“When the soul lies down in the grass the world is too full to talk about.” That moment tears right through me, quieting any need to know. Let’s all be earthworms.
Kimberly! Just wow. I had so many thoughts while reading this that I can't even articulate them! I thought of trees and how they talk to each other (something I learned not that all that long ago) and the various "unknowing" things I thought I knew over the decades (and the anxiety I felt while unknowing them, and then peace and wonder that unknowing caused me) and the various identities I either tried on or at least fantasized about and then released over those same decades. I love a good mystery, don't you? Your writing amazes me and causes me to feel amazement. Thank you!
Gosh, what a generous reflections Linda. If my writing can inspire just one mind or heart to "feel amazement" in this world, then I'm happy.
It's true, unknowing ourselves, the identities we thought we needed to survive, can be a radical experience. I love how you express that in the unknowing, you were opened to peace and wonder. We are, this life, all that surrounds, are so much more mystery than known and it is quite beautiful when we surrender to it. Thank you for your thoughtful presence here!
This was breathtakingly stunning. I felt as though I was meditating while reading. I love the notion of unknowing to truly see. Just beautiful. Well done. Time to share.
That's pretty cool Carissa. I felt like I had to get into a more meditative state to write this one. My mind kept on trying to enter with, "But wait, I know this, I know how to say this!" I'm so glad you picked up on some of the meta-energy I was aiming to convey!
When we place ourselves within Nature, what we once thought is true, what we once thought we know, begins to unravel. Humans are not the centre of all things. Humans are one of many, who are best when we cooperate, care and have compassion. If this sounds trite and too simple, it means you are stuck in your old dominating ways of death.
Beautifully stated Perry. "Cooperation, care and compassion" naturally bloom from this understanding, how could it not? We are all participating in life knowing itself in infinite form, ever-connected and ever-changing. Who ever told you this was trite might be feeing very lonely at this moment.
I love this so much Kimberly! I too love the unknowing, it is why I create. It is the space where I am most free, pure, untethered, and most whole. For much of life my creativity found expression as a dancer and choreographer and now, later in life, I catch words and then play with them- they seem to swirl around my little office and I just grab them. It is like leaping from a mountain top, with nothing but faith and wonder - - no parachute needed because on the way down we grow wings - - and they are beautiful.
Thank you Andrea! Funny you should say that about dancing, this was where I initially found my creative expression and freedom too. And even though I don’t dance anymore, writing feels like it originates in my body, I have to feel the preverbal feelings and then find words that best encapsulate those feelings. I love that your process involves words almost like dancers in your room, grabbing them, pulling them into your musing. “no parachute needed because on the way down we grow wings…” So beautiful Andrea!
I am so glad I decided to subscribe to you a year ago! This piece is stunningly wise. We have discovered that "writing what you don't know" is the route to original, enjoyable, powerful writing. You expand this into the realm of life and death and show us that we really don't know anything - and are better for it, when we know and accept it.
How am I just discovering you now Allegra!? I am now subscribed to your stack and look forward to learning more about you and your process. Yes, I was very much entering into this piece through death as teacher, my conundrum with the dream, and then I let it take me to all the other unknown realms as well. It's very freeing to allow this unknowing and meet life directly, moment after moment after moment. Thank you for your thoughtful, devoted reading!
Ahh...❣️ Thank you, Kimberly, so very much for this beautiful piece❣️ 💗🙏
So much resonance here. The art of unseeing, which changes everything. Your experience of seeing the Sequoia free from preconception "an invitation to see without predetermination and to lean into the world’s arms with curious trust." reminds me of what Goethe called 'tender empiricism'.
It also reminds me of myself, weaving a Sequoia tree 'with my eyes closed' (= in this case from memory), following an impulse. This was quite some years ago. The woven Sequoia now lives against the backdrop of a granite wall in our house in Portugal.
And speaking of Christo wrapping the Reichstag. I am one of the lucky owners of a small piece of the silver Reichtag's wrapping material (my son was living in Berlin at the time and brought me a little piece of German history as a gift).
