Clearing the fog
I’m experiencing a sadness. This time of year. Aging. The suffering of the Middle East is on my mind a lot.
A therapeutic walk yesterday, on the Old Rail Trail. The trail is bumpy with roots and old railroad ties. Not to mention muddy and icy in places. And hazardous with many fallen trees leaning over the trail, ready to fall on your head. But the scenery is mostly beautiful and unspoiled.
The graffiti on the railroad bridge is sweet.
I don’t remember seeing this old rail car before. Maybe it was hidden by leaves. Or I just wasn’t paying attention. It’s in the backyard of a commercial property at the head of the trail. It must have been running on the rails at some point. I would love to know more.
I’m going to put this quote here because it’s meaningful to me. Even though I’ll probably never read this book. (Two volumes, dense, too much.) The author, Iain McGilchrist, is a Scottish neuroscientist and philosopher who studies the hemispheres of the brain. My brain is busy making connections between his ideas of the Right Hemisphere, spaciousness, meditation, God, art, an open mind, new eyes, and – everything.
If you want to understand why curiosity is in vogue but wonder is not; or why we aim directly at happiness and in doing so ineluctably become less happy; or why we like to talk about ‘the environment’ while Nature, upon which we utterly depend, we quietly desecrate; if you yearn to comprehend and question the rise of a desperate clinging to ‘identity’ within both the Left and the Right of politics; or if the way our civilisation tends to model human beings as machines disturbs or hurts you, then please read this book; for it sheds a profound light on these and so many other literally vital questions.
Rupert Read, Professor of Philosophy, University of East Anglia, reviewing The Matter of Things by Iain McGilchrist. (https://systems-souls-society.com/insight/perspectiva-press/the-matter-with-things/)
What a fantastic walking trail you have my dear … a bit of heaven on earth. The rail car looks so cool I love the green color and that decorated tree .. priceless.
It is a beautiful trail, Tina. I have to drive to it, but only a few miles.
What a fascinating place this is! All of that water and sky! I’m usually one to leave nature to nature, but what a delight that decorated tree is 🙂 And the lovely green of the railcar…can that be my new tiny home?
The quote gives something to think on: “why we like to talk about ‘the environment’ while Nature, upon which we utterly depend,”
This go around of the closing of a year is both the same and different for me. As usual, I’m ready to clean up/out and get on with the new year…but my heart is holding back or maybe, moving slowly…so much has happened this year – everywhere. A coworker/friend’s husband just passed from an aneurysm…so a huge surprise right before Christmas…and there are other hard goings on – everywhere. And I got very slightly rear ended Tuesday (mini-minor damage and no injury – just another thing)…and the guy driving the huge pickup truck just kept driving when I pulled over. What I think about this, more than anything, is just what an odd time we are in and I’m unsure what to do with it. Hugs to you for the new year and thank you so much for sharing your place ??
It is an odd time, for sure, and uncertainty everywhere. Friendship helps – thank you!
the walking…your trails, oh, your trails while holding these thoughts What good work. to walk and hold these
kinds of thoughts and then….sharing of it. Thank you
Thank you, grace. I love that you called it good work. Yes, it is a kind of work. As is your research.
i think Work and Research are very much the same. i like this thought…will think more about it.
Mary Oliver wrote a poem “My Work is Loving the World.”