"Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity" -David Whyte

I've not been saying much lately.
I'm in a new place, and I'm practicing my listening.
How can I say true things without first listening?

I joked to a friend the other day that I could write multitudes more words about Ox Bow park than Olympic National Park, though it's not even one one-thousandth the size. That comes as no surprise to anyone who's ever truly known some place or thing or person. Familiarity doesn't expose beauty—I think it illuminates it. Familiarity sees where a place shines, it doesn't shine a light on.

I've been at a loss for words in this new place to me. I'm slowly learning some of its spirit.

Olympic is a place where the intimate continuum between life and death is easily seen. In death, old life enriches life emergent.

The Olympic Peninsula, in its dizzying abundance of biomass and water, evades simplification. It's hard to pick out habit, routine, pattern, or simplicity out of the wholeness of it all.

I'll be sharing more soon. We had a great snow today, and the same places that have slowly familiarizing themselves to me took on a brand new tone today.