Épisodes

  • 33 - Mā

    33 - Mā
    Jan 1 2025

    There's a moment in most of Miyazakis films, when the dialogue and often the music cuts, and a single character (usually the protagonist) is left alone in the raw and open experience of something. It takes mastery to convey a moment such as this, a moment of space and presence.

    This is the kind of moment I can relate to, when I know that I am who I am, when everything makes sense, when I know right from wrong, when there is magic in the landscape around me. But this type of moment is under relentless assault. https://www.walkaround.run/p/ma



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.walkaround.run
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    13 min
  • 32 - On Violence And Lust - A Short Note On Election Day

    32 - On Violence And Lust - A Short Note On Election Day
    Nov 5 2024
    TranscriptThis morning I downloaded and logged into InstagramSomething I haven't done in a month or twoI mostly got off of the platform because I don't really think it's doing good things for humanityThe problem is so many people use itTheir communication and time is used up on itAnd many people have a picture of their reality from itAnd so to not participate is somehow to not exist as a creative personThis is something I've been ruminating on for yearsBut this is just such a short note because what I saw on there this morning, after I made a post about possibly selling some prints to support my schooling, was the two of the most extreme directions that humanity participates in, which are death and birthDeath and birthAnd I saw them in extremely gross expressionsI saw an explosion on a roadwayI saw a giant fireball engulfing cars in a place that I have no idea if I've ever been to or will ever go to or know any of the people or even if it's realBecause it very well and even likely could have been something that an application generatedI don't even like to use the word, but artificial intelligenceIt was probably thatIt probably wasn't even realAnother thing I saw was a video of someone getting slapped so hard that they passed outBut it wasn't only thatIt was an AI-generated image that showed his face collapsing in an unbelievable wayBut it wasn't realBut if someone's just scrolling and they're not paying attention and they see these things, they think, oh, this is realThat just happenedSomething I thought could never happen just happened in front of my very eyesAnd so that's deathThat's actually the death of the human spiritThat is complete collapse and destructivenessBasically to be creating fear through falsehoodAnd then on the other side, I saw a picture of a woman in a dressCould have been AII don't knowI don't know the contextI didn't click on the imageBut she was standing in a shimmery dressAnd so these images..I guess I should add that the dress was very tight-fittingSo basically what I saw was extreme violence and pornographyThat's what is being shown in the algorithmic feed on Instagram that people in general are just being subjected toSo what do we do with that? Well, I reported every single post that I sawIt's not going to change anythingIt's not going to do anythingBut it made me feel better to at least do somethingIn fact, it might make it worseIt only took me about five seconds to do these thingsBut I think it was worth itThe point of this, though, isn't to blame the Instagram platform and the creators for being evil, even though they areEven though the platform is destructive and horrific and terrible and uselessIt's also useful and creative and profound and abundantThe fact is, everything in the world ends up being related to these thingsTo skate along on the surface and believe that these experiences won't touch us is impossibleBut by interacting with the world through a screen, it seems like we can have some distance from the realitiesAnd we can just entertain ourselves by watching them instead of engaging with our livesAnd I think that this is extremely dangerous, and actually more dangerous than being shown violenceI think what's more dangerous is complacency and lack of connection and engagement with life, which is what these platforms really wantThey want you to just feel fear, feel lust, and then not do anything about itJust to consume more fear and more lustThat's the goalBut there's something profound beneath all of this, which is that the reality of fear and desire is inescapable in lifeBut the fact is, we have to be in control of our fears and desiresAnd it doesn't matter what the world shows us or serves us, what the algorithm displays, if we can't keep a center, there's no hopeRight now, it's election day, and the political stratum is basically birth and deathNot a positive form of birth and death, but the most deranged formsIs one better than another? I don't knowIt's all part of a cycleThe cycle doesn't want to endSo, we have to be the endI don't really know what that means, but I'm going to keep engaging with my internal world, with my internal workStaying true to what I know is important and what mattersI'm going to keep focusing on what is beautiful, and what seems powerful to meAnd I won't let my center be swayed by violence and lustThank you for listening. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.walkaround.run
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    9 min
  • 31 - Nehalem

    31 - Nehalem
    Oct 29 2024

    Questioning my assumptions, and an encounter with Amanita, the Fly Agaric mushroom. Be sure to check out the images of the Nehalem and Wilson as well as the dunes at Bayocean Spit on the website



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.walkaround.run
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    22 min
  • 30 - Imagine

    30 - Imagine
    Aug 9 2024

    Hello,

    Welcome to Walk Around. This is Hudson Gardner. It's been a little while.