And finally, it reminds me of a story neuroscientist Dee Joy Coulter shares in her fascinating book 'Original Mind' where she remembers meeting a Tibetan Buddhist monk who, every time he looked at a flower (or presumably anything), it would appear in front of his eyes (or in his visual cortex) as if seeing it for the very first time!
So much to love here Veronika! "Tender empiricism"—I had to look up empiricism, at first I was confusing it with "imperialism" and that didn't make much sense at all. :) I've been listening to the podcast Telepathy Tapes lately, a deep exploration into non-speaking, autistic children who appear to be extremely telepathic. So prior to this podcast, I likely would've agreed with empiricism, but now, my mind is bending into entirely different ways consciousness potentially operates, the senses only being one modality.
I'd love to see that woven Sequoia! Can you send a photo? They are such majestic trees and I can only imagine how that translated through your memory into fiber. What a lovely experience.
And wow! You have a a swatch of the Christo wrapping! I'm curious, what does it feel like? Is it soft to the touch like cotton, or more sturdy?
I think what Goethe called 'zarte Empirie' in German is more like what you describe as perceiving through some kind of '6th sense' or a telepathic perception. The way Goethe described it is more like connecting to the essential being of a plant, perhaps we could call it a 'soul connection'. The translation into the English 'empiricism' is a little misleading, although it's the same word. So I agree, the so-called 'senses' are channels of a different modality.
I'll take a photo of my woven Sequoia tomorrow in daylight.
The swatch of the Christo wrapping looks like woven metal, it is woven polypropylene covered in a silvery layer of steamed on aluminium. It is quite sturdy, similar in feel and thickness to material you sometimes find in summer shoes.
Thank you for that clarification. So much can be lost in translation and you're my trusted etymological compass. ;)
So the Christo wrapping is ENTIRELY different than I imagined. So funny to now replace what in my mind was a flowing, billowing, almost gossamer sheet, with sturdy summer shoe material! Hah!
I love how you say this Stephanie, “let it absorb.” I take words in this way too—viscerally—as if concept enters not only mind but body too. May the unknowing open untold delights!
Kimberly, I have been largely absent my Substack inbox for weeks and am so grateful you have continued to read BTCZ while I've been on this relative pause in Portugal with my son--in no small part because you shared with me in comments that you had written this glorious "in defense of." You, dear friend, are the lived embodiment of the direct experience of unknowing. You show us unknowing in the cooing sound of a dust cloud. The heart quivers, reading this essay. You've danced us along the being–not being threshold of one life, say, that of a hen, to reveal the fullness of Life itself, always unfolding through each and all of us--particles of dust in the cloud of becoming. Thank you. [deep bow] with love.
PS, per your epigraph to this essay:
Just today, I received an email from my former academic advisor and chair of my dissertation committee a decade ago that her book on Krishnamurti is now out. I read earlier iterations of the manuscript and can say that it is a wonderfully accessible, brief read on the life and thought of K.
Constance Jones, J Krishnamurti: Self-Inquiry, Awakening, and Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2025).
...and thank you for sharing your friend's book on Krishnnamurti! I first discovered his wisdom on a dusty shelf at Findhorn when I was 22, cracking open something in me that I didn't even know needed to be cracked. Going to go buy your friend's book now. ;)
Finally, I got to sit down and finish this. I saved it for a day where I could give it complete silence and my full attention. Your pieces are always an EXPERIENCE and for that I am so grateful. You are such a gift to me and to the world. I absolutely LOVED this and will be going back to re-read it over and over again when I need reminding. You are a part of a small handful of people that can wreck me with one sentence.
"and instead experienced my girls in shivering immediacy—transformed, extending their feathered pluck into muscular grace. Not gone but reborn, wing-spanned into multiples of four lithe limbs."
