Haibun: How I'm Wired
In our partisan country, nature has a saving quality. In a world where religion can set controls through shame and eternal consequences to control others, nature can be redeeming.
There amongst the cacti or the pines, there amongst the streams or the dry washes are space and solitude. The desert has nothing over the forests to the northeast. The only rules are the ones I carry with me. The only shame is the voices and judgements I pack like a lunch. Whoever I decide to put on replay gets the audience on this day.
But when I stop living in my head, I have freedom until I decide that the stories I tell myself are more important than the stories of cactus or an oak. But for those brief moments when I lose the worlds I brought with me, I see the beauty and love around me. But in the next moment, I obediently return to my stresses and fights. Through the years I have begun to understand why: I have control and certainty in those judgements and enemies and “us” and right and wrong can give. ….And certainty feels safe for all of us.
the cloud colors gain brilliance
winter’s darkness wains
