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Welcome! This is a place to share how we celebrate & deepen our relationship to Nature. Here you will find stories, images, & ideas about wilderness, human nature, & soulfulness. Drawing from the experiences of everyday living, the topics on this blog include: forays into the natural world, the writing life, community service, meditation, creativity, grief & loss, inspiration, & whatever else emerges from these. I invite you on this exploration of the wild within & outside of us: the inner/outer landscape.



Friday, August 2, 2024

Words Off Pens

pens, tree trunk 

transporting nourishment of our hearts to the edges

to the far reaches of branches, twigs 

our fingertips gently coaxing words into being

 

our juiciest guts appear in a moment

from the heart 

apparently

bypassing the mind’s inclination to construct

oozing into colored lines 

wet

curved, looped, dotted, pricked with a point, straight

 

this is what pens do. 

 

flowing ink that leaves its sentient trail along the page in shapes of symbols 

we recognize as letters, 

words we have woven from the experience

of tangibility, 

feelings, 

all simply directional pointers

 

abandon – 

for just a few moments – 

the plastic keyboards of electronics: 

always conveyers of legible lettering, homogeneity of shape

not always so well-connected to the pathways 

of the heart

 

pick up a pen

find the landscape edge of a page 

remember what it feels like to be four

with a crayon

draw the words out

onto the paper

 

perhaps handwritten words are the bridge between inner and outer landscapes. 

as are tears. 

a smile or giggle. 

a grimace.

an act of handmade beauty.

 

(Orig. posted in 2016.) 


handmade paper I crafted