Tag Archives: Retreat
Silence will an answer be
On November 15, if I live that long, I will complete my allotted seventy years. It’s not a limit I take literally; there are plenty of exceptions on either side of the number. But it’s a good reminder of the brevity of life and of the certainty that it will end, and of the need […]
Important work like sittin’ around fishin’
“Important work like sittin’ around fishin’ remains to be done.” In making this quaint observation, Pogo was not the first to recognize the importance of being alone and idle. The value of solitude has been affirmed throughout history. Early in the nineteenth century, Emerson wrote, “In the morning, — solitude;” said Pythagoras; that Nature may […]
Silence
Few things are as calming, grounding, and renewing for me as the quiet, solitary hours I spend in the woods and fields from mid September to mid November. The stresses, challenges, or fears that burden my life begin to resolve and fall away almost as soon as I leave the well-traveled roads and enter the […]
Retreat
“Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it. Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.” ―Mary Oliver
