Reading In The Rain
Finding a bit of peace on a Monday morning.
Yesterday I started Ursula K. LeGuin’s book of essays, The Wave in the Mind, and in each essay so far there are lines that have particular meaning in today’s political crisis. I’m not feeling peaceful about that, but reading, glancing out to the jungle that is our little farm in this season, watching the subtle sheen of rainfall washing things clean, watering the earth, does lend a feeling of calm and quiet.
The earth does what it does, and if we can go to that regularly in our minds and bodies, it’s a keen reminder that some of the things done by men are not all there is, and won’t ever be.
Today’s quote from The Wave of the Mind:
“Living in a world that is valued only as gain, an ever-expanding world-as-frontier that has no worth of its own, no fullness of its own, you live in danger of losing your own worth to yourself. That’s when you begin to listen to the voices from the other side, and to ask questions of failure and the dark.”
— The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination by Ursula K. Le Guin
I’m noticing the worth of Mother Earth this morning, her fullness, and her ability to both devastate and nurture.
The trees, the birds, the breath of the planet herself. Her ability to sustain life. She is a powerful orb. We simply live here.
Every morning I walk out, barefoot, to take the Corgis for their morning bathroom break, and each morning I stand and dig my toes into the grass, into the earth itself. I soak in a little of her power. I remind myself what she can do, what I can do, and then I try my best to carry that into my day.