    I've been out and about, traveling, hiking, running, doing things that I love, spending time with wonderful people, seeing beautiful things, having really beautiful conversations—learning about myself, learning about others, and by that, learning about this world we all co-create and exist in together

    I'm back in Port Townsend, where I live, and sitting in the pasture near a stand of trees on the edge of the field.

    It was my birthday a couple of days ago, actually, a week ago, and I have been coming back into some kind of personal awareness and depth inside of my own body and mind recently, thinking about things I've left behind for too long, things I've been incapable of doing, reflecting on life in general.

    Read more here at walkaround.run



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.walkaround.run
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    11 min
  • 29 - Heart Lessons from Poison Hemlock

    29 - Heart Lessons from Poison Hemlock
    May 20 2024
    Transcript (includes errors)Hello.Welcome to Walk Around.This is Hudson Gardner.I am sitting at the edge of a field where the trees come out a little bit into the grass.And there's a little secret spot surrounded by hawthorn trees, there's an aspen that has a lot of young aspen around it.And down beneath the willow tree is a place that I come and make a little fire and have tea.I want to tell you a story today.Something that happened 10 summers ago, which feels like a different life, completely different time. A different world, a different person who was living and somehow that person was me and it was the same life in the same world.A hummingbird just landed on a twig of this little snag and he's just watching me.I almost feel like he's listening.So I'll tell him the story too.Ten years ago,I was living in southeast Nebraska in the town that I more or less grew up in called Lincoln.And I was getting ready to do something.I had been there a long time.My luck was running out.There was a general feeling of uncertainty, major change coming that I sensed.I had gotten out of a relationship that was,had been about three years long and it was a messy breakup and it was a hard time.My mom was living on a farm outside of town.And so I was staying in one of the guest rooms as I figured out what I was going to do with my 25-year-old life.And back then I felt that I didn't really have a conviction yet about who I was or what I had to offer I had the beginnings of it, but it was more like just a question and it's safe to say that I now know what that answer is but how to do it is still elusive.But back then I'doften go out to this zendooutside of town on a farm called Branched Oak Farm.It's a dairy farm with probably 15, 20 Jersey cows, some pigs, chickens.Pretty sure it's still going.And it was the best milk I've ever tasted in my life came from that place.Deep, deep yellow.I've never had anything like it.There's something about the pastures in the Great Plains that are just unlike anyother place from all those millions of years of bison and care.And one time I went out to the Zendo and I was in a strange headspace, I guess.I mean, who doesn't go to a Zendo in a strange headspace?And I went out there and before I went to the Zendo that day, I went out to thislittle reservoir nearby.It's the namesake of the farm, Branched Oak Reservoir, Branched Oak Lake.And below the Branched Oak Lake, there's a series of loess hills that were blown there by the wind over millennia.And there's grass and trees and little groves of flowers andI pulled off on the dirt road and in Nebraska you pull off on a dirt road 20 minutes outside of town and you can sit there for an hour and you don't see anybody else.It's a quiet place.And it was probably one of those days like today, beautiful, sunny, big puffy cumulonimbus clouds growing on the horizon, some kind of storm forming in the distance—the wind blowing across the grass and I went into this draw and I don't know what drew me there.I just had a feeling that I should go there and I walked up through the grass and I came to a grove of plants. And I had this intense feeling inside of me this anger at myself for being so old and so incompetent.I felt like I didn't know anything about the world,like I'd been wasting my life sitting around putting myself through school andcollege that I didn't want to go to,staying probably too long in a relationship that wasn't good for me or for the other person, unfortunately.And just being too comfortable.And so I had all those feelings when I walked into the draw and I knew I was on the brink of change.It felt that way.And I felt so angry and there was this plant, there's a big patch of them.And I thought I'm going to show that I have some competence.And I know what to do when I'm out in the wild places.And I took out my knife, which is something I would never do now.And I used it to dig up the root of one of these plants.And it was a pale white root.And it smelled like carrots.But it was not carrot.It was hemlock.And I ate it.And I didn't die.I've been thinking about why that happened.I've never really figured it out for all these years.And the fact is there's so many things to learn in the world and there's so many ways to learn.There's such an expansion of possibility, so much beauty.so much intricacy, so much information.And then it's also so simple.And because of that, it's so heartrendingly elegant and it's so beautiful.And it's taken me 10 years to find out what the simplistic, elegant message from that plant was for me.And it happened just a few days ago.I was harvesting hawthorn flowers with a friend.And there's this kind of back corner of this tree.pasture I live on and it's all overgrown with roses and blackberries and it's allbrambly and thorny and there's a bunch of hawthorn trees back there and we werekind of going through this shadowy shady part and as I was going through there withmy orchard ladder and picking bag moving on to the ...
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    19 min
  • Aquamarine

