The Valley, the Sparks, and the Woodpile

The Open Valley

This is a valley — an open space, and also a closed one. Stand inside it and you can hear me call out; stand outside and you hear nothing at all. Yet nothing bars the way in. Anyone can walk into the valley and listen to me hum, and anyone can look around, find it all beneath them, and turn and leave. Either way, this is my valley. Everything here is in my hands — how each blade of grass and every tree is ordered, how it is shown — all of it an extension of my will, and not something shaped by the pull and jostle of distant minds.

Sparks and the Woodpile

Too many thoughts come on the wind and leave on the wind. I want to catch the sparks in it, and set them in the woodpile before the instant burns out. Some sparks are worth turning over; some are scraps. In the woodpile they can run wild, burn through everything there, crackle, throw off more sparks — and the sparks become new wood.

Stacking

Welcome to my valley. I hope you catch a spark here — one that lights your own woodpile, or becomes a branch in it. I will stack it slowly, laying in limbs of every shape and size and thickness, and slowly, one day, it will burn bright enough to send sparks drifting out of the valley.