Goshen Summer 2007 #1

Cottonwood seeds drift through the air on their parachutes of fluff. Gravity tugs them down, but they are light enough that the air currents bat them about on their way down, sometimes sending them up again for a spin. Large, dry, warm-weather snowflakes.

It's been 2 weeks since I've returned home from Soul Mountain, still holding onto the determination to make writing space here amidst the family, which also means space for contemplation, and permission to enter contemplative realities without feeling like I should always be doing a hundred thousand other things first. I've found a good perch in an upstairs bedroom, used by Jonathan when he's home from college, and gradually I'm taking over this room, shifting his bedroom/guest room to my smaller, darker study downstairs, which is good for sleeping, but not very good for writing. At Soul Mountain I realized how important a morning view of the day and the world outside was to my writing and meditation. Otherwise, I'd never pause to see the cottonwood seeds, or the dark green shadows in the fully-leafed trees. And this upstairs bedroom has a view of sky and trees and lawn, and the neighbor's house, which does not suggest more work to be done, as a view of our yard would.

I fear disorientation, drift, as yesterday I misplaced my journal--my faithful companion at Soul Mountain. The cottonwoods seeds, aimless and graceful as they appear, sooner or later reach or don't reach their target soil--only one in a thousand will actually take root and produce a new tree. So I am driven back to this blog and a search, again, for a lost space, some fertile ground in which to root daily words, some of which may eventually grow into something more.