Day 148f: Revering some Respite in Riceville … (September 24, 2019)
Into the near outskirts of Riceville and the road morphs back into its standard, thin-shouldered & heavily-trafficked version. To make things even more challenging, the day’s heat escalated and my thirst along with it. I passed though the town of Riceville proper without stopping (for whatever unexplainable reason), only to realize – with no small modicum of growing despair – there were no buildings in sight thereafter. I was parched to the point of stumbling dizziness by this time (Why hadn’t I stopped for water much earlier?!?), so you the reader might well imagine my enormous relief when The Riceville Volunteer Fire Department came into view by the side of the road, and I found a functioning external water spigot along with it …
“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the faintest of sounds – sometimes in fear of what my own life and the lives of the next generation might well become, I set forth into the night, and walk until I find a place of beauty – maybe a pond where the wood drake rests in peaceful beauty on the water, maybe a grove of trees where the winds and the birds dance as one. And it is here that I return to my proper place in the planet – an admittedly small yet equally significant portion of the greater wilder world. Here I reside anew with my nonhuman brethren, those who refuse to tax their lives with worry or grief. Here I return into the presence of still water in my Soul. I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting to shine their light, and for at least another instant I rest once more in the grace of the world, and I am free.” ~ inspired by Wendell Berry
“Letting go of our fears and concerns and worries and regrets – in essence letting go of our selves, gives us a renewed sense of freedom; a freedom that is the founding condition for any real knowledge of peace or joy. For if, in our hearts, we still cling to anything – anger or anxiety or possessions or dreams – then we cannot be truly free, and therefore cannot truly Love, and therefore cannot truly Live.” ~ inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh
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