We are staying in a farmhouse about 100 km north of Kingston, Ontario for a week. It rained continuously for three straight days to start, but I had a lot of editing to do and my wife has Netflix. There is no air conditioning in this place and although I think I knew it already, I have rediscovered that I am soft. And it a farmhouse so, of course, it smells and feels different than suburbia. It is however, a lovely place, quiet with lots of windows and it is very green outside, which is supposed to have a soothing effect. The jury is out on that due to the ingrained ruts we get into, which make any kind of change a struggle, at least initially. (To be blunt, sleep has been an issue.)
But we have done some exploring and this part of Canada is so beautiful. Lakes and forests, villages and farmland, all on top of the Canadian Shield which dramatically extrudes from the landscape in the form of cliffs and rocky outcroppings. Striking. I had no idea how picturesque this part of our country is. We are lucky to be able to get out in it.
I have heard the world is a village. But I believe that stands in the context of information only. Distance is distance, and this is a big ass world. It is on this lonely side road through a forest in eastern Ontario that somehow became very real to me.
So, get up here if you can. Westport, Ontario is particularly gorgeous. Pretty as a picture. Don’t let yourself get ground into fine paste by routine if you can avoid it. Get enough experiences that you aren’t as soft as I have become. I know I will be working on that.
Here is some writing on a creation myth that I have done recently:
In the beginning, there was the maelstrom. Light and darkness, movement and stillness, time and distance, sight and blindness, love and hate, being and death, all existed in terrible contradiction. Then from the Outside came the Five Lords of Power. Unbidden and unbowed they sought to make the laws that made life precious above all, held the stars in the sky and put the earth below.
