I absolutely love your treasures, David. The wealth of a moment captured in time, so much more valuable than any golden bauble. I guess, you could calI me greedy and a horder. But in the end , maybe that is all that we will have left, all that we are. And with that in mind, I think I will head outside on this -6 degree morning, gather a few more treasures for my collection, there is a nice gathering of Eastern bluebirds in the thicket, along with a few Dark-eyed juncos, the ones with the lace trimmed tails, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind sharing . Thanks for reminding me.
Hey, if you’re interested, a have a very large box containing china place settings white with a gold grape vine pattern, enough to serve a fancy meal for a party of 20. No, not mine, my grandmother’s.Seems no one wants those kinds of treasures either. Kids these days. Happy to pack’em up, and send them off, no charge, but you pay shipping.
Keep spilling your bag of wealth into your writing, I‘ll be over here with open hands, ready to catch them.
I love Susie’s heart, and yours. Might want to open a few of those dusty boxes in the back rooms of your archives, I am certain you’ll find more than a few of your treasures . Seems you are stuck with them .
Bless you Lor, I too have a service of porcelain china, inherited from a great-grandmother I barely knew. It sits in stately, dusty silence at the back of the barn waiting to be adored once again... it never will be, these things have lost their charm in this age of minimal everything, including crockery it seems!
And don't even mention all I have collected and hoarded from the hill, the most recent, some bark and moss rescued from a dear fallen soldier whose roots no longer had strength enough to hold him upright — a sad but not unexpected sight this morning... How could I not save just a tiny memory right? X
As do we. Cabinets full of family china, silver tea services never dampened, spoons tarnishing in dark drawers. No one seems to want them.
I offer you a trade, David. My memories of literally soaring with a hawk while flying a sailplane, a lunar eclipse seen from the cockpit of a Piper Cherokee, loons settled on a calm lake in Wisconsin, a hummingbird settling on my hand to feed on sugar water. What say you?
I'll have to liquidate some serious assets to trade for those. How about this. We used to regularly fly hang-gliders off a steep easterly facing slope in the Derbyshire Peak District. The crows got used to us. I think they almost looked forward to us turning up. Eventually they'd get tired of flying alongside and would tuck in all but their wingtips and land on the top surface of our wings. You could hear their feet and see the shadow. Finally one learnt to grip hold of the top rigging wire, lean over the leading edge and wink.
But you have children to pass these things down to, they have no choice, an unwritten agreement of ‘family hood’. They have to take them. Box ‘em up and write their names with a Sharpie, a binding agreement!
Oh, boy, I think we could continue on with this one, like those little treasures we still carry in our pockets, or on a window sill…
Lor I will let you explain all that to Rosie... she is already horrified just by the amount of boxes stored in the barn without even knowing their contents!
Today I picked up a hag stone — as if I needed another... yes, an ongoing story!
Hi Laurie. I too am an ardent weeper :-) I weep when I am sad, sure, but I weep just as often in the presence of great beauty. Glad we wept together for a little while over this piece of sadness.
This hits home. But I have grandchildren, and I plan to take them for walks on the hill behind our house and introduce them so they can have their own memories.
Beautiful writing…instant memory of an iced enamel mug hanging off a rucksack…dipped in a spring…shared teenage drink with my sister who I lost last week. Our world so full of expectations. Thank you David x
Dearest David, I am both honoured and humbled to be mentioned in such high esteem, I send gratitude as I write, you will find it with the ripples of snipe and snatches of woodcock at dusk, I know you are nimble and fast enough of foot to catch them. Thank you.
Oh but you have over estimated my ability to perform miracles, though I have learned much concerning the little ones, those that don't yet know of any hand-held pied piper's magic, can still be lured and delighted by sparkles and glitter, a unicorn or a dragon, a whiskered mouse princess to help sprinkle the magic of language but "the young people, the people we used to call children" they are trickier by far, slippery like eels and as flighty as bumble bees!
You were brave to even consider an attempt at capturing their attention! I applaud you!
PS Decluttering is quite a chore isn't it... this too takes a certain penchant towards performing miracles, one I have never mastered — not even close!
