Wow, very well written and some fascinating thoughts so wonderfully expressed as usual! I'm sure most of your readers struggle with similar haunting questions, and I find solace in one of my favorite author/poet/philosopher/photographer's thoughts:
"You cannot save a life; you cannot save a country; you cannot save a place; and you cannot save a planet. You can make life better, more satisfying, and more meaningful for yourself and others. Take a deep breath; appreciate what you have; help those you can; and trust that on the scale of nature, things unfold as they should."
Oh, goodness, Paul, yes! That means so much. It's everything. I don't know how we managed to nurture a cultural mentality that we have to save everyone before, say, planting a garden, but it takes a lot of work to undo that wiring and teach yourself that doing it the other way around might be more effective in the long run.
And look at you adding to my pile -- I haven't read Guy Tal!
I heard this while I was walking in Brooklyn, but I felt I was outside of the streets and somewhere else... I had to come back to see all the photos... Thank you for sharing this beauty..
I'm reading "The dawn of everything" by David Graeber, and they're at the point of discussing land ownership and whether it was the beginning of 'evil history' as they called, and it's an interesting intersection of readings..
Yes, not in words but in actions and being. Lots to think about here, and as you say, probably not ever figure out. I do love the packrat ran off with your tea-strainer story, partly, because if a packrat ran off with mine, I would be very upset with the packrat but also think that action was hysterical:).
It really was hysterical. I left it out on my cooler on the porch overnight, and now every time I go back I wonder where under or in the attic or walls of that cabin the tea strainer is. And how many other renters' shiny objects have been packed away with it. Maybe there's nothing that makes you feel more part of a place than having something taken and kept by a packrat!
I love everything about this post and not only read it but listened to your melodious voice reading it as well. I'm with you on the alone time and for nearly all the same reasons. While I don't have as much ability to take off for days and be alone in nature, I have gone to the desert and stayed in a very modest place with hot springs about once or so a year. I find that three nights away is essential. That second night knowing that you have another one...
YES. Wow, Elizabeth, I read this comment a few days ago and have already quoted it to several people. Because it's true. Sometimes I can only go for two nights, and that's just it -- the difference that second night knowing you have one more night, one more whole, complete day ... it's almost more than I can describe (but I bet you could).
Hot springs! I love that for you. The part of Montana I live in is near to some hot springs places, though they're pretty, uh, rustic except for one place. One of my friends could live in hot springs and her favorite one is this random concrete ... oversized tub, basically, with a $5 honesty box 😂
I'm also thinking about belonging. I believe we construct community and belonging in the same way we construct our personal identity, by what we value, by what we care about, by what is important to us. For some of us, that is something specific and familiar. For others, it feels like we belong to everything.
Oooh. That is big. And multi-layered. The way we construct community and belonging -- I hadn't thought about it that way before. But also the point about how it varies between us. There's a lot in that, maybe everything about how much self-understanding most of us have been missing, possibly for generations. Our place in the world, our purpose, truly feeling how unique each of us is. What does it take to know what it feels like to be one's own person while part of a whole.
You're welcome! I'm starting an MA in the fall in Cultural Studies, and aim to somehow turn this into a dissertation. It is too broad! But something-something about diversity and belonging.
[I had been working on a dissertation in philosophy on personal identity, so I have read a tonne on that. (That fell apart for "reasons".) I try to find foundations of basic things that I can then build back up on. Sort of a "human condition" approach to all that we do, so, leaping from Hume's Treatise on Human Nature to Arendt's Human Condition and onwards. It's a lot. :D ]
And lately, I've been trying to turn these ideas into posts of 300 characters! Ha ha. But it does focus the mind.
Always a fun practice to work on paring down our idea a la Pascal's "I have not had time to make it short" apology!
I'm so fascinated with this, and a little envious! It's a huge idea and I think very much in the ether right now, and I think will be for a long time to come. I've been having more and more conversations with people about a sense of belonging, and my own thoughts about how it plays into identity. How both shape us and shape the world we live in, and where our actual physical places and sense of home fit into the structure.
And I'm all for finding the foundations of basic things that are built back up on! My favorite sandbox; it's nice to meet other people there. :)
Antonia, I’m so grateful to have found your words here this morning. The tensions you illuminate feel particularly taut in this current time. Thank you for articulating so beautifully what had also been tumbling around in me.
Also, I have added “Wild Service” to the top of my list!
