The Intrepid Traveler

Interested in provenance and process.

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"Love after Love"

The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror,...

Beyond grateful for the opportunity to share reflective space in a two hour exercise led by students in the Expressive Arts program on Appalachian State University campus today. Feeling refreshed and steeped in the sacred.

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-David Foster Wallace, a quote pulled from https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2doZROwdte4&feature=youtu.be in which postmodernism and irony are discussed as problematic because they highlight social ills without offering any solution or direction forward and avoid sincerity / sentimentality which is the human condition.

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She had a sense of being past everything, through everything, out of everything, as she helped the soup, as if there was an eddy- there -and one could be in it, or one could be out of it, and she was out of it. It's all come to an end, she thought, while they came in one after another... And meanwhile she waited, passively, for someone to answer her, for something to happen. But this is not a thing, she thought, ladling out soup, that one says. Raising her eyebrows at the discrepancy-that was what she was thinking, this was what she was doing- ladling out soup- she felt, more and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade had fallen, and, robbed of colour, she saw things truly... Nothing seemed to have merged. They all sat separate. And the whole of the effort of merging and flowing and creating rested on her... and so, giving herself the little shake that one gives a watch that has stopped, the old familiar pulse began beating, as the watch begins ticking- one, two, three, one, two, three. And so on and so on, she repeated, listening to it, sheltering and fostering the still feable pulse as one might guard a weak flame with a newspaper... she began this business, as a sailor not without weariness sees the wind fill his sail and yet hardly wants to be off again and thinks how, had the ship sunk, he would have whirled round and round and found rest on the floor of the sea.

Virginia Woolf, “To The Lighthouse” p. 81-82

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It was interesting to come back to something I'd made and find how much it had changed. Though we think we are making permanent monuments against which our egos can rest, we're actually making something more akin to a fog cloud. We come back to what we've made and find out it's been changing all along. We've changed, the artistic context around the story has changed, the world has changed. And this is kind of wonderful and useful. It made me remember that the real value of the artistic act is not product but process.

George Saunders in New York Times Style Magazine, reflecting on his collection of short stories 'CivilWarLand in Bad Decline' (stories written 1990-1996) as part of the "First Editions, Second Thoughts" Christie's New York Auction in December.

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Faith and fears in Wendell Berry’s Kentucky

A short exposition on my idol, a great poet, essayist, visionary, and farmer.

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May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan.

Don Delillo, White Noise

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Some days I forget the power and the agency that I have in my own life. I have been feeling very swamped by all my responsibilities lately, and overwhelmed by my struggle to try to do everything I’m expected and please those who hold me accountable. I want to be accountable but forgetting my role in all of this has made me very drained and very sad. So! I quit my job today. I was feeling badly and my whole outlook changed when I realized that this thing that has been such a burden on me is something that I chose to take on, and something I could get out of. It was amazing, really, the rush of joy that I felt- and it was joy!- when I made the decision. I need to pay attention to my emotions and direct my energy in ways that make me joyful, cut out things that hurt and hinder me.

I am hoping for much of the rest of September I’ll be able to plan for our upcoming farm dinner and work on a few big projects. Today I got an email with the above mindfulness poem in it, and though I glance through these emails often, this poem in particular really spoke to me and gave me strength, clarified my direction.

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Is Everything More Delicious When You Eat With Your Hands?

An Indian-American reporter recalls the deep shame he felt as a kid eating Indian food with his hands. But his daughter reminds him of the true joy of hand-eating, and he decides to try it in public.

Suddenly I feel a whole lot more justified as a hand eater.

[dailyotter]

GIF of Otter Sliding on the Snow

Check out another gif of a sliding otter here! Submitted by Pete!

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ummm yeah

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The Creation Story, by Joy Harjo

I'm not afraid of love

or its consequence of light.

.

It's not easy to say this

or anything when my entrails

dangle between paradise

and fear.

.

I am ashamed

I never had the words

to carry a friend from her death

to the stars

correctly.

.

Or the words to keep

my people safe

from drought

or gunshot.

.

The stars who were created by words

are circling over this house

formed of calcium, of blood

.

this house

in danger of being torn apart

by stones of fear.

.

If these words can do anything

if these songs can do anything

I say bless this house

with stars.

.

Transfix us with love.

There may be no other artist who has sustained and inspired me as much as this woman. 

http://joyharjo.blogspot.com/

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Thought for the day, thanks to the beautiful and ethereal Sarah Kellogg, who floated the strains of this song to me from somewhere up above.

"Somebody to Love" by Valerie June

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Hokusai, 1814. "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife." So happy to find an octopus relevant work of art by one of my favorite artists! Really trips me out that Hokusai was making art like this in the early 1800s! Found this thanks to this article: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/feb/12/top-ten-sexiest-works-of-art-ever

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LADYFRIEND, by LADYFRIEND

Dru Zucchino just released this short album with his band Ladyfriend. Mixed by Jared Paul in Brooklyn. So proud of these good friends and really really enjoying it!

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Some photos that I took just walking around my yard today... living up a mountain is so beautiful!

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http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/octopus-garden-nc-a-project-with-f-i-g-farm/x/6158660

I need your help to cover the start of season costs for my new sustainable farm in Valle Crucis! I appreciate all donations, nothing is too small!