I burst into tears with that line and had to take a breather. Whew. So much beauty and acceptance in that line. There is always a corner that we turn when we are grieving, the moment when the weight shifts from one side to the other, and you are always so spectacular at describing it. I'll be meeting you in the field over and over again with honor and gratitude, dear one. Thank you for this. 🫂❤️🔥
Oh Jenovia. You sure know how to make me feel seen. I thought about you a lot while writing this, especially as I grappled with this “transmutation” of life the dream seemed to suggest. I wondered how that lives in you, if you experience your family as a memory only or a felt sense of their life forces now shape-shifted into countless other expressions?
You don’t have to answer this, it’s an intimate question! This is simply my way of saying, You’ve taken up residence in a very special place in my heart. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being you.
(Returning to this comment after reading your gorgeous offering today. You answered all my questions. The transmutation of all you’ve loved are clearly all around you, and nurtured by your daily commitment to honoring the realms we cannot know or see.)
I enjoyed every sentence of this profoundly thoughtful and beautiful reflection. So many words I could copy out and save for reading again and again, but this passage struck me in particular as my personal call to action:
"We might be surprised by all that no longer serves—trappings of identity, illusions of permanence—each sense perception, each reasoning, even the stories we construct to make sense of this world like tiny headlamps, illuminating only fragments of existence. Our truest nature doesn’t need a lamp to reveal itself. It is already the light—bright, whole and unbound."
Amazing, Kimberly, and thank you so much for sharing my work, and for sharing your work with me! 🙏💚
During a crazy wind storm the other night, my nerves were wrecked, jumping like a scared cat every time I was sure the roof would fly off. So I lay there meditating on first, the sense perceptions and the thoughts that accompanied, and then surrendered myself into it fully. And when we can give ourselves over so completely to this surrender, it's as if another dimension/experiencing arises, as if peering through lace, to the stillness that holds it all. Kind of like shattering that tiny headlamp and realizing the light was always there to begin with. Thank you for reading, reflecting and sharing Don!
I understand what you’re saying, Kimberly. I often practice that giving over, or surrendering to, my feelings of restlessness, boredom, or of unrest and insecurity (what am I not doing that I should be doing to secure a happy or satisfactory tomorrow…). This surrendering means sitting with feelings that tell me to “fix” something, without acting. Just accepting that “this is what right now is like.” Pretty cool! 😎
I love this “unknowing” concept. It feels especially difficult at times, being an HSP/empath, to erase my attachments to grief.
I feel most connected, and in solid ground, when I am in the woods. I always have. The world has always felt “too much” for me. Even my very young self, or especially my very young self, I should say. One of the reasons I fell in love with alcohol at age 12.
Recovery has allowed me to learn to feel, and I know it will allow me to “unknow”.
Amazing! Freaking amaze-balls! Loved it, loved it, loved it. Such beautiful words and a truly wonderful topic.
As a self-proclaimed curious philosophy nerd I revel in the acknowledgment of all that we don’t know. All that stuff we think we know, and yet, poof, the world, ourselves, all of it changes in an instant and then all that stuff we thought we knew is up-ended. You said it much better, but I think you get me.
And and and (can you tell I’m excited) I actually read a book recently you may be interested in — The Mindful Body by Ellen Langer — where she talks about the many ways our minds can influence our physical health, and in there she sings the praise of uncertainty and unknowing because (get this) it means any diagnoses or chronic issues we have may not be as certain and as permanent as our doctors say. I just loved that take: using uncertainty and change to our mindful advantage.
I love your enthusiasm Michael! It’s quite freeing to embrace uncertainty isn’t it? Sounds like you might want to check out the podcast Telepathy Tapes if you haven’t already. Talk about blowing your mind wide open. It’s a paradigm changer and your idea of consciousness will never be the same. And the Mindful Body sounds brilliant. I’ll add it to my queue!
