Spontaneous Presence

Wilderness

America is a land originally occupied by casualties, fugitives, dissidents, pirates and radical escapees of the European monarchical and religious order. And ever since, what’s been largely, either inadvertently or deliberately overlooked for three, maybe four hundred years is that the western definition of wilderness was always the property of the invader, the settler, the colonizer.

The Absolution of the Father

For two decades before his death, he became a study in deepening humility, self-deprecating humor, compassion and generosity, a slow softening process. I don’t know if it was deliberate or if some inexorable conviction took hold of him and he simply released and rode its momentum all the way into shore.