"Technologies of the soul tend to be simple, bodily, slow and related to the heart as much as the mind. Everything around us tells us we should be mechanically sophisticated, electronic, quick, and informational in our expressiveness - an exact antipode to the virtues of the soul. It is no wonder, then, that in an age of telecommunications - which, by the way, literally means "distant connections" - we suffer symptoms of the loss of soul. We are being urged from every side to become efficient rather than intimate." - Thomas Moore
9:30 AM. Mother's Day morning. Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there. We open in a half hour. We've been open for 2 days now. We've had 9 customers stop in so far, and everyone has left with plants. It might not sound like much, but for our backyard nursery operating on a thin margin every exchange counts and is appreciated.
While I deliver mail Annie texts me updates. And when I get impatient I call to see if we have customers. I ask a lot of questions. I want to know how people have found us so far off the beaten path and what people are interested in.
I've heard a few customers showed up because of recommendations from customers last year, others return after multiple visits from years past. Almost all of them say they'll be back!
Our neighbor who got married to Led Zeppelins' "Thank You" showed up again this year. She has a few spotted bee balm she bought last year growing at the end of her driveway. I keep an eye on them. I like seeing plants we've grown from seed growing in the wild.
The algorithm showed me this post and photo the other day:
"Serviceberry (Juneberry) and Ninebark from Bean Brook Nursery have overwintered well! The high bush cranberry made it too but, they are shy and are reluctant to show off any spring finery as yet."
We're 3 days into our nursery season and I'm already starting to feel the distance between our customers and neighbors diminish.
5.11.25
I feel like the universe is looking out for me this morning. I sit down in front of fire 213 and randomly open "The Soul's Code."
I am desperate and depressed looking for direction on my day off from delivering mail. I have spent the week sacrificing my time to a system that seems destined to fail. Things seem to be getting worse in the economic, environmental, social, and political realms. I don't think I'm alone in this assessment. And it doesn't matter what political party is in control.
The page I open to is 153. My eyes land on the 3rd paragraph. Here's what James Hillman writes:
###
"The ecological vision restores to environment also the classical idea of 'providentia'--that the world provides for us, looks out for us, even looks after us. It wants us around, too. Predators, tornadoes, and blackflies in June are only pieces of the picture. Just think of all that's delicious and sweet-smelling. Do birds sing but for each other? This breathable, edible, and pleasant planet, invisibly serviced and maintained, keeps us all by means of its life--support system. Such would be an idea of nurture that is truly nurturing.
"'Environment,' then, would be imagined well beyond social and economic conditions, beyond the entire cultural setting, to include every item that takes care of us every day: our tires and coffee cups and door handles and the book you are holding in your hands. It becomes impossible to exclude this bit of environment as irrelevant in favor of that bit as significant, as if we could rank world phenomena in order of importance. Important for whom? Our understanding of importance itself has to change; instead of 'important to me,' think of 'important to the aspects of the environment.' Does this item nurture what else is around, not merely us who are around? Does it contribute to the intentions of the field of which we are only one short-lived part?
"As notions of environment shift, we notice environment differently. It becomes more and more difficult to make a cut between psyche and world, subject and object, in here and out there. I can no longer be sure whether the psyche is in me or whether I am in the psyche as a I am in my dreams, as I am in the moods of the landscapes and the city streets, as I am in ,'music heard so deeply / That it is not heard at all, but you are the music / While the music lasts' (T. S. Eliot). Where does the environment stop and I begin, and can I begin at all without being in some place, deeply involved in, nurtured by the nature of the world?"
###
The world is alive, provides, and looks out for and after us. I needed that reminder this morning.
I hope you have a blessed Sunday!
5.4.25
Last night I wonder why there's balls of water on lupine leaves. I think it's the little hairs that shape and hold it. Where it goes from there I don't know.
"Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong."
~ Lao Tzu
5.3.25
Only he who can take care of the property of others can have his own.
~ Gurdjieff
Wish I would've understood this 30 years ago! It's hard to get ahead when the government "taxes savers and subsidizes borrowers."
