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[Image: “The Crossing: Downpatrick Head, County Mayo, Ireland,” by architect Travis Price, his students, and numerous local craftsmen. For more information, see this PDF<\/a> and the Catholic University of America site<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n From whiskey river<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n Between where you are now and where you’d like to be there’s a sort of barrier, or a chasm, and sometimes it’s a good idea to imagine that you’re already at the other side of that chasm, so that you can start on the unknown side.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (David Bohm [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and<\/a>:<\/p>\n All Winter<\/strong><\/p>\n In winter I remember I remember how the man named Fire In the coldest weather, I recall And I know how long it takes These nights the air is full of spirits. (Linda Hogan [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and<\/a>:<\/p>\n After an old Hasidic master died, his followers sat around, talking about his life. One person wondered aloud, “What was the most important thing in the world for the master?” They all thought about it. Another responded, after a time, “Whatever he happened to be doing at the time.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Susan Murphy [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and<\/a>:<\/p>\n Sayings from the Northern Ice<\/strong><\/p>\n It is people at the edge who say things Sled runners before they meet have long talk apart. At the mouth of the long sack we fall in forever Wind that buried bear skulls north of here Better to end with a lucky saying:<\/p>\n Sled runners cannot decide to join or to part. (William Stafford [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n Ultimate Problems<\/strong><\/p>\n In the Aztec design God crowds In the White Man design, though, The Aztecs frown at this. (William Stafford [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and:<\/p>\n Numbers do not seem to work well with regard to deep time. Any number above a couple of thousand years—fifty thousand, fifty million—will with nearly equal effect awe the imagination to the point of paralysis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (John McPhee [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n ..and:<\/p>\n The Singular and Cheerful Life<\/strong><\/p>\n The singular and cheerful life<\/span> if there are any—<\/span> by its obedience<\/span> those princes of everything green—<\/span> each on its singular stem<\/span> What, in the earth world,<\/span> Oh, my dear heart,<\/span> look at the world.<\/span> (Mary Oliver [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Consider the earth\u2019s history as the old measure of the English yard, the distance from the king’s nose to the tip of his outstretched hand. One stroke of a nail file on his middle finger erases human history.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Stephen Jay Gould, paraphrasing John McPhee [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n _____________<\/p>\n Footnote:<\/strong> While researching this post, I came across the concept of ley lines<\/em>. Per Wikipedia<\/a>:<\/p>\n The phrase was coined in 1921 by the amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins, referring to supposed alignments of numerous places of geographical and historical interest, such as ancient monuments and megaliths, natural ridge-tops and water-fords. In his books Early British Trackways and The Old Straight Track, he sought to identify ancient trackways in the British landscape. Watkins later developed theories that these alignments were created for ease of overland trekking by line-of-sight navigation during neolithic times, and had persisted in the landscape over millennia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nhow the white snow
\nswallowed those who came before me.
\nThey sing from the earth.
\nThis is what happened to the voices.
\nThey have gone underground.<\/p>\n
\ncarried a gun. I saw him
\nburning.
\nHis ancestors live in the woodstove
\nand cry at night and are broken.
\nThis is what happens to fire.
\nIt consumes itself.<\/p>\n
\nthat I am in every creature
\nand they are in me.
\nMy bones feel their terrible ache
\nand want to fall open
\nin fields of vanished mice
\nand horseless hooves.<\/p>\n
\nto travel the sky,
\nfor buffalo are still living
\nacross the drifting face of the moon.<\/p>\n
\nThey breathe on windows.
\nThey are the ones that leave fingerprints
\non glass when they point out
\nthe things that happen,
\nthe things we might forget.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nat the edge: winter is toward knowing.<\/p>\n
\nThere is a pup in every litter the wolves will have.
\nA knife that falls points at an enemy.
\nRocks in the wind know their place: down low.
\nOver your shoulder is God; the dying deer sees Him.<\/p>\n
\nstorms brighten the spikes of the stars.<\/p>\n
\nand beats moth wings for help outside the door
\nis bringing bear skull wisdom, but do not ask the skull
\ntoo large a question until summer.
\nSomething too dark was held in that strong bone.<\/p>\n
\nWhen they decide, it is a bad day.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\ninto the little pea that is rolling
\nout of the picture.
\nAll the rest extends bleaker
\nbecause God has gone away.<\/p>\n
\nno pea is there.
\nGod is everywhere,
\nbut hard to see.<\/p>\n
\nHow do you know He is everywhere?
\nAnd how did He get out of the pea?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nof any flower
\nin anyone’s garden
\nor any still unowned field—<\/p>\n
\ncatches me
\nby the heart,
\nby its color<\/p>\n
\nto the holiest of laws:
\nbe alive
\nuntil you are not…<\/p>\n
\nthe grasses
\nof which there are truly
\nan uncountable company,<\/p>\n
\nstriving
\nto rise and ripen.<\/p>\n
\nis there not to be amazed by
\nand to be steadied by
\nand to cherish?<\/p>\n
\nmy own dear heart,
\nfull of hesitations,
\nquestions, choice of directions,<\/p>\n
\nBehold the morning glory,
\nthe meanest flower, the ragweed, the thistle.
\nLook at the grass.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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<\/a>This led me in turn (in several turns, in fact) to a little side story… It seems that in 2010, a British “researcher” named Tom Brooks posited that these ancient structures were laid out mathematically, in a sort of GPS layout. Per The Guardian<\/em>:<\/p>\n