    Aquamarine
    May 3 2024

    This poem came to me when I was sitting on the rocks near a wharf off water street in Port Townsend. I had climbed down off the sidewalk and found a spot where kids hang out and tag. It’s a quiet place but some other person came with a notebook and started sketching. She kept looking toward at me, and I wonder if I made it in the drawing.

    I’ve been out on my bike recently, and the color of the sky and water is almost unbelievable. I’ve started to notice things again, my sense of smell has begun to return, my mind feels clearer. I get headaches now and then, still sleep strangely, often feel like crying or angry out of place, and often the urges almost overcome me. But I am not going to give up.

    Thank you for reading & listening.

    AQUAMARINE

    The water blue, no, green — offshore glistens The wind • • • in fits & starts traces low along the surface. Creosote pillars sunk deep in, braced, kept stable by toxcicity — nooks where life still lives despite heavy - metals - pain. Imperfectness, imperfection, needless ease, persistence of the tides, wind on the water and — look, be open — and the view becomes so wide.



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.walkaround.run
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    1 min
  • 28 - Overabundance

    28 - Overabundance
    Apr 19 2024

    As spring has gotten into gear around here, I've been noticing the general abundance of plant life, and weather, and birds, and social engagements—and it's got me reflecting on different kinds of abundance, overabundance, scarcity, relationships, community... From that corner of the human experience of consuming and creating the dynamic between those two aspects of our nature, you could say...

    Listen & Read More



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.walkaround.run
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    20 min
  • 27 - Thank You For Listening

    27 - Thank You For Listening
    Mar 17 2024

    This podcast covers the issue of addiction.

    If you are in need of help, call the national hotline, 988.

    Transcript (may contain errors)

    There's a bell that I've taken around with me wherever I've lived

    I can't remember where I got it, maybe in Portland at the Japanese Garden

    And I've often hung it up outside and the sound has become familiar, even as all the places I've lived have changed for so long

    And that familiar feeling just hit me as I rode up this little hill through an orchard towards the cabin that I'm living in these days

    I never really realized I'd developed a familiarity with it until that moment

    Now I'm standing out kind of more towards the field behind the cabin looking at a willow that's flowering and the first bumblebees I've seen this year are collecting nectar and pollen from the flowers

    That's pretty hopeful

    Back in the forest behind the edge of the woods there's a giant ant nest, the biggest I've ever seen actually

    It's probably home to hundreds of thousands of ants

    It's probably four or five feet wide, a couple feet tall

    It's been there who knows how long

    Old growth ant nest, ant pile

    Read more or listen here: https://www.walkaround.run/p/thank-you-for-listening



    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.walkaround.run
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    28 min