Story Paths

A fence stands, half-built, half-rotten, full of holes. Birds nest in its holes, vines curl through its cracks. This fence is language, with old myths slipping past the pickets.

Step through. Again, step through. Let your ears grow fur.

Three readings from three random pages of wonderful books.

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A poem from Rilke converses with the Hindu aesthetic system of rasa.

A good book about rasa.

Rilke’s full poem:

The Man Watching

By Rainer Maria Rilke

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after

so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes

that a storm is coming,

and I hear the far-off fields say things

I can’t bear without a friend,

I can’t love without a sister.

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on

across the woods and across time,

and the world looks as if it had no age:

the landscape, like a line in the psalm book,

is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!

What fights with us is so great.

If only we would let ourselves be dominated

as things do by some immense storm,

we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it’s with small things,

and the triumph itself makes us small.

What is extraordinary and eternal

does not want to be bent by us.

I mean the Angel who appeared

to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:

when the wrestlers’ sinews

grew long like metal strings,

he felt them under his fingers

like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel

(who often simply declined the fight)

went away proud and strengthened

and great from that harsh hand,

that kneaded him as if to change his shape.

Winning does not tempt that man.

This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,

by constantly greater beings.

–Translated by Robert Bly

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Snuffle, sniffle…

A podcast isn’t interviews, or music, or rants, or radio plays.

Not necessarily.

A podcast is sound.

Except when it’s a puppy.

This podcast wanders and wags, following trails through mossy soundscapes and whispered words.

Curious, it circles someone’s feet, nuzzling the edges of what is knows. It trots off again: tail high, ears perked, seeking stories in the wind.

Sniffle, snuffle…

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A man is pulled into a wild current, and emerges more curvaceous than he went in.

Needles pierce fabric, thread pulling tight, creating and mending.

Between drowning and dreaming, between bed and abyss, something is being stitched.

Something is unraveling.

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An agreement broken. Hillsides torn open, stone bones exposed. Trains roll on—steel to wood, wood to stone, stone to soil, mile after mile.

Some circle familiar fires. Others wander to where tangled stories grow, where a truth too large splits its own shell.

When the story cracks, something new sings through.

Come listen, sit beneath this tree, even if it drips sap.

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Can a Wall Street refugee find peace in a hut by the sea?

How do you grieve being born into an army?

Praise for the beings in my life.

There’s a river running through us, every time we drink and pee. It carries shame, blood, joy, songs.Bats cut the badlands sky.

A traditional man softens. Who gets to cry? Who gets to weave?

Another man steps into the ocean and forgets himself. He comes back with nothing.

But what’s that he’s offering to the being who sent him in?

The waters are rising. Step in.

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Prescription pads crumble into compost. The wind hums a second opinion.

Healing isn’t in the pill, but in the soil, in the hands, in the rhythm of breath.

The council of healers is vast—grandmothers, rivers, fungi, grief.

What does medicine look like when it stops rushing? When it listens?

My friend Amy Walsh M.D., an emergency room doctor, joins me for blue-sky dreaming of what health care could be.

A conversation on restoration, reciprocity, and the art of being well.

Read Amy’s wonderful writing here.

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A friend asked me, 'Are you neurodiverse?' Here's my reply. What might yours be?

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In a recent grief ceremony, a simple practice made sharing together possible.https://storypaths.substack.com/p/8b6dc400-9b83-4174-bec3-8e047707543f

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A message from the land itself.

Juniper grass, mullein hills, rabbits taking notes on human absurdity.

Dark moonshine, saffron sunsets, an old stump humming.

Somewhere, an oak tree nods in approval.

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