“When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am the friend of its happiness: when these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and its government.” -Thomas Paine
May the grandchildren live to see it.
The canyon on the left is Dog Trail canyon in Big Bend, TX. The U.S. ARMY tested the use of camels in this region of the country to control alien forces. Alien usually meaning whatever had been native in this area that is scaring folk north of here. Now they want to build a walk to keep folk out. They forgot the camels; even though, 72 hours of walking between drinking was not uncommon, and they could cover 30 miles per day—-hard to beat. There is a plaque in their memory on the hiway into the park.
I went to Stillwell Ranch, near the Mexico boarder, to lay up in my tent and listen for any leads that may come from the quite out there-about the autum of my life. It was so I quite my ears wouldn’t stop ringing at night-no audible voices.
It is a wonderful place to go for “space” in one’s head. Every rock you step on is in the billions of years old, the dust you breath was sea bed, and its hard to find a tree over 3 foot high. There are few distractions!
I feel righteously small here, anxiousness about past and present is much harder to find at Stillwell Ranch. If something is not utilitarian here in the desert it doesn’t last long. Anxiety was around, but “now” had so much space to offer-there was room for all. It’s been said it’s where the Kingdom of God lives – in the realm of now.
Now. Desert. A lot of our wold has come out of both.
“Over night or overnight”, can speak of a short time, or “over night” may have taken years or decades. So far there has been a dawn after each night, some have found comfort and light in the dark by accepting it and listening to what it has to say-it seems to have the most mystic of shadows and the deepest hints of origins.
Sometimes after working in the night, by being with instead of spending energy calling night as day-in denial, something beautiful comes on its own by daylight.
“Success is not final. Failure is not final. It is the courage to continue that counts”.
Sir Winston Churchill
In memory of all who have been in darkness, the following familiar, yet ever humanizing in the dark, observation of a fellow human.
He who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to chose one’s own way.
“Man’s Search for Meaning”
The light held in darkness is that, one can find light if you sit with your darkness. It is not of work but sitting-being.
It shows, the character of a tree life lived with a constant presence of the parasitic “mistletoe” on its branches. It is living twisted and propped up on one limb in the ground, yet it produces rare knots of twirled mesquite wood.
Grow with the “weeds” , make friends with them-they maybe the very reason for such a wonderful harvest…….
Watterson, Texas
There is a feel in the body that comes from the earth. This innate connection has never been disrupted in agrarian or hunter-gatherer societies. The disconnect happened in the many well documented industrial moves made by man, those than got us off the ground and primarily sitting on our “forward movement” anatomical advantage, ass.
Some early Christ centered cultures walked a contemplative pattern for “grounded ness”. It is always more than it seems, it’s a potential “shift” contained in an ancient architecture of the earth. It’s no little wonder we come and go to this place of grounded ness in our lives.
Toward the part of life when we fill "full" of added intellect and projected wisdom from others that we don't own (it sounds good and we want that"), maybe it's time to review the "Cloud of Unknowing".
Maybe the part about being anonymous, or the part about only intent being worthy of work, or the part about standing on the cloud of forgetting to look toward the cloud of unknowing. When was it I started naming something so I could hold it to death?
I'm on board with the current shortage of "deep wisdom" folk , but not the "herd" mentality of current pop religion and politics-I'm saying to myself-"don't take your studies and life so serious-is the rest of nature trying to add a cubit?"
Let the rope go and walk off the field-it's gift, lean to play.
If we can find a photo of ourselves with this look on our faces, save it, frame it-this will be a reminder of who we came as. In the beginning was Relationship as some interpret. As originals, seen above, we related to ourselves in a deep way, before we started going though others (real or imagined) to try and get back to this look. It isn’t naivitie, it’s “untetherness”.
It’s o.k. to come as you are……
“Shoving a spoke in the wheel”,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Materialism would fill this 1950’s camp with 2 days worth of packing and another day of angst getting it to the river camp. The “gap” I had as a kid between work week and Sunday has been filled with “mind occupying” stuffs that you can buy without efffort.
“Success is not a name of God”, Martin Buber
Spiritual Formation 