Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment

if you have been domesticated, go outside to cleanse the claustrophobia. breathe in a history of your wild life alone. befriending an animal is not about approach. remember when you bowed to the wary respect of deer who didn’t bound away. recollect that they remained as you now do: observable and unadorned, quiet and patient. speak only when necessary, then in a whisper to rival wind through tall grass, your words a rustle. recall the peace of your outdoor home, of walking softly across the carpets of earth, the sticky pine and shaggy greens, rocks smooth, and jagged. the caterpillars that fall from trees to whom you offered fruit, their tiny orifices greedy at the sharing of sugar. spiders taking to your bed in cold comfort, their silk stopping mosquitoes. indoors your perspective changes yet the rules remain. remember the hard-won lessons of your earthly freedom: bow. but do not show your belly. when your yearning is heavy, the innocence of earth cradles you. here is your lesson again. look up in greeting toward the canopy that comforts, keep her all in mind: leaves, needles, clouds, stars, squint-inducing blues, heavy greys, raging lightning. there is no ceiling, like there is no spoon: classic, rebellious, true. the “real” world in which you’ve taken to domestication is a poor substitute for the deep honesty of which you’ve been taught, time and again. claustrophobia will come, and you will go outside to breathe in recollection. you will know again, as the earth insists: you’ve never really been alone at all.