Really lovely writing, Kathleen, as always. I'm reminded of the line from the movie Witness, a line that has stuck with me all these years: "What you take into your hands you take into your heart." It's spoken in the context of handling a gun, of taking human life, from the Amish perspective, and I have no idea to what extent the line is true to Amish culture. But I mention it here because the idea folds nicely into yours. What we choose to do in relation to the land and our fellow species may seem only like daily life, but it informs (and sometimes deforms) the heart.
What beauty you hold up for us to see, illuminated by the light of your fierce loving heart! This very morning I was thinking of writing about the vows of poverty and stability I once took, but reneged on, unable to honor them because I valued a comfortable life more. And at that time before taking them almost a half century ago, I had come across a passage warning of the danger of taking vows because in doing so one took ones very heart in ones hands and damage to it from breaking those vows was not easily repaired. This is what I was thinking of writing this Sunday morning! My love and need of a comfortable life superceded my noblest aspirations..and isn't that what is happening to us all, to all the saltmarshes?
Exquisite. We must take imagining another step forward as you are doing in so many ways. Thank you. Brought to mind the wild wandering of my childhood in a sleepy town outside Bangor. Love those photos!
Kathleen, thank you for taking me with you, marsh to mountain to fox. I understand again about imagining. I knew how it worked once, that's how my life unfolded after I left my parents home. I dreamed and dared, broke away from the prepared table and made my life. Lately I forgot about imagining. The world was too scary. It scared the imagining away. But by luck, by providence
Really lovely writing, Kathleen, as always. I'm reminded of the line from the movie Witness, a line that has stuck with me all these years: "What you take into your hands you take into your heart." It's spoken in the context of handling a gun, of taking human life, from the Amish perspective, and I have no idea to what extent the line is true to Amish culture. But I mention it here because the idea folds nicely into yours. What we choose to do in relation to the land and our fellow species may seem only like daily life, but it informs (and sometimes deforms) the heart.
What beauty you hold up for us to see, illuminated by the light of your fierce loving heart! This very morning I was thinking of writing about the vows of poverty and stability I once took, but reneged on, unable to honor them because I valued a comfortable life more. And at that time before taking them almost a half century ago, I had come across a passage warning of the danger of taking vows because in doing so one took ones very heart in ones hands and damage to it from breaking those vows was not easily repaired. This is what I was thinking of writing this Sunday morning! My love and need of a comfortable life superceded my noblest aspirations..and isn't that what is happening to us all, to all the saltmarshes?
Exquisite. We must take imagining another step forward as you are doing in so many ways. Thank you. Brought to mind the wild wandering of my childhood in a sleepy town outside Bangor. Love those photos!
Kathleen, thank you for taking me with you, marsh to mountain to fox. I understand again about imagining. I knew how it worked once, that's how my life unfolded after I left my parents home. I dreamed and dared, broke away from the prepared table and made my life. Lately I forgot about imagining. The world was too scary. It scared the imagining away. But by luck, by providence