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The Foot’s Silver Prayer
When Annie Dillard wrote about the man who kept a daily journal about the clouds, I thought the idea ridiculous. Who would document something as mundane as clouds? Most of us think clouds as boring as the paint on our walls, simply, unremarkably, there. But would this documentarian of the sky have disagreed? Today marks…
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Pouring Milk
VermeerSo long as that woman from the Rijksmuseum in painted quiet and concentration keeps pouring milk day after day from the pitcher to the bowl the World hasn’t earned the world’s end. Wisława Szymborska trans. Clare Cavanagh & Stanisław Barańczak Most of life, as you’ve probably also learned by now, is ordinary. The extraordinary highs (as…
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Silence has found me
When snow begins to coat the ground, as it’s been doing this week in our neighbourhood, every noise is muffled, creating a new world of silence that is breath-taking in its unexpected minimalism. Every sound that you do hear feels intentional. Somehow the birds’ songs have become clearer and more distinct, have you noticed that?…
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This is Nature
Kristine McDivitt Tompkins (along with her late husband, Doug Tompkins) worked to establish conservation areas stretching millions of acres across Patagonia on the southern tip of South America. I was inspired by an interview in the documentary 180° South, where McDivitt Tompkins (possibly quoting Gary Snyder?) stated, “You can’t protect what you do not love.”…
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Run Together
Today’s an exciting day. Let me introduce to you RunHaiku Volume X: Run Together. From the outside, running is often viewed as a solo activity. But once you start running, you find a community of runners that help make the miles more enjoyable, and encourage and inspire you to keep going when the going gets…
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RunHaiku Volume 2
When I started my daily RunHaiku rhythm last fall, then continued it through the cold and dark early mornings of winter, I thought, if I could tune my senses to wonder and attention in the bleakness of winter, how amazing would spring be? Well, spring arrived. As temperatures rose, I found myself obsessed with arrival…
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RunHaiku Volume 1
So I’ve been doing this thing… Every morning I wake up, throw on my running shoes (and as many layers of clothing necessary given the weather) and go for a run. This is my chance to disconnect. I don’t bring my phone. No earbuds. Instead I listen. I connect with my own physical body through…
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Treasure
I found a treasure Beside the trail A whisper in the wind An overlooked flower Hidden in the grass I snatched it by the whiskers Wrapped it carefully With my fingers I’m racing home now To plant it safely In my garden
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The First of March
I had forgotten the scent of wet soil or rather, the fact that under all these layers of snow there existed a thing called soil at all Until the first of March, when under the unrelenting force of the noon-day sun all the memories of dirt under fingernails and the crunch of fresh carrots came…