30 Comments
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Rob DePaolo's avatar

THIS was exactly what I needed to read right NOW... I can't thank you enough for this. One standout bit that I read at least ten times before moving on:

"To depart from the steel and asphalt

of the status quo, the futility

of busyness and the cozy cage

of so-called success."

Simply brilliant! 🙏🙏🙏☺️

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Poetic Outlaws's avatar

Thank you so much!

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Katie Gorman 🫶✨'s avatar

This stirred something in me like no writing as done in a very long time. We are all metaphysical outlaws of a long forgotten past. Thank you for sharing, @erikrittenberry!

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Poetry Symposium's avatar

Nature is

not a place to visit. It is home.”

Ah ! 🙌 yes

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Michael Mohr's avatar

“Ah, yes, to BE, to Be like Thoreau

and Whitman, to commune with

nothing but the universal soul

of the here and now,

the OVERSOUL,

“the wise silence”

that slithers throughout

the ether, and come to discover,

once again, the hidden source

of the stream of who we are.”

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

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Patris's avatar

I spent yesterday morning reading leaves of grass. Now this.

I don’t know if the rapture you convey is from words or images, though certainly both. What a gift.

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Poetic Outlaws's avatar

thank you!

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Erik Hogan's avatar

Outstanding. Profound. This is going in the vault!

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Poetic Outlaws's avatar

Thank you!

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Michelle Lindblom's avatar

Could not agree with you more about nature being our home. I am lucky to live in a place where being in nature is an everyday experience. Thank you for another beautifully written essay. Michelle

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Dina Varellas's avatar

Thank you. This was beautifully written and took me on a journey into the wilderness of my heart, and at the same time on a journey with you from the moment your aching body got out of the tent and wandered with words into my soul. Last night I laid on the grass of my backyard, gazing up into the stars. Time slipped away as I felt the solidness of earth beneath my being and gazed into the shifting colors of the night sky - a timeless ritual I adore and could spend an eternity doing. These words you share capture what it felt like to lie on my back with no where else I would rather be as time stood still and yet slowly slipped away.

“Ah, yes…

to be enriched with little,

to need almost nothing,

to triumph in solitude,...”

Thank you.

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Poetic Outlaws's avatar

Thank you for your beautiful words!

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Maha's avatar

What a spiritually charged and spirited essay, full of treasures for thought and reflection. Bowing in gratitude.

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Poetic Outlaws's avatar

Thank you!

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Agnes Christie's avatar

It's the divine trek. In childhood even the children knew and it was an awe yet a norm.

I am unsure how many deep dives have occurred in the last few decades yet each for a reason. The divine is the norm and the norm is slouch. You've really done it with this one. I was driving by the Kansas sunflowers, beautiful. While in North Dakota I stopped.

Sit down. Roll your head steadily from East to West chin held high. That's the sunflowers. One had turned right towards me, I got the photo. She was brilliant against rows of Sunflowers the only one. Wordsworth simply brilliant expressing, exercising, and discovering the beautiful logos of grief. Always a poet, an incredible human being, his Ode to Immortality is lovely. Read it, feel it deeply then....write. Your Ode will glimmer.

I'm not a paying subscriber due to poor security on my phone. Post an address you bring great movement within.

So much to say, and then no need to state it. Reminds me of Alan Watts. Lol Soon, I'll write significantly.

You are Loved,

Thank you,

Be Well,

Me

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Dian Parker's avatar

Simply beautiful. A soulful reverie. A communion with nature. A robust need we all share, even if they don’t know it.

Thank you for your pouring.

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Oleg Davydov's avatar

Modern man does not understand what beauty is. He thinks it's his subjective opinion. But real culture and art exist only as forms of objective beauty, which has a metaphysical nature

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Therese Misgen's avatar

Deep down we all harbor a wayward

inclination to take on that rugged

journey to the sublime, to revel

in the immortal awareness that

lies beyond space and time.

-yes

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Sílvia's avatar

Beautiful description of how it feels to be in nature, among trees. 💚

I was able to spend some time in a forest in the mountains yesterday (Fanal forest) and witnessed the sunset from the mountains. Truly reinvigorating.

The only downside was the presence of other (noisy) people there. Some people don't understand that nature requires silence. 😊

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Kerry Bart-Raber's avatar

And I

Like Agnes’s comment- I agree...,

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Kerry Bart-Raber's avatar

I have a copy of the “Narrow Road to the Interior” - written sometime around the founding of this country!!Note to self: must make time to study more closely-

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