Rooted wandering

"Sometimes I feel like a hobbit watching orks decimate the Shire. I FEEL the land as it is being destroyed. I feel the idiot darkness in those who put the profit motive above the future of life. We love the hobbits so much because they embody our subconscious yearning for home, for tribal community, for humble, beautiful living and for a deep, unwavering relationship with place - with land we can tend and love and know. We love Bilbo so much because he is the hobbit who can know home, yet still be a wanderer. Oh fellow wanderers - it's time to return home and make a stand for our forests, our watersheds, our mountain tops, our salmon, our seed. If you are constantly distracted by the journey, you won't feel the orks coming. You won't notice what's being lost. Those oil companies want you to be addicted to the fuel it takes to perpetuate your flight - so attached to your physical freedom that you will fight for cheap oil rather than get real about how your own unteathered lifestyle is destroying your untended back yard. I'm not saying don't travel... i'm just saying, get real."

~~Samantha Sweetwater~~

grounded flight

"I had to unlearn their prison speak,
refuse to make wishes on the star
on the sheriff's chest.

I started wishing on the stars instead.
I said to the sun, 'Tell me about the big bang.'
The sun said, 'It hurts to become.'

I carry that hurt on the tip of my tongue
and whisper 'bless your heart' every chance I get
so my family tree can be sure I have not left.

You do not have to leave to arrive.
I am learning this slowly.
So sometimes when I looking the mirror
my eyes look like the holes in the shoes
of the shoe shine man.

Sometimes my hands are busy on the wrong things.
Some days I call my arms 'wings'
while my head is in the clouds.

It will take me a few more years to learn flying
is not pushing away from the ground."

-Andrea Gibson,
excerpt from her poem I Sing the Body Electric, Especially When My Power's Out.

Gravity

[Reflections on home and relationship, in interpretation of Alfonso Cuarón’s movie Gravity.]

 

Gravity
That we are floating
That we are held down
That we are alone
That we are one
That we are lost
That we are in the right place. 




 

Gravity. 
That we have a home.
That we have love.
Soil.
Soul.
Mud.
That we are all
That we are none.
 

Gravity.
Can't stop crying
can't stop reaching
can't stop trying to grab hold
of everything that's floating away
from me.

Let go.
Tethered in the heart.

Hold on.
We must hold on to love.



 







Gravity.
That we all belong to the earth.
Gravity.
That this is home. 
That we are bound.








Gravity.
Binding.
Gravity. Weighting without crushing.
Gravity. Holding us to what is ours.
Holding us to what we belong to.

Gravity.
Love.
Same thing.

We can float in easy silence

or we can stand
feet pressed in
in the buzzing world
alive
together.



  

 
Gravity.
Howling into the abyss.


Gravity.
Howling our hearts into the silence. 


Gravity.
Howling Howling.
Wailing. Howling. Screaming. Loving. Howling. Moaning. Loving. Barking. Barking. Howling. 
Howling.

Healing.
Wholing.
Wholing. 
Homing. 
Coming home
to the heavy gravity
of particularity,
relationship.

Gravity.
Coming home. 







Gravity.
Surrendering to the weight
of what we belong to.

written 3/10/14

all images from gravitymovie.warnerbros.com