Sturdy, Sage

I leaned over the rail of the cabin's second story. The ground below was covered in pine needles, like dull brown grass.  The pines towered over the other trees, sprawled out like sentries. The needles fell from their great height, hitting the ground with a sharp whisper. The terrain fell sharply, the cabins built into the side of those steep slopes, defying gravity. 

I gazed ahead.

A leaf fell from above, but fell so slowly, flipping and turning so often in its descent, I thought it would never reach the ground. I never saw a leaf fall so slowly, so elegantly. I would have had time to run down the stairs and across the yard to catch it, to prevent it from touching the earth at all. But I didn't. 

Of course, it was met with the same ending as all the other, inelegant leaves: the fast-falling, the pine needles, the colorful or brown, large or small. They all ended up at the same place, didn't they? On the ground. To be crushed beneath a careless footfall, to be trampled by an anonymous tread. Yet the trees stand proudly, undeterred by the slow and gradual loss of their foliage, their grandeur. They accept the change of time and the turning of the season. They accept loss like hoary-headed philosophers, sturdy and sage. 

I remind myself, then, to gaze not at the leaf, but at the tree. 

Patience

Over time, a great deal of time, her pain gave way to beauty. Her suffering was transformed through tears and the most severe humility to a quietness, an almost imperceptible peace, discerned only by those who knew where to look for it, and knew how to value it. 

She learned to whisper her light into the world, even as it was a speck of light on a black page, or one in a billion stars which nobody ever knew to single out and never got around to naming. She learned to whisper it anyway, a gentle fierceness emerging, certain only that it must be done because it was the right thing to do. 

Over time, like water that travels down a great many pebbles in a stream and journeys slowly over rock and around bend, leaving tender footprints in its wake, her pain did one day become something, something of value to her, and something which no other circumstance would ever be able to take away. She became wise and strong, though she would never suspect either quality to be her own, by virtue of her wisdom, for true wisdom is by its very nature humble. 

All these things took place over time, in and out of seasons, borne of a great deal of suffering and only after countless boring days and weeks which felt futile, wretched, and even entirely wasteful. They took place after interminable seasons of obscurity, loneliness, self-doubt, and confusion. After all, a ship which finds its dock is in no way assumed to have traversed entirely placid seas. Though her journey was stormy, her compass proved true in the end. And it was a beautiful homecoming, indeed.

We Don't Have to Talk About It

 We don't have to carry it, 

that bulk elephant weight up high

over our heads, screaming urgency.

We don't have to hold it, painted red

all day; cram it into every nook

and cranny of our very existence.

We can just stop and breathe

for a sacred moment; let it be.

Resist the resistance and rest in silence 

for now. See trees' stippled leaves

against blue sky, clean after rain,

and hear the birdsong far above our sorrows.

Faith Remembered

 

I tried the water 

of bone-cold intellectualism

that promised a higher elixir, a better view;

but tasted only vomit, 

the flavor profile of recycled ideas and half-truths.

So I waited for sun to come back again,

to stream a dance of movement

back into the window of my soul, 

to feel the strength I had forgotten.

And found that it was even better than I remembered.

Novel Updates and a Very Cold Picture for a Hot Day in Austin, Texas

Hello there!

 I have been very hard at work in the last year, crafting not one but two new novels. 

The first one is a sequel to Wolves and Men. Yes! I had originally told myself that there would never be a sequel, but I stand corrected. My manuscript is edit-ready. And the third and final novel to the series is already in the works. 

I am very excited to share the continued story of my characters! 

The sequel mostly focuses on new characters, interwoven with main characters from Wolves and Men. It also revolves around the fictional Willow's Bend wildlife refuge in southeastern Oklahoma's Ouachita mountains. You are going to love it! 

I also have been deeply immersed in the work of getting Wolves and Men back in distribution. As much as I passionately love writing, I passionately despise the minute details of the business side of things. I also deeply resent the negative aspects of social media (don't we all?) and am continuing to wrestle with the problem of how to best share my work with readers, without violating my conscience by encouraging use of something which contains extremely deceptive and harmful side-effects. It may sound as though I'm overreacting, discussing something as common as a microwave as if it were an illegal substance. What else can I disparage? The television? Amazon? Hip-hop? Corn syrup? Well, not today, anyway. 

As mentioned in The Social Dilemma documentary, there are two topics people mention in terms of "using": drugs and social media. I have not used social media in quite a long time, but am aware that the majority of people in fact rely on it as part of the very fabric of their everyday lives. It is deemed absolutely essential to business as well. What was unimaginable to Jane Austen is crucial to today's writers. Perhaps this is so! 

If you have a chance to watch the documentary mentioned above, I highly recommend it. 

Recent Reads: 

The Illumined Heart by Frederica Matthews-Green

Come, Let Us Worship: A Practical Guide to the Divine Liturgy by Patrick B. O'Grady

Currently Reading: 

Know the Faith by Michael Shanbour

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Aggressively Happy by Joy Marie Clarkson

What are you reading this week? 

What books have you recently read that you are just dying to share with someone else? 

Leave a comment below! 

Blessings,

Natasha Wittman

An Unexpected Ending

The End

did not come 

with a big bang, 

a loud clanging, or alarms sounding. 

It did not come with exclamations,

was not followed by echoes of indignation. 

The End 

did not come 

with tornadic force

did not take 

a dramatic course. 

It did not fill you up with rage;

you did not cry out, react or engage

in theatrics as you might have expected. 

It came quietly and slowly,

was punctuated only with two last cups

of coffee touching, like two purring cats,

with quiet murmurings of mutual understanding, 

with long pauses and silent looks held too long. 

It came like the very slow dwindling

of a favorite sad song. 

And then it was over,

and the two cups were one again;

not a multiplication, but subtraction and division.

And it was quiet.

And it was (almost, nearly) okay.

And it was very simply, just

The End. 

Good Cry

Don't be

afraid

to have a life emergency

to live your life with urgency

to be 

big

for yourself

to be love, uninterrupted

to have it on authority

that your light is 

always in the majority, uncontested. 

No, don't

daughter, don't be

afraid.

But if you are,

then go ahead,

and have yourself,

for yourself,

a really good,

good cry. 

Ex Pedite

I freed myself from the footpath:

the old neural pathways remembered,

they had to be interrupted;

new paths formed, 

clearing back the old brush and bracken,

the entanglements perpetually beckoning.

I freed myself but found

that the path was a traffic loop,

the signs all there.

And the breaking away,

the bracken brushed away,

was a practice not unlike 

a new kind of breathing.