This is a lovely meditation, Kim. We have two big old coastal redwoods in our yard in Oakland (not giant sequoias but cousins) and we loved them so much, even though they drop a literal mountain of old brown needles every August through December. 🌲💚🌲
At first I thought you were going to say they were in Spain! Wouldn’t be surprised though, such hardy beasts. Their presence is a force beyond anything I can describe, and worth all the autumn cleanup.😉
Oh my, Kimberly. With each of these, you outdo yourself.
This was spellbinding. I'm desperate to now sit and blind-contour something, anything. It made me want to reach for my journal and just sit there and look at a blank page and think of its origin, the pulp, the tree it once was.
Your comment section is evidence for what your writing and thinking does to us.
I wish there was a tool to highlight sections as we read, and for that to be saved as our own reading notes of someone's words. I found myself jotting down multiple passages here, including the following stunning sentences:
"...wings spread wide to catch currents of dirt, peat, and sand, while warm light casts their shapes into soft, Vermeer intimacy."
"the lives that nourished those waters, and the last exhale of stars that became her atmosphere." -- gosh, the last exhale of stars. Yes!!
"to quiet what we think, to unknow what we know. To meet a fellow human not with labels or assumptions but with curiosity invites a more immediate, alchemical relating." -- Oh if only all the world could adopt this way of thinking.
"This is simply a clearing. An invitation to step into that unknowable field together, to lay down in the cosmic dust and have ourselves a good bath." -- the cosmic dust! There it is. 😍
“When the soul lies down in the grass the world is too full to talk about.” That moment tears right through me, quieting any need to know. Let’s all be earthworms.
Kimberly! Just wow. I had so many thoughts while reading this that I can't even articulate them! I thought of trees and how they talk to each other (something I learned not that all that long ago) and the various "unknowing" things I thought I knew over the decades (and the anxiety I felt while unknowing them, and then peace and wonder that unknowing caused me) and the various identities I either tried on or at least fantasized about and then released over those same decades. I love a good mystery, don't you? Your writing amazes me and causes me to feel amazement. Thank you!
Gosh, what a generous reflections Linda. If my writing can inspire just one mind or heart to "feel amazement" in this world, then I'm happy.
It's true, unknowing ourselves, the identities we thought we needed to survive, can be a radical experience. I love how you express that in the unknowing, you were opened to peace and wonder. We are, this life, all that surrounds, are so much more mystery than known and it is quite beautiful when we surrender to it. Thank you for your thoughtful presence here!
This was breathtakingly stunning. I felt as though I was meditating while reading. I love the notion of unknowing to truly see. Just beautiful. Well done. Time to share.
That's pretty cool Carissa. I felt like I had to get into a more meditative state to write this one. My mind kept on trying to enter with, "But wait, I know this, I know how to say this!" I'm so glad you picked up on some of the meta-energy I was aiming to convey!
So glad you did. My eyes' eyes have been opened to see the world anew.
Awww, thank you for sharing your experience!
When we place ourselves within Nature, what we once thought is true, what we once thought we know, begins to unravel. Humans are not the centre of all things. Humans are one of many, who are best when we cooperate, care and have compassion. If this sounds trite and too simple, it means you are stuck in your old dominating ways of death.
Beautifully stated Perry. "Cooperation, care and compassion" naturally bloom from this understanding, how could it not? We are all participating in life knowing itself in infinite form, ever-connected and ever-changing. Who ever told you this was trite might be feeing very lonely at this moment.
I love this so much Kimberly! I too love the unknowing, it is why I create. It is the space where I am most free, pure, untethered, and most whole. For much of life my creativity found expression as a dancer and choreographer and now, later in life, I catch words and then play with them- they seem to swirl around my little office and I just grab them. It is like leaping from a mountain top, with nothing but faith and wonder - - no parachute needed because on the way down we grow wings - - and they are beautiful.
Thank you Andrea! Funny you should say that about dancing, this was where I initially found my creative expression and freedom too. And even though I don’t dance anymore, writing feels like it originates in my body, I have to feel the preverbal feelings and then find words that best encapsulate those feelings. I love that your process involves words almost like dancers in your room, grabbing them, pulling them into your musing. “no parachute needed because on the way down we grow wings…” So beautiful Andrea!
