In the Field

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.”
Rumi

I have come a long way since writing to you last year. An amazing surprise happened when I last wrote to you. . I saw a sweet and thrumming light surrounding a woman standing on the airport curb. I took her into my car and into my arms. I welcomed her into my home. Then I took her family into my gaze and loved them too. Now eight months later we all live on the remnants of a Finnish farmstead in the patchwork hills above Battle Ground Washington. The islands of the Northern Sound sent me here to find my way on earth and in the arms of love.

This is the continuing story of
how life amazes and challenges the pilgrim soul,
how a dream can manifest in a thousand surprising ways,
how the ocean can become a field of grasses on the edge of the forest,
how an island can become the flanks of a country hill,
how one great love can bless a new love on earth.

For now, the story is set in a little cabin that sits below our home overlooking acres of gold and green. I’m rebuilding this neglected structure and my life. My soul friend died over two years ago. I sold my sacred land in Anacortes. And life goes on. This is about letting the old stories go. This is about a new story of loves woven together. The island land and my soul friend are here too, visible in not only my dreams but also in my beloved’s dreams. Now we make a new dream together in the field of seven houses.

The plan is to post a new missive at least every Friday. I write in the saw dust and dangling wires of a cabin that holds so much potential. I’ll ask you to come in and join me at the table already overlooking the field and woodland. I’ve been lonely for my friends, even as I have isolated myself here. Come in and join me at the table. Watch how the old sea songs rise up through the earth and make a life real again.

Come to my writing desk.
Watch the field sway in the shimmering heat of August.
Listen to the grasses sing about the winter rains that made everything possible.
Then let’s step through torn screen door together, open the groaning steel gate and walk in the swaying gold, in a new season.

I’ll see you in the field.

Rick