Confluence Formation

By Aram MitchellSociety & Culture Religion & Spirituality Spirituality Personal Journals

Confluence Formation episodes

August 28, 2025 Day 24 | The loving voice of wisdom (& Scott Russell Sanders)
Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom, which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago…
From elsewhere:
“By keeping in touch with wildness we preserve our sanity, and our world’s health.” (Scott Russell Sanders, Staying Put)
From my heart:
Which is a thing you do so well, dear one, and often—touch the wildness.
But those cracks in your sanity, those wounds on the world, body, and soul—all that that means, all that it urges is to let more wildness in.
If not more frequently, if not greater volume, then touch it more thoughtfully, with greater attention.
And always remember: You are the wildness that you touch.
You are wounded by the same world wound.
And healed in the same wild ways.
And healing.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com
2 min
August 27, 2025 Day 23 | The loving voice of wisdom (& bell hooks)
Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom, which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago…
From elsewhere:
“There is a creative, life-sustaining, life-enhancing place for the masculine in a nondominator culture. And those of us committed to ending patriarchy can touch the hearts of real men where they live, not by demanding that they give up manhood or maleness, but by asking that they allow its meaning to be transformed, that they become disloyal to patriarchal masculinity in order to find a place for the masculine that does not make it synonymous with domination..” (bell hooks, The Will to Change)
From my heart:
Be disloyal to patriarchy, dear heart.
Don’t go in for models of manhood that appeal to subjection.
With your strength serve, listen and love.
Be emotional when you need to.
Cry those tears, my child, that you’ve been holding on to for dear life.
I don’t mean only be disloyal to patriarchy in a grand and glorious save-the-world-systemic sort of way.
I mean be free right now, yourself, this moment from all that binds you.
Refuse the bondage that masquerades as power.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com
3 min
August 26, 2025 Day 22 | The loving voice of wisdom (& Carl Jung)
Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom, which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago…
From elsewhere:
“True transformation of persons happens largely, if not exclusively, through contact with images.” (Richard Rohr, summarizing Jung)
From my heart:
The symbols that we employ in our hearts shape the trail that we walk with our lives.
It’s the contact that really makes them stick. You’ve got to put them to work.
You can invoke archetypes all day, everyday with your lips.
You can give names to every single layer of the collective unconscious.
You can theologize and analyze and discuss the symbols from 360 different angles.
But it’s when you put them to work on your imagination, give them shovels and pick axes, and lunch boxes full of ham sandwiches and red crispy apples—that’s when they start to shape you.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com
2 min
August 25, 2025 Day 21 | The loving voice of wisdom (and Mary Oliver, again)
Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom, which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago…
From elsewhere:
“Hope is one thing,
gratitude another
and sufficient
unto itself.”
(Mary Oliver)
From my heart:
You have learned a lot about hope, dear one. You have studied it, and written about it, garnered degrees by studying and writing about hope. You know its nuance, its anatomy.
Just as you did the fetal pig that you dissected in high school physiology class.
“I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” they taught you there.
You have learned more about hope from losing it, than you ever did from dissecting it.
A couple of significant losses, at least.
But they weren’t wrong about praise—which is gratitude in another form—and how it can resurrect the will to change—which is hope in another form.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com
2 min
August 22, 2025 Day 20 | The loving voice of wisdom (& G.K. Chesterton)
Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom, which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago…
From elsewhere:
“We need this life of practical romance; the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.” (G.K. Chesterton)
From my heart:
You do that, I see you, everyday when you invoke the energy of the hermit and the energy of the pilgrim, together.
Your heart stirred, when you were young and unmarried, at the idea of wedding two pulls within you—the vagabond and the homesteader, together.
You have longed for a life—long been faithful to the life—of practical romance.
But do you see, even now, how you grip that longing? how you are grasping after life?
You need not grip or grasp.
What you long for is how things are.
And it’s yours to simply receive.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com
2 min
August 21, 2025 Day 19 | The loving voice of wisdom (& Richard Rohr)
Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom, which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago…
From elsewhere:
“Tolerance and openness are virtues in the life of one with clear authority; they are sad excuses in the lives of those afraid of their own authority.” (Richard Rohr)
From my heart:
I know, you preached about self-righteousness.
And those who know you most closely see that vice in you.
And I know, you yourself are torn between confident knowing and humble curiosity.
You fear the passivity that childs within you, even while shying away from the strength of purpose that anchors your heart.
No time here to sort it all out for you.
But walk with this today:
Clear authority of self is not torn.
There is power, as well you know, in the confluence of humble courage.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com
2 min
August 20, 2025 Day 18 | The loving voice of wisdom (& Mary Oliver)
Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom, which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago…
From elsewhere:
“In my house there are a hundred half-done poems.
Each of us leaves an unfinished life.”
(Mary Oliver, Thinking of Swirler)
From my heart:
Isn’t that glorious, beloved one?
You fill your days with purpose and your nights with reaching out—with arms and dreams—to the life you love living, and still more time flows in behind you.
More days flow in from the expanse of what hasn’t been.
And they will keep flowing long after your days flush through this world,
like a bubbling in a mossy wood, perhaps,
or like a mighty river,
or a waterfall.
All of them heading to the ocean.
And whatever you don’t complete, whatever you leave unfinished
—so long as you truly started it—
will get picked up again, after you, by the clouds, and cycled back into life.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com
2 min
August 19, 2025 Day 17 | The loving voice of wisdom (& Mister Rogers)
Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom, which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago…
From elsewhere:
“How many times have you noticed that it’s the little quiet moments in the midst of life that seem to give the rest extra-special meaning?” (Fred Rogers)
From my heart:
That’s where you’ll find me, as often as not.
That’s where you’ll find what you need.
And not that you have to go hunting for them, those little quiet moments.
Really you just need to notice them.
And then notice your own sweet heart when you notice them; what happens there.
You don’t have to wait until later.
The chittering of the birds just now…
The velcro crash of the waves over your shoulder…
The way that the shoes are piled up by the front door over there…

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com
2 min
August 18, 2025 Day 16 | The loving voice of wisdom
Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom, which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago…
From elsewhere:
“The fourth myth is the belief that it is possible to be totally logical, rational and objective.” (I forget where I read this)
From my heart:
The challenge for you, my darling, is to live among men who are deeply invested in the fourth myth, and to see the harmful effects of that myth on your own heart, while also continuing to believe that it is sometimes possible to benefit from trying to be partially logical and rational and objective.
Absolutism is the spectre that hovers over and in any totalitarian belief.
The very exciting challenge is to be whole, rather than ever totally anything.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com
2 min
August 15, 2025 Day 15 | The loving voice of wisdom
Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom, which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago…
From elsewhere:
“The professional masters how, and leaves what and why to the gods.” (Steven Pressfield, The War of Art)
From my heart:
You aren’t alone, there, scraping your every effort against every day, vying of your own will for results that’ll amount to something.
The gods are there too.
It’s actually quite beautiful if you believe in the gods, which is to say, if you believe that you are not alone in your longing and your efforts to make of this world something awesome, something worthy to pass along.
Believe that you’re alone, and you’ll run ragged with unnecessary struggle.
Believe in the company that is available to you, and you’ll rest from time to time in the joyful grace of the work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arammitchell.substack.com
2 min

About Confluence Formation

From the publisher's feed

Principles and practices for living life to the full.

arammitchell.substack.com

Share Confluence Formation

Sign up to save your podcasts

Confluence Formation

Confluence Formation episodes

About Confluence Formation