#Bitcoin
6:17 AM. Good morning. I was going to make this easy and just say good morning, but I keep thinking about an old, black and white documentary I listened to on the mail route yesterday.
It's title: The Myth of The Machine. It was about the philosopher Lewis Mumford and his critique of modern civilization.
My takeaway: There is a life giving force on earth. When we forget about it we become anxious and fear the future. This fear leads to control, and round and round we go.
So I think we need to understand the mechanisms that foster life before it's too late.
I'm off to the mail trail.
Fire 210
5.1.25
Last week I heard a great line by a Zen podcaster I listen to.
"We all get plowed into the earth."
Michael Meade, the mythologist, says we do two things together:
"Live and die."
Just what's on my mind this morning. Thought I'd share.
What's the best book on Satoshi Nakamoto?
#Bitcoin
I listen to a wide range of books and podcasts while delivering mail in an automobile 6 to 8 hours a day 6 days a week.
There was something a wealthy, middle-aged entrepreneur said the other day that gave me pause. I have been thinking about it daily for close to two weeks now. I am paraphrasing:
"There are some people who will only be able to do physical work for a wage their whole lives."
He of course escaped that "trap" by starting a business and becoming wealthy. And now he's telling whoever will listen that they can do it to with the right mindset and discipline, and eventually computerized robots and machines will be doing the work for us.
There's a part of this that is appealing to me. Having the freedom to choose if I want to work or not would be nice.
On the other hand, I inhabit a body and live in a community of people. In a few minutes I will drive to a building and sort mail and Amazon packages with people in my community.
The physical work I am doing with my body connects me to the earth (physical matter) and the people (community) I work with.
Off to the mail trail.
Fire 205
4.26.25
6:18 AM. No fire this morning. This is a previous picture. I woke up 20 minutes late. Afraid I'd be late for work if I started one. It's warm enough in here. 42 out there . . . cloudy, rainy. Been sick and working. Finally got a good night's sleep last night. Head cold. Stuffy. Achy. Might be coming out of it though. That's it for now. Annie took a bunch of pictures of plants in pots greening up yesterday. That's always nice to see after a long winter. Ok. This is really it. Gotta go. Off to the mail trail.
This would've been fire 204
4.25.25
6 AM. One burning only this morning. Outside it's 43. They're talking 60 and sunny today. It's getting interesting out there. The plants that were dormant all winter are starting to come alive. With the warmer nights approaching it will change daily. Looking forward to coming home and seeing what's come up and getting to know the plants on a deeper level.
Onto reading a few pages of Marcus Aurelius, then off to the mail trail. Hope you have a great day!
Fire 202
4.23.25
6:05 AM. Good morning from the front of fire 201. Back to the mail trail today. It's 40 out there. Worked around the place all afternoon and into the evening yesterday. The sun came out around mid-afternoon. I soaked in as much sunlight as I could.
I cut down gardens, cleaned up debris, weeded, cut 2 by 4's for plant tables, cut brush, all with the vision of more native plants of a different variety packed into pieces of land attracting many lifeforms.
I slept well last night.
Off to the mail trail.
4.22.25
It's important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don't necessarily nurture soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal’s rhythm of rest and activity.
~ Thomas Moore
"The average man lives in a matriarchy, the average woman lives in a patriarchy, and they’re both correct."
~. Naval Ravikant
Rings true.
Good morning. 🔥
Fire 195
4.16.25
Good morning from the front of fire 193. I leave for the mail trail in a half hour. It's 44 out there. Not supposed to get much warmer than that today.
I stepped out at 3 AM and heard a few spring peepers peeping. A waning moon was shining brightly high in the southern sky. April (our horse) stood calmly in the pasture facing north. Calm. No wind. I called her over to the fence to pet her face hoping it would help me sleep. It didn't. So it goes. Been here before. Eventually sleep comes.
Got a cup of coffee in me now and ready to hit the mail trail. I hope you have a great day!
4.14.25
Dear Son,
The Tao Te Ching Says:
"The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it."
Take a ride to town and back. Have we lost it?
Dear Son,
The world will work on your heroic ego every minute of every day. Let it in. All of it. Stay true to the grief and joy it has to offer.