Without honesty, life becomes a pantomime. And yet it’s hard to know what’s true.

I’ve found that truth unfolds in concentric rings; like ripples in a still pool of water, or the growth of a tree.

And each ring references, yet also takes space from, the previous.

And so only in cycles of time, and in seasons, is a kind of long term knowing revealed.

It’s easy to forget that there is a kind of glacial energy to the every day, like leaves unnoticed piling in drifts in the gutters in autumn. Each day another leaf, and soon enough, there’s a drift of half noticed moments, forgotten days, and the occasional memory that stays forever. And this is life?

Through the threads of being and days, acting and passivity, choices and impositions, life passes.

There’s a phrase in the northern part of Italy, up against the alps: “Tiempo alla passa. Passa il bin.” Which is dialect for: Time passes. Pass it well.

And I came across a phrase, translated from Lao Tze by Lori Dechars, that says:

How do I know the way of things at the beginning?

I feel like I’ve come to a thought about life and love in general recently that feels clear: which is that I should let what loves me do so, and I should love only what I love. And endlessly let go of those things that aren’t this.

In that way, I stop resisting the flow of life, and live out a trajectory that is true. And maybe I’ll gain some energy from no longer resisting the inevitable course that my journey wants to make.

In all this, in writing and in conversation, I try to find the words that are true. And yet its always hard to find the right words. And in that same way, its hard to know when to follow what is easy, or pursue what is hard.

It’s important to remember the rules of life. But I lost my rule book long ago. I do my best to make up whatever makes sense to do, whatever’s true, vital, alive, and real. And to remember that resisting is a form of safety. That it’s good to be safe sometimes, but a life that’s always safe... is maybe one that produces no living.

Thanks for listening ~

Vic Playlist

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TRANSCRIPT

A long time ago, I used to have some friends who liked to go around the country by riding freight trains

They'd hitch out of Omaha or Lincoln or usually Kansas City and end up in Pennsylvania or Montana, California, Arizona

I never caught a ride with any of them

I didn't really ever have the chance

But I liked to sit with them on the rails and the bridges and watch the trains go by

And they'd tell me about the different kinds of cars and which ones were good rides, where they were going, what you had to look out for

Maybe that's why when I went for a walk recently and found an old abandoned railroad trestle in the western part of Victoria's downtown in Canada, where I live now. I climbed over a fence and went and sat on it for a while

And I've been going back to it, sitting there and watching cars go by, people, a couple of stories up above the ground

I don't really have anything else to say but that, just a funny memory, I guess

Maybe a reflection about living in an urban place because I've lived out in the countryside for so long now

Read more here

At the checkout counter, the southeast Asian guy whose country affiliation I can’t quite figure out smiles at me and asks how my day is going. We smile back and forth, subtly catching each others eye, like we are in on the same joke that neither of us know. His haircut is high and tight, he’s got a golden wedding band, he’s always here at apna, the Indian cafeteria and grocery store I come to for cheap chai, dosas, and studying. ....Full text & photos: https://walkaround.run

Lake

You are a young girl playing on a log with your brother and dog The water in the lake clear and cold and deep, the rocks warm on the bank, little cottonwoods grow on the edge, in the distance: Mountains near enough to cast their shape on the waters surface. The water blue and green some rocks white, moved there in glacial time. One day you will be a woman Living in a city apartment And you will go down to a corner bar And you will meet a man, with curling dark hair And apricot eyes And you will tell him About the pink bathing suit you wore that day About how you called your dog giggles, but his name was Oliver How you tried to get him to float on the log About how warm the sun, and cold the water was About the moment your uncle and giggles fell off the log and shriekedAbout how your brother died that summer And you'd run down a winding road With the wind blowing in one ear,The grass cicadas drone in the other You’ll be shocked to feel so young Yet so far from something long ago Be alarmed and excited at the warm hand of this once stranger Holding your arm as your memories surge And you cry, and are held.