I am so glad I decided to subscribe to you a year ago! This piece is stunningly wise. We have discovered that "writing what you don't know" is the route to original, enjoyable, powerful writing. You expand this into the realm of life and death and show us that we really don't know anything - and are better for it, when we know and accept it.
How am I just discovering you now Allegra!? I am now subscribed to your stack and look forward to learning more about you and your process. Yes, I was very much entering into this piece through death as teacher, my conundrum with the dream, and then I let it take me to all the other unknown realms as well. It's very freeing to allow this unknowing and meet life directly, moment after moment after moment. Thank you for your thoughtful, devoted reading!
Freeing, but it takes courage! You write about many courageous people in this Substack.
Ahh...❣️ Thank you, Kimberly, so very much for this beautiful piece❣️ 💗🙏
So much resonance here. The art of unseeing, which changes everything. Your experience of seeing the Sequoia free from preconception "an invitation to see without predetermination and to lean into the world’s arms with curious trust." reminds me of what Goethe called 'tender empiricism'.
It also reminds me of myself, weaving a Sequoia tree 'with my eyes closed' (= in this case from memory), following an impulse. This was quite some years ago. The woven Sequoia now lives against the backdrop of a granite wall in our house in Portugal.
And speaking of Christo wrapping the Reichstag. I am one of the lucky owners of a small piece of the silver Reichtag's wrapping material (my son was living in Berlin at the time and brought me a little piece of German history as a gift).
And finally, it reminds me of a story neuroscientist Dee Joy Coulter shares in her fascinating book 'Original Mind' where she remembers meeting a Tibetan Buddhist monk who, every time he looked at a flower (or presumably anything), it would appear in front of his eyes (or in his visual cortex) as if seeing it for the very first time!
So much to love here Veronika! "Tender empiricism"—I had to look up empiricism, at first I was confusing it with "imperialism" and that didn't make much sense at all. :) I've been listening to the podcast Telepathy Tapes lately, a deep exploration into non-speaking, autistic children who appear to be extremely telepathic. So prior to this podcast, I likely would've agreed with empiricism, but now, my mind is bending into entirely different ways consciousness potentially operates, the senses only being one modality.
I'd love to see that woven Sequoia! Can you send a photo? They are such majestic trees and I can only imagine how that translated through your memory into fiber. What a lovely experience.
And wow! You have a a swatch of the Christo wrapping! I'm curious, what does it feel like? Is it soft to the touch like cotton, or more sturdy?
I think what Goethe called 'zarte Empirie' in German is more like what you describe as perceiving through some kind of '6th sense' or a telepathic perception. The way Goethe described it is more like connecting to the essential being of a plant, perhaps we could call it a 'soul connection'. The translation into the English 'empiricism' is a little misleading, although it's the same word. So I agree, the so-called 'senses' are channels of a different modality.
I'll take a photo of my woven Sequoia tomorrow in daylight.
The swatch of the Christo wrapping looks like woven metal, it is woven polypropylene covered in a silvery layer of steamed on aluminium. It is quite sturdy, similar in feel and thickness to material you sometimes find in summer shoes.
Thank you for that clarification. So much can be lost in translation and you're my trusted etymological compass. ;)
So the Christo wrapping is ENTIRELY different than I imagined. So funny to now replace what in my mind was a flowing, billowing, almost gossamer sheet, with sturdy summer shoe material! Hah!
There is a photo of a piece of the wrapping here on Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verh%C3%BCllter_Reichstag
Mine looks exactly like that.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verh%C3%BCllter_Reichstag#/media/Datei:MaterialReichstag.JPG
Looks like the creations I used to make as a kid on a potholder loom!
Such an inspiring comment!
Beautifully written. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." To gaze with wonder and a sense of awe into the mystical cloud of unknowing!
Thank you Marilyn. Shakespeare had it right. :) Our essence is irreducible, unboxable, unnamable.
