What we call the beginning is often the end

Beloved Friends,

As if we didn’t know it already, political movements in the United States right now are confirming that we are in a time of enormous upheaval. It is disorienting, infuriating, and sometimes terrifying.

In response to my last post, Hold the Ground, my friend Sandy wrote that she was inspired to create this chant. With her permission, I offer it to you all (confessing that I changed one word).

When confused, hold the ground!

When in despair, hold the ground.

When overwhelmed, in fear or pain,

Shout this refrain, "Hold the ground!"

Sing once again, hold the ground!

Until Earth's holy Silence brings 

Her profound peace into your soul,

Peace within brings peace around.

Let us hold the Peace, hold the Ground.

In the midst of such upheaval, it helps to remind ourselves that there is Something Greater than mere human greed, stupidity, fear, lust for power and money… There is Something Greater.

However you name that, this is the time to hang on. Hang on fiercely to that Greater Goodness & Beauty & Truth. Therein lies our hope — a Wisdom vastly greater than our own. Love.

What we call the beginning is often the end.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from…

T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding, V

I am home. My journey, or more precisely, my road trip, has ended. It is good to be home.

I want to wander with you into the woods, and we will do that soon.

But before that, I need to wrap up the road trip and put it to rest. The end must end for the beginning to begin.

One measure of a journey is in its measure. So:

I drove 10,574 miles.

I travelled through 25 states and 2 provinces.

I stayed overnight at 32 separate destinations.

I was on the road for 72 days. It is good to be home.

Other qualities are less readily quantified.

I left for Peru on October 3 and returned on February 3, so I was away four months exactly. Forty days, in the Jewish and Christian understanding, is a time of transformation from one state of being to another. For Noah and company, it rained 40 days and 40 nights. Elijah travelled 40 days to the mountain of God. Jesus was driven into the wilderness for 40 days. I was in Peru for 40 days, and on the bigger journey for 124 days — three times 40, give or take. A long liminal space.

Gently and slowly, my old way of being just slipped away.

I have been thinking of my life as a trilogy — a long story told in three books. The first book is about childhood and youth, 0 - 18, till graduation from high school. The second book is about adulthood — all the learning, trials, tasks, tribulations, and triumphs of being an adult, 19 - 69. Fifty years, exactly.

I am excited about the third volume of the trilogy. I plan to have fun, still to climb mountains as much as I can, to ski and walk through the woods, to be with people I love, to love people I am with. And to write.

Now that I am back in the woods, I will write more often through them and what they reveal to me. Yesterday, two Pileated Woodpeckers were hammering on the hemlock tree outside my kitchen window. I tried to get a photo of the pair, but one was shy and hid on the backside. So all I have to give you is one.

But it matters that a pair came — togehter, they are a promise of new life in the wilderness.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we first started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown,

Unremembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always—

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

All shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding, V

With my love, till next time.

Stephen