Transcript

Hello...

I am on the hillside listening to two coveys of quail call back and forth

They've been slowly getting closer over the last 15 minutes, and I think they're going to link up

I saw one group

They had a bunch of fluffy little hatchlings running around

I don't know how big the other group is though

I'm below a range of mountains with snow and avalanche gullies, forests up the sides, larch and fir, ponderosa pine

Ah, wow, a western tanager just landed in a pine tree

I haven't seen one yet this year

That was cool

They're bright, bright orange, bright red, yellow, golden, crazy looking birds

Probably the most brilliant bird in the west maybe

I guess there's lazuli buntings out here too

Or is it indigo buntings?

....that quail is trying to get the other quails to come over

There's boulders on this hillside, and one of my favorite tea plants which is wild tarragon

I gathered about eight stems of it just now

It's a good spot for it

There's a bunch of plants

It's nice to be here

I feel like my mind is already clearing out from the dampness of the coastal, humid, cold Salish Sea

Up here in the high mountains, a divergent part of the Rockies above a big lake

On a glacial moraine

I guess I wanted to offer this today as just kind of way of saying of thanks to people

Everybody that's supported me over the years

Everyone who listens to this podcast

I guess these quail are listening to it right now

I just feel really grateful

I'm kind of a recovering pessimist, you know, so a lot of that has to do with gratitude

Pessimism is kind of this idea that there's no safety. Or that things are never going to really be what you want

And the opposite of that, obviously, is gratitude for what you have

Which is actually simple, but for a pessimistic mind, it's harder than it might seem

And there's a lot to say about pessimism

It definitely comes from damage

Definitely comes from pain

It's definitely a protective mechanism

But I feel like I'm growing less and less pessimistic as time goes on, which kind of relieves a huge burden on a person

I heard a meadowlark this morning as I was running

Discovered some physiological linkages between my lumbar and knee that have to do with nerves

Researched this type of technique called prickly...prickling nerve stimulation technique, which is developed by a Japanese neurosurgeon

And it's a technique that's used to stimulate the nerves in the lumbar spine

Which is developed by a Japanese neurosurgeon

Neurologist named Dr

Nagata, I think

Basically, it's the idea that our skin is a direct door of access to our nervous system

Which means that we wear our nervous system on our sleeves

Which is something to remember, as sensitive humans

I think we're all very sensitive, actually

Unless we've been damaged to the point where we've been able to turn it off, or we've learned how to turn it off, or have been in a mode of having it shut off

And it's really fascinating to note that there can be healing in the skin and in the tissues, just by stimulating the nerves around areas of trauma

And it's interesting to note that, more or less, that's what acupuncture functions on, to access the meridians and the internal organs as well

Kind of working with the nervous system in a lot of ways

I kind of see these quail as part of the Earth's nervous system

As showing what the weather's doing, and where the good grass seeds and the insects are right now

It's quiet here, I like it

It's easy to get away, just be in a quiet space that feels really big

I like that

I like to be able to wander

It feels like it clears my mind

It's starting to rain a little bit

And I've run out of things to say

I'm gonna walk down this draw and back to the van and head into town, get some groceries and finish settling in to my friend's house where I'll be for the summer doing rangeland surveys out here until I go to school in the fall

Got a condo in Victoria

Everything's lining up it seems

I feel really lucky

Thank you for your support, and thank you for listening.

There’s finality to certain things in life. One kind has to do with naming something. Another has to do with speaking its name.

Listen for some thoughts on quietude in vast spaces.https://walkaround.run/p/owhyee-country

Public lands are in the process of being sold. Call your reps!(202) 224-3121https://www.backcountryhunters.org/take_action#/

Owyhee Canyonlands: Road to 30 PostcardsMore on Northern Paiute Tribal Member, and FOTO Board Member, Wilson Wewa

Distilled moments of presence in nature More at: https://walkaround.run