throat is feeling better! I am mentally sending you a light-filled room of your own, filled with plants to breathe oxygen out to you, within a soft quiet that is palpable in its gift of contemplation and common union. (Communion is too loaded a word to use without lots of disclaimers and reclaimers.)
I so enjoyed your reading, your sharing of your Solstice tradition, and especially referring to Moon and Sun as she and he respectively, without the article "the" to objectify them.
I love the image of starlight as clean and white and of memory; so beautiful! The stars speaking to us from however long ago they actually lived, with the notion of our being fireflies, is so hopeful! It instills the infinite perspective of our microscopic individual roles in our brief flickers of life, which—though not at all insignificant—brings a relief from the pressure to fix and be responsible for everything, while confirming that when we are awake in spirit and we do whatever we can in our little spheres, it adds up, and is enough.
"There was something other-worldly about it, by which I mean this-worldly. The this-world that too much of most of our daily lives washes out and hides from us. The this-world I soak in when I go to forest service cabins or my stepdad’s cabin, far from any electricity, especially electric lighting, where the stars can show their brilliant, miraculous selves." This line! And of course, all of the rest— shining light on profound matters like our connection to each other and to the land that sustains us. This post is beautiful, Antonia. Thank you.
P.S. I, too, have been enjoying that chai recipe since you shared it. I use oat milk. So I'm glad you've found that option. It's heavenly. So, also, thank you for that.
Thank you, Nia, this is beautiful. Great pictures, all of them.
I understand your struggle "to explain, for people who don’t already get it, that wrongness—of ownership itself". I can say that while I saw many of the pieces, the concept of ownership is so built-in to everything around us, even, as you point out, the language we use to tell history, that I couldn't see the whole until you pointed it out. Please keep on illuminating!
🌃🕯️
Hey Nia, thanks for another lovely column - and really enjoyed all of your photos (esp the one along the frozen river - quite magical) and your kiddo took a super image, good eye! I'm so impressed at what your dad has done - WOW! I'd love to learn from his wisdom on acting with integrity in a corrupt system and being successful. What a difficult balancing act, and I am sure you are facing a lot of balancing acts in your role on the Board of Parks.
I love Waxwings!! We used to get them yearly for a few days and I loved watching them, taking photos of them - beautiful birds - and wondering how they got her and where they were going. Bird migrations and navigation are just so phenomenal.
Good stories and good cognition, I will have to remember that. Best, Paul
Just so beautiful Nia. Moonfall. 🌖💜
This: "These traditions create what’s called culture. They bring people into relationship with one another, and into relationship with this-world. The land and water, animals and moonlight." I've been thinking so much about how well we've been conditioned to separate from the land, from relationship, to not pay attention to ritual, to not believe that these traditions have value that we have lost and no longer experience. The stars as memory, each one a light from other times, that have been shining in other time, literally. I just love thinking of each one as a point of memory, to be treasured--and how the electric light we use blinds that memory from us. ✨