Haibun: Inner

Learning a skill and being able to do it competently is a way we can have confidence and a place to feel secure about ourselves. Maybe it is knowing someone—someone who knows you deeply, trusts and loves you back—that can make a person secure about themselves. Knowing the land, intimately, and how things grow and what the clouds mean can give security. All these paths eventually end up with self reflection. There are many paths inward if we can take them, stay aware, and grow.

But buying something mass produced isn’t a path to inward. The car or watch or purse may be a limited edition, but there isn’t a path into oneself. The certainty of status is because it is all outside oneself and no one has to know who they are. It was bought and not earned. 

new cactus nubbles

the surface bubbles, stubble

…paused winter troubles