Turning Fallow

“I have a taste for solitude. I quit my house, quit my land, quit my civilization… My name is Silence. Silence is my bivouac, and my supper sipped from bowls.” Annie Dillard

A very particular feeling starts to take over me in the depths of winter, but in the quiet core of summer as well. A feeling to gleefully shut up and listen reverently to the playful, enigmatic intelligences that surround us in every direction. Something about the grasses turning golden, fallow, and free from duty, triggers a longing in me to sink into silence. A silence that might speak worlds when listened to. 

A silence that might come to reveal itself with the proper libations of slowness and presence. A slowing down is necessary (can it be any other way?) not as a function of physical speed but of presence itself.  

Presence reminds us that listening does not only come from our ears, and that speaking does not only come from our tongues, vocal cords, or heads. Presence begins in our hearts first.

Our hearts, they are such dedicated lovers of all things wild and free. Perhaps we know this to be most true in the peak aliveness of summer. So in the latest episode of the Woman Who Rubs the Mountain podcast, we explore how the Fire element of summer informs our lives. We eat ourselves some sun, update some unhelpful myths about our heart organs, ponder the mysterious taoist concept of wu wei, and we call back that ancestral knowing that the heart is the true key to experiencing direct connection and relational intimacy with everything around us. I love these seasonal episodes that explore the elements as embodied and this one sure has lots of heart medicine for you. 

[ You can also see if you missed any episodes here.] 

Somehow simultaneously in the brevity of summer’s rise, it is also already falling, sinking us into silence and a sense of psychological relaxation. A remembering that something fleeting, precious is still right with this world. 

May the warm breezes of the long nights invite you to dawdle outside, staying long enough to watch the cloud patterns change, staying long enough to witness every smudge of color in the sunset, staying long enough to watch the nimble bats catch every last pesky mosquito.

I am so glad to be on this planet with you. 

In kinship,

Kendra

Excerpt from the July 2023 newsletter. If you would like to receive my monthly love letters, click here.