Thank you. AND when you're on an airplane, you are instructed to place the oxygen mask on yourself FIRST...so that you will be able to help others. I have the sense that your times alone
are essential nourishment for you - and therefore for your family and others you serve so well.
I've always found that advice so difficult to embody! It's something I've thought about a lot ever since my first kid was born. Why is it SO HARD to put our own needs first?! I really wonder, because the intellectual explanation is there, but to truly live it, feel it? So hard!
Since I wrote the first comment, I'm 1/2 through the book "When the Body Says NO"
by Dr. Gabor Mat*e. He's already helped me to track this sort of thinking to my relationship (or not) with my mother/father. I'll call it "early programming" and add the 1st 9 months. Another helper is Dr. Robert Fulford's book "Touch of Life" in which he identifies effects of emotions during pregnancy and birthing process. All this and much more have helped me to unwind my childhood....so far.
Ooohhh, Dr. Maté has been really influential for me over the last couple years. Not to go too into the weeds but I was hit with a bunch of childhood trauma stuff -- because the universe says your late 40s after the insanity of Covid and motherhood is the time for dealing with that I guess? LOL -- and it has been such a crash course. I hear what you're saying. I've also found Peter Levine's work helpful, along with of course Bessel van der Kolk and a bunch of other people, especially, maybe weirdly, on YouTube (Tim Fletcher, Patrick Teahan, and Heidi Priebe in particular).
Do not intend to resource dump, but just want you to know my childhood unwinding process sees your childhood unwinding process 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻
You were there with me, Greg! Since you were the person who sent me Wild Service, and those Canada Jays watched me sit on the porch writing you a letter!
I'm selfishly glad you spent that time by the river so that you could share your thoughts, your stories and your gorgeous photos with me. Thank you so much!
FWIW, it was a relief to read this essay. I'm grateful you take the time to share your experience, and I believe it's a deep form of service to the good of the world.
And.. as always.. I so enjoy your photos and the stories you tell with them.
🙏🙏🙏
Wow, very well written and some fascinating thoughts so wonderfully expressed as usual! I'm sure most of your readers struggle with similar haunting questions, and I find solace in one of my favorite author/poet/philosopher/photographer's thoughts:
"You cannot save a life; you cannot save a country; you cannot save a place; and you cannot save a planet. You can make life better, more satisfying, and more meaningful for yourself and others. Take a deep breath; appreciate what you have; help those you can; and trust that on the scale of nature, things unfold as they should."
-Guy Tal
Oh, goodness, Paul, yes! That means so much. It's everything. I don't know how we managed to nurture a cultural mentality that we have to save everyone before, say, planting a garden, but it takes a lot of work to undo that wiring and teach yourself that doing it the other way around might be more effective in the long run.
And look at you adding to my pile -- I haven't read Guy Tal!
I'm sure you have a ginormous pile :-), and I know you are very capable of going through it all!
😂🤓
I heard this while I was walking in Brooklyn, but I felt I was outside of the streets and somewhere else... I had to come back to see all the photos... Thank you for sharing this beauty..
I'm reading "The dawn of everything" by David Graeber, and they're at the point of discussing land ownership and whether it was the beginning of 'evil history' as they called, and it's an interesting intersection of readings..
Yes, not in words but in actions and being. Lots to think about here, and as you say, probably not ever figure out. I do love the packrat ran off with your tea-strainer story, partly, because if a packrat ran off with mine, I would be very upset with the packrat but also think that action was hysterical:).
It really was hysterical. I left it out on my cooler on the porch overnight, and now every time I go back I wonder where under or in the attic or walls of that cabin the tea strainer is. And how many other renters' shiny objects have been packed away with it. Maybe there's nothing that makes you feel more part of a place than having something taken and kept by a packrat!
I agree! And yes, what else is under there:).
I love everything about this post and not only read it but listened to your melodious voice reading it as well. I'm with you on the alone time and for nearly all the same reasons. While I don't have as much ability to take off for days and be alone in nature, I have gone to the desert and stayed in a very modest place with hot springs about once or so a year. I find that three nights away is essential. That second night knowing that you have another one...
YES. Wow, Elizabeth, I read this comment a few days ago and have already quoted it to several people. Because it's true. Sometimes I can only go for two nights, and that's just it -- the difference that second night knowing you have one more night, one more whole, complete day ... it's almost more than I can describe (but I bet you could).