Could you put your riches in a book, do you think, David? Then I could carry it about and read snatches to people on buses and trains and in queues. Think of the difference it would make. I do realise you are busy and this is an outrageous request but a very deep desire made me ask. It wasn't just me guv'!
And then you mentioned the wonderful Susie Mawhinney and I went to look for her and found myself on the substack home page and I've only just come back. Looking about now, a lot of people seem older than when I last saw them.
Hi Barbara. Ha! You've been to Susie's Tír na nÓg. Some people never come back :-) Funnily enough, I have started working in earnest on a book. But it is attempting to set the pieces I write here into a bigger structure and it may take a little while. Not years, but certainly some months. I hope you can wait for a bit :-)
Ah, such priceless riches. Your tales of those riches are treasures themselves and what generosity you have with them, on here. They are always received with heartfelt gratitude🙏
Visceral connection of your breathing, tones, rhythms and pauses, enable vivid sensations through either our reading or listening. Thank you.
Rare to find refining naturalness of crafting in words, then to liberate as if freeing doves to the dawn. Crystalline awareness and care whilst accomplishing, brings us gifts! 🕊
Thank you, Susan, for taking such care in crafting a response. I do care for the language, as if it were itself a living, breathing partner in the process.
So gorgeous. We all have such treasures as these, tucked away. Waiting for the right moment to come out? The right situation? I refuse to believe they’re for us alone. They come out somehow, in writing or stories or casual conversation or pictures or…. You never know what the jackdaws will pick up from what you fling out there. Thank you for making me think about these treasures differently.
Hi Lise. Thank you for tucking the piece into your bag and taking it onwards on its journey :-) It is always such a pleasure to know people are picking some lines up, turning them around in their hands and finding new aspect of them that I never thought of :-)
I’m in awe of this piece, actually. And your reply takes me to a story I love to tell to kids (I tell in a couple of elementary schools in Denver): The Story Bag. About a young prince who loves stories, collects them, puts them in his bag, shares them as he goes about the land. But as he gets older he develops other interests, and eventually hangs the bag full of stories on a hook in a closet and forgets about them. After awhile, the stories get angry and they plot revenge, which is foiled and all is well at the end. I love this story, because I always encourage the kids to take our stories and tell them to their friends and families, or gosh, who knows what could happen! It’s such a joy when they tell me that they’ve actually done that. Your piece opens up a richness and a depth, and I’m wondering where it will take me. Again, thanks.
David, are you some kind of mad saint to contemplate giving away such treasures? I never would; not one dewy summer morning or shy deer glance would I ever part with. Be honest now, by writing of them here so lovingly (especially the grayling fairy ladies) you both give and keep (treasure) them at the same time, much to the satisfaction of everyone. xo
Ha! Mad for sure. Saint has never been said. Perhaps you have just chanced on a new theory of economics - we can double GDP at a stroke by giving away and keeping at the same time :-)
"The people we used to call children" - this insidious tragedy. All we can do is what we do, daily choosing beauty over entrapment. Somehow, somewhere, sometime, I must believe it will make a difference. I think we have accounts at the same bank.
Hi Darkhorse. I think you are right - its hard to see how the current weirdness can be stable in anything but the short term. The job does seem to be to preserve sufficient beauty and the capacity for it to be able to re-seed. Or at least, something like that but a bit less grandiose ;-)
I absolutely love your treasures, David. The wealth of a moment captured in time, so much more valuable than any golden bauble. I guess, you could calI me greedy and a horder. But in the end , maybe that is all that we will have left, all that we are. And with that in mind, I think I will head outside on this -6 degree morning, gather a few more treasures for my collection, there is a nice gathering of Eastern bluebirds in the thicket, along with a few Dark-eyed juncos, the ones with the lace trimmed tails, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind sharing . Thanks for reminding me.
Hey, if you’re interested, a have a very large box containing china place settings white with a gold grape vine pattern, enough to serve a fancy meal for a party of 20. No, not mine, my grandmother’s.Seems no one wants those kinds of treasures either. Kids these days. Happy to pack’em up, and send them off, no charge, but you pay shipping.
Keep spilling your bag of wealth into your writing, I‘ll be over here with open hands, ready to catch them.
I love Susie’s heart, and yours. Might want to open a few of those dusty boxes in the back rooms of your archives, I am certain you’ll find more than a few of your treasures . Seems you are stuck with them .
Hi Lor. Mmmm. Ceramics. A whole different world of magic. Fire and earth locked in together. Like metallurgy only somehow kinder...
Bless you Lor, I too have a service of porcelain china, inherited from a great-grandmother I barely knew. It sits in stately, dusty silence at the back of the barn waiting to be adored once again... it never will be, these things have lost their charm in this age of minimal everything, including crockery it seems!
And don't even mention all I have collected and hoarded from the hill, the most recent, some bark and moss rescued from a dear fallen soldier whose roots no longer had strength enough to hold him upright — a sad but not unexpected sight this morning... How could I not save just a tiny memory right? X
As do we. Cabinets full of family china, silver tea services never dampened, spoons tarnishing in dark drawers. No one seems to want them.
I offer you a trade, David. My memories of literally soaring with a hawk while flying a sailplane, a lunar eclipse seen from the cockpit of a Piper Cherokee, loons settled on a calm lake in Wisconsin, a hummingbird settling on my hand to feed on sugar water. What say you?
I'll have to liquidate some serious assets to trade for those. How about this. We used to regularly fly hang-gliders off a steep easterly facing slope in the Derbyshire Peak District. The crows got used to us. I think they almost looked forward to us turning up. Eventually they'd get tired of flying alongside and would tuck in all but their wingtips and land on the top surface of our wings. You could hear their feet and see the shadow. Finally one learnt to grip hold of the top rigging wire, lean over the leading edge and wink.
A fair trade, indeed.
But you have children to pass these things down to, they have no choice, an unwritten agreement of ‘family hood’. They have to take them. Box ‘em up and write their names with a Sharpie, a binding agreement!
Oh, boy, I think we could continue on with this one, like those little treasures we still carry in our pockets, or on a window sill…
Yeah, talk to you later 😉
Lor I will let you explain all that to Rosie... she is already horrified just by the amount of boxes stored in the barn without even knowing their contents!
Today I picked up a hag stone — as if I needed another... yes, an ongoing story!
Let me know when, I'll make cookies... 🙃
While I have your attention, what is a hag stone? Perhaps a petrified pellet that an owl yarped ?
It is a stone with a hole right through it… sometimes called an Adder stone too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adder_stone
Once again, you make me weep. May all our hands learn to pray, to hold the rich gifts of this world long enough to be shaped by them.
Hi Laurie. I too am an ardent weeper :-) I weep when I am sad, sure, but I weep just as often in the presence of great beauty. Glad we wept together for a little while over this piece of sadness.
This hits home. But I have grandchildren, and I plan to take them for walks on the hill behind our house and introduce them so they can have their own memories.
That's a lovely image, Amy. Lucky grandchildren, lucky hill :-)
Beautiful writing…instant memory of an iced enamel mug hanging off a rucksack…dipped in a spring…shared teenage drink with my sister who I lost last week. Our world so full of expectations. Thank you David x
Hi again, Freda. Sorry for your loss. Grateful for your shared beautiful memory.
Dearest David, I am both honoured and humbled to be mentioned in such high esteem, I send gratitude as I write, you will find it with the ripples of snipe and snatches of woodcock at dusk, I know you are nimble and fast enough of foot to catch them. Thank you.
Oh but you have over estimated my ability to perform miracles, though I have learned much concerning the little ones, those that don't yet know of any hand-held pied piper's magic, can still be lured and delighted by sparkles and glitter, a unicorn or a dragon, a whiskered mouse princess to help sprinkle the magic of language but "the young people, the people we used to call children" they are trickier by far, slippery like eels and as flighty as bumble bees!
You were brave to even consider an attempt at capturing their attention! I applaud you!
PS Decluttering is quite a chore isn't it... this too takes a certain penchant towards performing miracles, one I have never mastered — not even close!
Hi Susie. Blowing up a storm here and that seems to be doing the decluttering without my intervention. We get what we need, when we need it, eh?
Could you put your riches in a book, do you think, David? Then I could carry it about and read snatches to people on buses and trains and in queues. Think of the difference it would make. I do realise you are busy and this is an outrageous request but a very deep desire made me ask. It wasn't just me guv'!