I love your visual: "a musical cloud of unknowing!"
Kimberly, this piece was profound, and so beautifully written. Going to try and let it absorb, so that I might slow down to allow for more unknowing.
I love how you say this Stephanie, “let it absorb.” I take words in this way too—viscerally—as if concept enters not only mind but body too. May the unknowing open untold delights!
Kimberly, I have been largely absent my Substack inbox for weeks and am so grateful you have continued to read BTCZ while I've been on this relative pause in Portugal with my son--in no small part because you shared with me in comments that you had written this glorious "in defense of." You, dear friend, are the lived embodiment of the direct experience of unknowing. You show us unknowing in the cooing sound of a dust cloud. The heart quivers, reading this essay. You've danced us along the being–not being threshold of one life, say, that of a hen, to reveal the fullness of Life itself, always unfolding through each and all of us--particles of dust in the cloud of becoming. Thank you. [deep bow] with love.
PS, per your epigraph to this essay:
Just today, I received an email from my former academic advisor and chair of my dissertation committee a decade ago that her book on Krishnamurti is now out. I read earlier iterations of the manuscript and can say that it is a wonderfully accessible, brief read on the life and thought of K.
Constance Jones, J Krishnamurti: Self-Inquiry, Awakening, and Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2025).
...and thank you for sharing your friend's book on Krishnnamurti! I first discovered his wisdom on a dusty shelf at Findhorn when I was 22, cracking open something in me that I didn't even know needed to be cracked. Going to go buy your friend's book now. ;)
May the cooing dust cloud erase you into exquisite unknowing today friend.
You wrote this days ago, unknowing when the timing would be perfect for me to read. 🙏
Awww, bowing to you and our synchronous paths.
Finally, I got to sit down and finish this. I saved it for a day where I could give it complete silence and my full attention. Your pieces are always an EXPERIENCE and for that I am so grateful. You are such a gift to me and to the world. I absolutely LOVED this and will be going back to re-read it over and over again when I need reminding. You are a part of a small handful of people that can wreck me with one sentence.
"and instead experienced my girls in shivering immediacy—transformed, extending their feathered pluck into muscular grace. Not gone but reborn, wing-spanned into multiples of four lithe limbs."
I burst into tears with that line and had to take a breather. Whew. So much beauty and acceptance in that line. There is always a corner that we turn when we are grieving, the moment when the weight shifts from one side to the other, and you are always so spectacular at describing it. I'll be meeting you in the field over and over again with honor and gratitude, dear one. Thank you for this. 🫂❤️🔥
Oh Jenovia. You sure know how to make me feel seen. I thought about you a lot while writing this, especially as I grappled with this “transmutation” of life the dream seemed to suggest. I wondered how that lives in you, if you experience your family as a memory only or a felt sense of their life forces now shape-shifted into countless other expressions?
You don’t have to answer this, it’s an intimate question! This is simply my way of saying, You’ve taken up residence in a very special place in my heart. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being you.
(Returning to this comment after reading your gorgeous offering today. You answered all my questions. The transmutation of all you’ve loved are clearly all around you, and nurtured by your daily commitment to honoring the realms we cannot know or see.)
I enjoyed every sentence of this profoundly thoughtful and beautiful reflection. So many words I could copy out and save for reading again and again, but this passage struck me in particular as my personal call to action:
"We might be surprised by all that no longer serves—trappings of identity, illusions of permanence—each sense perception, each reasoning, even the stories we construct to make sense of this world like tiny headlamps, illuminating only fragments of existence. Our truest nature doesn’t need a lamp to reveal itself. It is already the light—bright, whole and unbound."
