I have a pair of Levis that tore in the crotch a week ago.

And now I know that I am not alone.



Mary Townsend:

[W]e are continually consenting to live in a smaller metaphysical universe, via a smaller stream of memory and sense. Why? Because it is easier, the alternative seems scary, and we’ve forgotten the difference. At times the phone has the imagined glamor of a cigarette we pick up to avoid the awkwardness of other people, and also, we not so secretly despair of recovering, thinking perhaps that alas, our brains are gone forever. To put this another way, I think we have a cow problem.


“I told them, ‘The bells don’t belong to the Maréchal, they belong to God. We ring them for God; otherwise not.’”


Vive la résistance ironique et paresseuse!


Prayer as dependence and duty and responsible freedom on a demanding human journey…


It’s therapeutic [splitting logs]. And it’s not a very complex job. Routine, really, but not boring. So many things that happen in our everyday lives bother us and cloud our day. Often, if I’ve been to a meeting and gotten worked up about something or other, I might go around thinking of all the things I should have said. But then, when I’m standing by the chopping block, I don’t think about any of it anymore. My mind is never so pleasantly empty as it is when I’m chopping wood.

  —Arne Fjeld, a “small farmer”
   in Nordskogbygda, Norway


Harvest moon peaking in and out of the clouds last night. We attempted a picnic dinner to enjoy it, to some success. I’m really not sad that pictures didn’t do justice to what what we could see; that’s as it should be.


“Instead, I keep a coward’s silence.”


Woodstove Ethics