Hot springs! I love that for you. The part of Montana I live in is near to some hot springs places, though they're pretty, uh, rustic except for one place. One of my friends could live in hot springs and her favorite one is this random concrete ... oversized tub, basically, with a $5 honesty box 😂
I'm also thinking about belonging. I believe we construct community and belonging in the same way we construct our personal identity, by what we value, by what we care about, by what is important to us. For some of us, that is something specific and familiar. For others, it feels like we belong to everything.
Oooh. That is big. And multi-layered. The way we construct community and belonging -- I hadn't thought about it that way before. But also the point about how it varies between us. There's a lot in that, maybe everything about how much self-understanding most of us have been missing, possibly for generations. Our place in the world, our purpose, truly feeling how unique each of us is. What does it take to know what it feels like to be one's own person while part of a whole.
I'll be thinking abou this a lot. Thank you.
You're welcome! I'm starting an MA in the fall in Cultural Studies, and aim to somehow turn this into a dissertation. It is too broad! But something-something about diversity and belonging.
[I had been working on a dissertation in philosophy on personal identity, so I have read a tonne on that. (That fell apart for "reasons".) I try to find foundations of basic things that I can then build back up on. Sort of a "human condition" approach to all that we do, so, leaping from Hume's Treatise on Human Nature to Arendt's Human Condition and onwards. It's a lot. :D ]
And lately, I've been trying to turn these ideas into posts of 300 characters! Ha ha. But it does focus the mind.
Always a fun practice to work on paring down our idea a la Pascal's "I have not had time to make it short" apology!
I'm so fascinated with this, and a little envious! It's a huge idea and I think very much in the ether right now, and I think will be for a long time to come. I've been having more and more conversations with people about a sense of belonging, and my own thoughts about how it plays into identity. How both shape us and shape the world we live in, and where our actual physical places and sense of home fit into the structure.
And I'm all for finding the foundations of basic things that are built back up on! My favorite sandbox; it's nice to meet other people there. :)
Antonia, I’m so grateful to have found your words here this morning. The tensions you illuminate feel particularly taut in this current time. Thank you for articulating so beautifully what had also been tumbling around in me.
Also, I have added “Wild Service” to the top of my list!
It's been a long time since I reread a nonfiction book, but that one I'm glad I did. It really is heartening!
Thank you for being here and sharing these thoughts, Michelle 💚
Of course! 💚
"Find beauty; Be still"
W.H. Murray
Beautiful. Perfect. Everything.
Thank you for sharing the things worth doing Nia.
I was taught well, Harry ☺️💚
Thank you. AND when you're on an airplane, you are instructed to place the oxygen mask on yourself FIRST...so that you will be able to help others. I have the sense that your times alone
are essential nourishment for you - and therefore for your family and others you serve so well.
I've always found that advice so difficult to embody! It's something I've thought about a lot ever since my first kid was born. Why is it SO HARD to put our own needs first?! I really wonder, because the intellectual explanation is there, but to truly live it, feel it? So hard!
Thank you ☺️💚
Since I wrote the first comment, I'm 1/2 through the book "When the Body Says NO"
by Dr. Gabor Mat*e. He's already helped me to track this sort of thinking to my relationship (or not) with my mother/father. I'll call it "early programming" and add the 1st 9 months. Another helper is Dr. Robert Fulford's book "Touch of Life" in which he identifies effects of emotions during pregnancy and birthing process. All this and much more have helped me to unwind my childhood....so far.
Ooohhh, Dr. Maté has been really influential for me over the last couple years. Not to go too into the weeds but I was hit with a bunch of childhood trauma stuff -- because the universe says your late 40s after the insanity of Covid and motherhood is the time for dealing with that I guess? LOL -- and it has been such a crash course. I hear what you're saying. I've also found Peter Levine's work helpful, along with of course Bessel van der Kolk and a bunch of other people, especially, maybe weirdly, on YouTube (Tim Fletcher, Patrick Teahan, and Heidi Priebe in particular).
Do not intend to resource dump, but just want you to know my childhood unwinding process sees your childhood unwinding process 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻
Thank you, Nia, as always. This essay warms my heart. Paying attention is a manifestation of love for our world.
You were there with me, Greg! Since you were the person who sent me Wild Service, and those Canada Jays watched me sit on the porch writing you a letter!
I'm selfishly glad you spent that time by the river so that you could share your thoughts, your stories and your gorgeous photos with me. Thank you so much!
That is so kind, thank you!
FWIW, it was a relief to read this essay. I'm grateful you take the time to share your experience, and I believe it's a deep form of service to the good of the world.
That is so graciously and generously put, Hannah, thank you!