Sense and the Shadows

The possibility of dissolving- sweetly blending, my heart with the surrounding dark energy. For a moment, but I am distracted by a burnished crescent whose presence is magnified by the darkness.

Moon feels strange tonight. A honey gold moon and radiant. Yet, not fluid. Moon is sharp, made more so to me because of her scarcity power in tonight's sky. The night quickens my sense of illumination- first the heaven glows, then a fire, and then streets of buzzing lampposts. For tonight, the city pollution steals star beams, so Moon walks the air above, bereft her dancing sisters.

Slowly, I sense a rounded shadow pinned by her two points. Eclipse came to mind, yet not quite. A beautiful whole emerges in the shadow-land.

Sylvan Solidarity

My friend Patrick has been organizing the Environmental Alliance to pick up trash at the Jewel Moore Nature Reserve. Today, a small group of us picked up plastic bags, old pencils, and junk food wrappers to clean up a place that we respected as a haven for animals and people on campus. Patrick pointed out a sumac tree, which he claimed would produce berries in August that he could not wait to brew into a lemonade tea. The nature reserve has provided me many hours of solitude, a place to read, and to walk with friends. Oh, how I love walking through the path on a moonlit night. I wrote my first published story there, and climbed one of its pines during my first week dating with Wayne Robin. During my freshman year, I blackened the leaves in its paths as I shared angst with a mentor about about new and terrifying ideas that had expanded the wild order in my mind. I am thankful for the Honors College Group that is working to make this small wild land, which is special to so many, a permanent part of the UCA campus. I want to encourage everyone to come to the Bear Hug for Nature next Thursday at x-period for a demonstration of solidarity on our campus. We will create a powerful voice for the special trees, prairie grasses, sumac, and birds that live in this corner of the Natural State. Treehuggers, it’s time to bear hug and never let the Nature Reserve go.

Shared Night

The perfect cool air of the night defied the regulating dorm box buttons. So I fled the dorm to watch the breeze in the leaves and laugh at the bubble-gum pink and tang orange tulips planted by UCA maintenance in dirty red-tinctured mulch. A copy of Wordsworth’s The Excursion and Michael Pollan’s Second Nature were my evening companions, the first being part of my thesis research and the second, an indulgence for the last weeks of the term. It seemed a more appropriate diversion than my former facebook days, for my excitement was clicked by the universal refresh of spring. I settled in the student center courtyard and after reading for an hour or so a boy walked up to me, and asked, “What are you reading?”

“ A book by Michael Pollan called Second Nature.”

“What is it about”

“Oh, about gardening and its relationship with nature.”

“ I just wanted to ask. I saw you sitting out here at night, and guessed that you were reading something about nature. I was right.”

He smiled. Without another word, he turned and walked across the courtyard towards the library. I am not sure what he meant by the encounter, nor can I quite assess its affect on me, other than a gentle confusion. His voice kind, almost jolly. I wonder if he too sought the fresh air that winds and dances in the spaces between halls and dorms, blowing dogwood petals over the pavement.

Pebble Wrestle - Congrats Wayne Robin

Here is a link a video of the Pebble Wrestle, a bouldering competition that Wayne Robin and I enjoyed with many of our friends in March. Wayne loves the outdoors, and finds climbing to be his sport of choice. Rock climbing is his passion. Crimping on rock challenges Wayne as an athlete, builds his critical thinking, and connects him with a unique community of people. In the context of pragmatic philosophy and supported by the opinions of John Dewey, Wayne compares climbing to an art form of “experience.” The connection with the rock demands the immediacy of experience. A climber must sense and judge the nature of the rock with both the sense of touch and sight, should constantly asses of the current states of the body so that breathing and rests are utilized with optimal precision, and apply mental creativity and boldness of the mind to work through and commit to cruxes. Homeostasis between mind, body, and environment is as crucial as strength to make it to the top of a climb. Not to mention, if luck will be a lady tonight.
For Wayne and me, climbing exercises the virtues of self-improvement and control, connects us to nature and other people, and is a healthy, recreational activity. Albeit it is a strenuous activity… the cramped shoes, tired and achy bodies, finicky weather, intense fear involved in all adventure sports, and dehydration can make us at times, irascible at best. Yet, climbing is something we look forward to even as our skin is repairing from the last day on the ropes. “I’ll give you a catch” is the common phrase a person gives to a climber seeking a belayer, and it requires the service of their attention to protect the safety of the climber. As a couple, rock climbing definitely builds our trust in one another.

Congrats Wayne Robin for winning your division in the competition! I am proud of your climbing success, but I thank you for your thoughtful approach to our passion.

Tonight, I am Holed Up in those Peanutt Butter Summers

I miss the sultry summer weekends when the Pitts clan would load the car with peanut butter and wind an hour through the hills to Gunners Pool or Blanchard springs. It was so nice to cool our heals for a few days along the creek.. The long weekends were full of memorable events that would be lovingly retold at campfires in the years to come and bring good, warm laughter after the chill of more ghostly tales.

One such story occurred when my sister Anna’s pigtails were only tiny solitary curls that threatened to wisp away from their bands. With a certified national park junior ranger badge pinned on her fanny pack, she was eager to discover the woods around her, especially the critters. Overhearing a conversation between my Aunt and Uncle Ricky, she attempted to add a new natural curiosity, asking, “What is a hillbilly?” Ricky, twisted his beard between his freckled fingers, plopped forward on his coveralls, and said, “Well, Hillbillies…they have lawng, shaggy hair and are reeeeal dirty. Make their home deep in the woods, holed up away from people. They don’t wear shoes; sometimes they spit. Yes, hillbillies, they are loud, and boy, can they whoop and holler! “Anna’s eyes mooned inwardly for a moment, then she replied, “Do they live in a hole or a cave? Do they hibernate?”

