In a truth most metaphoric, it was often intriguing to feel how The Way was so often lost in larger cities, and yet always so clearly known in smaller towns …

“In the great cities we see so little of the world, pulled almost incessantly into our own tinier minorities. And yet in the world’s little towns and villages there are rarely such sub-groups. We are almost compelled to truly see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class and a race and a gender and a species; every hour carries its own fresh challenge. When you pass the inn at the end of the village you must leave your favorite whimsy behind you; for you will meet no one with whom you can sincerely share it. And so it is that towns compel us to look more honestly and listen more earnestly. We hear the eloquent speakings of the town itself and the not-so-eloquent emotings of its residents. And whether we are one to read books or write them, in smaller towns our attentions settle all the affairs of the Universe. The village multitudes pass on unchanging; the feel of the spade in the hand is no different for all our talk: seasons of plenty follow those of dearth today as of old. And the closely nestled residents – though they might not know from whence we have come ro to whence we go — are somehow far more intimately concerned with us; more so than the old horse peering at our passing through the rusty gate of the barn, and certainly more so than the hyper-engaged resident of the region’s more bustling city. The ancient map-makers wrote across then-unexplored regions, ‘Here there are lions.’ Across the larger cities of businessmen and bankers we too can just so readily write, ‘Here there are ghosts’ and head towards a village or two instead.” ~ inspired by W. B. Yeats

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt