Why Breadcrumbs?

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

-- David Wagoner, "Lost"

I am here to let it find me. To listen, with you.

That is enough, or should be, but I am not always as strong as my intentions.

So I carry breadcrumbs in my pocket, just in case. I look for more, just in case.

I share, just in case. Because someone else is always looking, too.

Wake, make coffee. Open notebook. If the familiar bogeyman shows up,

growling that there’s “Nothing” to offer, call the monster out, and offer anyway.

Try memory. Try looking. Try a walk. Try a photograph, a work of art. An old story.

Try typing in today’s date. Notice what happened on this day. Notice how you can, 

if you want, see flickers of all of history in a given day. Blake’s eternity in an hour.

Gather crumbs: historical events, feast days, holidays you didn’t know about. Who

was born, who died. Who did both and then was listed here before you ever knew

them. Follow the breadcrumbs they left for you. Trust that they are there. Make 

notes of what you find. Not forever, just for a few minutes: 5, 15, 30. The point

is not to get a clear answer, a complete picture, but to remember how incomplete

the picture is, to embrace the process once again, of discovery, of questions,

to notice the stirrings of wonder. To leave crumbs behind, for the next traveler.

If an historical figure is involved, you may converse with them. Arrive not

at an end, but some beginning. Or a natural pause. Share the conversation

not like a lecture but like dancing in an open field. No explanation needed.

Go about the rest of the day, noticing how you are changed in a small

but meaningful way, from that small dance in that open space, how doing

so, reminds you of something vital, something about this wild, single life

that the machine would train you to forget. Be grateful for the change.

Repeat. 

This is all. A simple act of faith, connection, communion. Essential in

the unknowingness of it because the point is to be reminded back

to the mystery.

We are here to build the spaces that let us live inside it. We are 

here to welcome others to come in. To say, Here. Look. This

is where we are. In the presence of a powerful stranger. 

This is me, bowing to you, in this strange space. 

I see you. I honor you. Let’s begin. 

Image: "Ladder in the Woods" by Claudia Dea on flickr under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.