The Forest

For the entirety of my young and skittish life, I had fixated upon my fear as if it were the most interesting thing about me, when actually it was the most mundane. In fact, my fear was probably the only 100 percent mundane thing about me. I had creativity within me that was original; I had a personality within me that was original; I had dreams an

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‘I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It is knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth and then simply doing it.’ ⁃ Natalie Goldberg, ‘Writing Down The Bones’

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

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if you're trying to slay Moloch in any realm other than the territory of the human heart, you're gonna fail over, and over

you might fail in interesting and scintillating ways -- but you're gonna fail

Somewhere along the way, you realize that no one will teach you how to live your own life — not your parents or your idols, not the philosophers or the poets, not your liberal arts education or your twelve-step program, not church or therapy or Tolstoy. No matter how valuable any of that guidance, how pertinent any of that wisdom, in the end you di... See more

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