I will walk home alone with the deep alone

A friend says that I am a gregarious hermit.  I suppose Volatire would have quipped that I am neither gregarious nor a hermit ;)

My father joked more than a couple of times that I have an ashram in Oregon from where I engage in my philosophical rambling.  I stay away from that description only because of the horror stories of a few years ago when a bearded philosopher from India set up an ashram here in Oregon.

But, there are times when I wonder whether it is indeed a hermit existence. There is, I suppose, at least a wee bit of truth in the hermit and ashram descriptions. I am, indeed, amazed by the mystery of it all.  Be it the river or the goslings or Ukraine or the computer, my instincts lead me to think about all of them.

A long time ago, back in my teenage years, I remember reading in one of Bernard Shaw's writings that most people do not think anymore--so much so that if one thinks even for five minutes, then that person is considered a philosopher.  Thus, a philosopher I am.

And then when I blog about a poem like this one, well, I can't really run away from the hermit in an ashram identity, can I?

I'm Going to Start Living Like a Mystic
By Edward Hirsch

Today I am pulling on a green wool sweater 
and walking across the park in a dusky snowfall. 

The trees stand like twenty-seven prophets in a field, 
each a station in a pilgrimage—silent, pondering. 

Blue flakes of light falling across their bodies 
are the ciphers of a secret, an occultation. 

I will examine their leaves as pages in a text 
and consider the bookish pigeons, students of winter. 

I will kneel on the track of a vanquished squirrel 
and stare into a blank pond for the figure of Sophia. 

I shall begin scouring the sky for signs 
as if my whole future were constellated upon it. 

I will walk home alone with the deep alone, 
a disciple of shadows, in praise of the mysteries.

It is a fascinatingly mysterious world. Enjoy it.

Visit with me in my ashram--typical of the modern day conditions, there is an entrance fee though ;)