All the king's rain and all the king's eels

kind of put Humpty Dumpty back together again

So, I guess I got knocked out there for a couple of weeks. Felt beat up.

Here’s some of the stuff bringing me back.*

First, from the Poetry as Spiritual Practice class (which I believe is being offered again in January and lemme tell you it is a life changer of a class, taught by Chris LaTray), I learned about a walking meditation where you try to notice the space between things.

The space between two trees.

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

The space between a dog’s teeth when she smiles.

Photo by Noémi Macavei-Katócz on Unsplash

The space between lampposts, or under cars. If you see a flock of birds, that glorious even spacing between one bird and the next and the next again.

Photo by Julia Craice on Unsplash

Try to walk and separate yourself from the objects, and see the space in between the objects.

If you can’t make it to the class, the instructions for this meditation can also be found in one of the guide books used for the class, The Dharma of Poetry, by John Brehm. Dharma also includes this poem by Saigyo, the 12th century Japanese traveling monk:

“Detached” observer

of blossoms finds himself in time 

intimate with them —

so, when they separate from the branch

it’s he who falls … deeply into grief.

— translated from the Japanese by William LaFleur

Photo by White.Rainforest ™︎ ∙ 易雨白林. on Unsplash

What a stunning exploration of the perversities of detachment: how detachment from the self can lead to intimate observation of something like the cherry blossom — so intimate that, when the cherry blossom physically detaches from the branch, the observer feels grief. Somehow, through detachment, intimacy appears. How strange.

I often start my day with Silentium, a Substack journal and podcast devoted to silence. A recent entry I particularly enjoyed was Listen to the falling rain.

Lisa Margonelli, author of Underbug: An Obsessive Tale of Termites and Technology came to town and we talked about wooly bear caterpillars.

GARissa 🦡 (Armadill-ologist) @MustelidMay

Mom: The news and radio all say we're going to have a really bad winter. Me: The wooly bears call BS.

I met Lisa when I was her “author escort” for the National Book Festival a few years ago. (This is one of those few occasions where I hope no one ever takes a moment to reevaluate titles because it’s just way too much fun to get assigned to be an escort for a day.) We’ve kept in touch over Twitter (RIP), and it was a delight to learn that in Maine, where she lives, apparently watching wooly bear winter coat forecasting is A THING. People cling to each light brown bristle with as if they were sifting through goat guts, looking for visions. Given Maine’s winter, this is perhaps inevitable, even though, as far as we could tell, every wooly bear caterpillar is different and possibly designed to drive the would-be fortunetellers insane.

I guess it’s good to know where eels breed but I don’t want to know too much more. As I’ve written before, eels have basically hung up the “Do Not Disturb” sign on their hotel door, and I think we should respect it.

Photo by Wouter Naert on Unsplash

I think that’s it. Some walks, some silence. Some listening to rain, some caterpillars. Eel sex, of course. How do you react, when you’re going through a stressful time? Does nature help you through? Please feel free to share, and have a wanderful week.

*You don’t have to get assaulted for these to be helpful/nice/work for you. In fact, I recommend against it.