Often during these weekend nights, the call of my uncle’s lured other camper’s from the safety of their own hearth to join the community of our fire. They would tap their feet and talk about days how these days spent sure are fine. On this particular occasion, a rowdy gaggle of college students had escaped into the woods for a taste of wildness in the moon light. The fiddles had just had just twiddled the last strains the last notes of “Buffalo Waltz” and had leapt into a livelier tune when the visitors came. A red-eyed girl and her boyfriend stumbled to the fire, the red plastic cup in the girl’s hand sloshing as she conducted the air with the grand purpose of her arm. She smiled, and said, “You won’t mind if we listen to the music for a bit?” Not waiting for a reply, she tried to jam her cup into her boyfriend’s hand, which jostled the bottle already palmed. To our surprise she began a jig. She kicked her legs and brandished her arms in wild and stormy waves, blowing out an occasional, “whoopee!!!” At one point she chortled and made to leap over the fire, but was saved from her ritualized when the boy snagged her shirt with the finger tips that could be spared from their holds on the bears. My uncle ended the song quicker than usual, and after it was completed my Dad, thanked the pair for the pleasure of their company and politely hinted that it was time for the children to be put to bed. The girl babbled loudly as they stumbled into darkness, and my family discussed how family campgrounds were inappropriate places for these wild revels. My step mom, hugged the kids close, her tight lips suppressing the chagrin that her babies had witnessed these worldly and reckless ways. Anna, quiet until now, tugged on Dad’s sleeve. “Were those….. hillbillies?”

Artwork of Warning

I remember vividly snagging Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 from the school library.
That night I pulled out the my Christmas stocking flashlight to illuminate the cave under my quilt, confident that if my Dad came to check on me that my light could be extinguished before he discovered I was reading past my bed time. My eyes reddened with sleep as the horror of the book numbed my raw nerves; burning fires consumed libraries in my dreams that jolted me awake from between the pages. It was a powerful, and I hated it. Terrible, terrible book. The reading was a vital lesson in my experience of literature, for it was my first experience with reading and then feeling the power of an artwork of warning. It affected me like the Shakespeare’s character of Aaron in Titus Andronicus when he places corpses on their friend’s doorsteps, carving in their flesh to never forget. Perhaps this is overly dramatic, but it led me to a similar question what vile hole of the imagination this book came from? It has been many years since I read the book but I now care for it deeply, because it respects the life imbued in literature by warning of the dullness and chaos that fester when people lose touch with the voices of meaning. Literature is valuable for myriad reasons, and books that are artworks of warning are vital to our humanity because they make us feel the importance of our virtues, values, and very souls.

Recently I learned that the word nigger has been taken out of a version Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Fin. Not only does this desecrate the author’s workmanship and deny the historical dialect, it says disturbing things about our society. Nigger is a powerful word that causes a reaction. If we censor books or ban books, then we are well on our way to burning libraries as well. Attempting to burn words we despise makes our aversions into ghosts that will not leave our dreams. I would rather read powerful words that give me something to reflect on, confront face to face, and improve. Why are we so afraid of hearing our fears voiced aloud? Artworks of warning are powerful because they awaken our feelings, inspiring action to preserve or create something good. Fear leads us to beauty and to love.


“I grew up fostered alike by beauty and by fear.” – William Wordsworth

Dirt Sticks with You

Spring and Spring Break twirled my steps with the breeze, leaping into the first day of break to feel the air and sun before plopping down into rich dirt for a day enjoyed gardening. Norb had invited me to join him at his house for prized hours of working in the dirt and discussing mysteries of life and living. His garden is a beautiful place in which to be. Rather wild. Flowers and vegetables and trees are in full bloom, the roots of several nestling colorful stones collected from creek beds and various states. Garden tools peep from the sheds like old friends. One of my favorite parts about gardening with Norb is his wonder of the soil. After aerating the soil with a shovel to prep the bed, he paused and gazed fondly at the dirt for a bit, saying, “Isn’t just beautiful.” Indeed, the earth was loamy and delicious as coffee grounds. An egg shell peeped from the dirt every now then- a testament to good compost.

“Norb, how long have you been nurturing this soil?”

“For ten years now. When I moved from my earth house I had piles and piles of dirt. And when we moved, I told them that I was taking it with me.”

The earth was so precious to him that he could not leave it behind. In my Environmental Anthropology class that soil is alive. There are thousands of living organisms in just a handful of soil! Once you begin gardening, how can it not be treated with reverence and awe?

Later in the day, I drove to Little Rock and joined Wayne for another gardening session at Little Rock urban farms. We worked on inoculating shiitake mushrooms logs, drilling holes and hammering in fungi spawn that would, in time, produce piles of delectable gourmet mushrooms. Seeing how happy Wayne was learning and working at the farm confirmed for me that even though things has been a dulling, anxious busy lately, we will have calmer days and are learning to balance the more tempestuous ones.

However, the joys of gardening still held surprises for the day. Melissa, my stepmom, called to tell me about Nana’s new kittens. Eventually, we began talking about spring planting in the first Pitts’ family garden. She said that Anna had fallen in love with the garden, and while Dad was whisked away on his business trip, she tended the garden without being asked, frequently sneaking away to water the budding seedlings. Love of the soil is relatively new to me, but it is becoming a growing part of my life and the experience of those I love. It is a present retreat that offers a time of peace and reflection, but it is also a learning experience that is filled with the hope of a meaningful lifestyle that enlivens my life with meaning. Still more wonderful, it is twining it roots into my home, becoming a shared experience with my family and partner Wayne.

I still have much to work on and work through, but as Dr. Anderson says, “This too shall pass.”

Thankfully, I will carry my dirt with me.