And then you mentioned the wonderful Susie Mawhinney and I went to look for her and found myself on the substack home page and I've only just come back. Looking about now, a lot of people seem older than when I last saw them.
Hi Barbara. Ha! You've been to Susie's Tír na nÓg. Some people never come back :-) Funnily enough, I have started working in earnest on a book. But it is attempting to set the pieces I write here into a bigger structure and it may take a little while. Not years, but certainly some months. I hope you can wait for a bit :-)
David, I am a happy woman. Willing to wait as long as it takes.
'these old gods' indeed / thanks for that / brilliant / i enjoyed it
Thanks, rohn. Good of you to take the time.
Ah, such priceless riches. Your tales of those riches are treasures themselves and what generosity you have with them, on here. They are always received with heartfelt gratitude🙏
(PS I will do my best to share them onward! 😊)
Hi Ralph. Hope all's well. We both float our best offerings like little boats on the river and wait to see where they come ashore :-)
⛵️🙂
Visceral connection of your breathing, tones, rhythms and pauses, enable vivid sensations through either our reading or listening. Thank you.
Rare to find refining naturalness of crafting in words, then to liberate as if freeing doves to the dawn. Crystalline awareness and care whilst accomplishing, brings us gifts! 🕊
Thank you, Susan, for taking such care in crafting a response. I do care for the language, as if it were itself a living, breathing partner in the process.
this was a much needed delight. thank you!
Hi ann. Thanks for sticking with me - and glad you found a smile between the lines :-)
So gorgeous. We all have such treasures as these, tucked away. Waiting for the right moment to come out? The right situation? I refuse to believe they’re for us alone. They come out somehow, in writing or stories or casual conversation or pictures or…. You never know what the jackdaws will pick up from what you fling out there. Thank you for making me think about these treasures differently.
Hi Lise. Thank you for tucking the piece into your bag and taking it onwards on its journey :-) It is always such a pleasure to know people are picking some lines up, turning them around in their hands and finding new aspect of them that I never thought of :-)
I’m in awe of this piece, actually. And your reply takes me to a story I love to tell to kids (I tell in a couple of elementary schools in Denver): The Story Bag. About a young prince who loves stories, collects them, puts them in his bag, shares them as he goes about the land. But as he gets older he develops other interests, and eventually hangs the bag full of stories on a hook in a closet and forgets about them. After awhile, the stories get angry and they plot revenge, which is foiled and all is well at the end. I love this story, because I always encourage the kids to take our stories and tell them to their friends and families, or gosh, who knows what could happen! It’s such a joy when they tell me that they’ve actually done that. Your piece opens up a richness and a depth, and I’m wondering where it will take me. Again, thanks.
And I should add this for clarity: in the US, elementary school kids are about ages 5 to 11, younger than “the people we used to call children”.
David, are you some kind of mad saint to contemplate giving away such treasures? I never would; not one dewy summer morning or shy deer glance would I ever part with. Be honest now, by writing of them here so lovingly (especially the grayling fairy ladies) you both give and keep (treasure) them at the same time, much to the satisfaction of everyone. xo
Ha! Mad for sure. Saint has never been said. Perhaps you have just chanced on a new theory of economics - we can double GDP at a stroke by giving away and keeping at the same time :-)
I needed this today. Thank you as ever for the beauty of your words.
Like dry crackers in the light of your juicy nutritious images - but you're always welcome :-)
Ha ha! I don’t think so! But thank you 🙏
One of the most original, authentic pieces I've seen! Please imagine MORE!
Hi Jill. Thanks. Trying to walk the tightrope between authentic and just irritatingly weird. Not so easy if you're me ;-)
You’ve got it!
Wonderful treasures!
You guys. A smile and a wave and I'm ready to set off again :-)
😃 👋 💛
"The people we used to call children" - this insidious tragedy. All we can do is what we do, daily choosing beauty over entrapment. Somehow, somewhere, sometime, I must believe it will make a difference. I think we have accounts at the same bank.
Hi Darkhorse. I think you are right - its hard to see how the current weirdness can be stable in anything but the short term. The job does seem to be to preserve sufficient beauty and the capacity for it to be able to re-seed. Or at least, something like that but a bit less grandiose ;-)