Amazing, Kimberly, and thank you so much for sharing my work, and for sharing your work with me! 🙏💚
During a crazy wind storm the other night, my nerves were wrecked, jumping like a scared cat every time I was sure the roof would fly off. So I lay there meditating on first, the sense perceptions and the thoughts that accompanied, and then surrendered myself into it fully. And when we can give ourselves over so completely to this surrender, it's as if another dimension/experiencing arises, as if peering through lace, to the stillness that holds it all. Kind of like shattering that tiny headlamp and realizing the light was always there to begin with. Thank you for reading, reflecting and sharing Don!
I understand what you’re saying, Kimberly. I often practice that giving over, or surrendering to, my feelings of restlessness, boredom, or of unrest and insecurity (what am I not doing that I should be doing to secure a happy or satisfactory tomorrow…). This surrendering means sitting with feelings that tell me to “fix” something, without acting. Just accepting that “this is what right now is like.” Pretty cool! 😎
I love this “unknowing” concept. It feels especially difficult at times, being an HSP/empath, to erase my attachments to grief.
I feel most connected, and in solid ground, when I am in the woods. I always have. The world has always felt “too much” for me. Even my very young self, or especially my very young self, I should say. One of the reasons I fell in love with alcohol at age 12.
Recovery has allowed me to learn to feel, and I know it will allow me to “unknow”.
Here’s to the great unknowing! 🩷
Beautiful Joley. The woods is a refuge for our sensitive bodies and receives the not knowing with open arms. :)
Amazing! Freaking amaze-balls! Loved it, loved it, loved it. Such beautiful words and a truly wonderful topic.
As a self-proclaimed curious philosophy nerd I revel in the acknowledgment of all that we don’t know. All that stuff we think we know, and yet, poof, the world, ourselves, all of it changes in an instant and then all that stuff we thought we knew is up-ended. You said it much better, but I think you get me.
And and and (can you tell I’m excited) I actually read a book recently you may be interested in — The Mindful Body by Ellen Langer — where she talks about the many ways our minds can influence our physical health, and in there she sings the praise of uncertainty and unknowing because (get this) it means any diagnoses or chronic issues we have may not be as certain and as permanent as our doctors say. I just loved that take: using uncertainty and change to our mindful advantage.
Thanks Kimberly :)
I love your enthusiasm Michael! It’s quite freeing to embrace uncertainty isn’t it? Sounds like you might want to check out the podcast Telepathy Tapes if you haven’t already. Talk about blowing your mind wide open. It’s a paradigm changer and your idea of consciousness will never be the same. And the Mindful Body sounds brilliant. I’ll add it to my queue!
I haven’t heard of the podcast telepathy tapes — but now I am very intrigued! Thanks for the recommendation. And for the great article :)
This is a lovely meditation, Kim. We have two big old coastal redwoods in our yard in Oakland (not giant sequoias but cousins) and we loved them so much, even though they drop a literal mountain of old brown needles every August through December. 🌲💚🌲
At first I thought you were going to say they were in Spain! Wouldn’t be surprised though, such hardy beasts. Their presence is a force beyond anything I can describe, and worth all the autumn cleanup.😉
Oh my, Kimberly. With each of these, you outdo yourself.
This was spellbinding. I'm desperate to now sit and blind-contour something, anything. It made me want to reach for my journal and just sit there and look at a blank page and think of its origin, the pulp, the tree it once was.
Your comment section is evidence for what your writing and thinking does to us.
I wish there was a tool to highlight sections as we read, and for that to be saved as our own reading notes of someone's words. I found myself jotting down multiple passages here, including the following stunning sentences:
"...wings spread wide to catch currents of dirt, peat, and sand, while warm light casts their shapes into soft, Vermeer intimacy."
"the lives that nourished those waters, and the last exhale of stars that became her atmosphere." -- gosh, the last exhale of stars. Yes!!
"to quiet what we think, to unknow what we know. To meet a fellow human not with labels or assumptions but with curiosity invites a more immediate, alchemical relating." -- Oh if only all the world could adopt this way of thinking.
"This is simply a clearing. An invitation to step into that unknowable field together, to lay down in the cosmic dust and have ourselves a good bath." -- the cosmic dust! There it is. 😍