Greetings Friends and Neighbors, I heard from a couple of you who read last week’s Newsletter you found yourself standing at the edge of the woods with no clear path for entry, the words and phrases forming a theoretically dense, impenetrable thicket. After five days at the Orphan Wisdom School, an immersion in Stephen Jenkinson’s writing and teaching, I was deep in the heart of that very thicket—where the berries are sweet but the thorns draw blood. This week’s Letter amounts to me trying to cut a path. I failed to state the following last week: “Stephen, I am immensely grateful for your work. You have pressed and printed upon my way of moving through the world, and particularly upon my practice of holding up thorny questions.” By way of thanks, I’ll try to put some non-theoretical flesh on the bones of Stephen’s question,
You’ve described a way forward, the mile radius, very well and something I’ve been moving towards ever so slowly, with very many failings, it’s a lofty goal, but it’s a start. A path forward that cuts out all the sustainable greenwashing bullshit that abounds these days. Live gently on the land, for it needs to sustain you and you need to sustain it, not just for yourself, not just for your neighbours, but for the generations of humans and non-humans still to come.
"To be of means to be in. To have traded endless possibility for something specific. It means that, over the slow recess of time, you become that part of the land that temporarily abides in human form." -Martin Shaw
Thank you for writing from within the sensuous and the sentience of this place that has claimed you and amidst this bird who is courting you.
We readers are here to learn from you and with you. Thank your for tending this written space as lovingly as you do the land.
Hi Adam I must say I’m always glad to read this newsletter when I get the chance. It takes me out of this search and constant distraction I find myself in at times and brings me back into myself. Thank you for that.
I want to acknowledge that I disappeared out of your life and community a couple years ago and have been nervous and straight up avoidant to reenter out of shame. I’m sure some would call it a privilege to be able to come back home and start a new life. But I am finding my shame still tender and the lack of community and what it might serve in our own healing very painful. So much so it is easier to go about not feeling it and being dazzled by the various distractions.
That said I am now a mother and raising our boy with a very kind and honest man. Upon reflecting on your post and nursing my baby I see how this word indigenous is also the mother baby dyad. Just as we are sucking from the breast of the land. But how disturbed and estranged we have gotten from the babies we once were and really still are. I’ll leave this now with a full broken heart and hold it gently - a work of not compulsively seeking an out.
You’ve described a way forward, the mile radius, very well and something I’ve been moving towards ever so slowly, with very many failings, it’s a lofty goal, but it’s a start. A path forward that cuts out all the sustainable greenwashing bullshit that abounds these days. Live gently on the land, for it needs to sustain you and you need to sustain it, not just for yourself, not just for your neighbours, but for the generations of humans and non-humans still to come.
Thank you Adam
"To be of means to be in. To have traded endless possibility for something specific. It means that, over the slow recess of time, you become that part of the land that temporarily abides in human form." -Martin Shaw
Thank you for writing from within the sensuous and the sentience of this place that has claimed you and amidst this bird who is courting you.
We readers are here to learn from you and with you. Thank your for tending this written space as lovingly as you do the land.
Thank you Adam! Your writing is deeply meaningful and engaging. Welcome words on the path of inquiry, wonder and grief. Of working and undoing.
Hi Adam I must say I’m always glad to read this newsletter when I get the chance. It takes me out of this search and constant distraction I find myself in at times and brings me back into myself. Thank you for that.
I want to acknowledge that I disappeared out of your life and community a couple years ago and have been nervous and straight up avoidant to reenter out of shame. I’m sure some would call it a privilege to be able to come back home and start a new life. But I am finding my shame still tender and the lack of community and what it might serve in our own healing very painful. So much so it is easier to go about not feeling it and being dazzled by the various distractions.
That said I am now a mother and raising our boy with a very kind and honest man. Upon reflecting on your post and nursing my baby I see how this word indigenous is also the mother baby dyad. Just as we are sucking from the breast of the land. But how disturbed and estranged we have gotten from the babies we once were and really still are. I’ll leave this now with a full broken heart and hold it gently - a work of not compulsively seeking an out.
You do a beautiful job describing deep human concerns and suggesting solutions. Thank you