{"id":994,"date":"2012-01-25T23:23:33","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T03:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/?p=994"},"modified":"2012-01-26T20:24:09","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T00:24:09","slug":"994","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/2012\/01\/25\/994\/","title":{"rendered":"Blowing in the Wind"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here I am. Am I? No I\u2019m not. Cold, I should have worn more than a sweater before I came out here. Sun. Warm. This is nice, I could get used to this. The ground is damp and soft. Robust as this rock I am sitting on. Breathe. Wind. Focus. Silence. A perfect silence. Finally alone in my own head. To break this would be criminal. A bird chirps. One of the most beautiful sounds uttered. Willed into existence. We are not so unalike. There are a few resilient blades of grass present here and there. Grass overwhelms the landscape. I look for the bird. Close your eyes and see it. Ah, there he is. I do not see the grass; I do not worry about the grass. Grass can take care of grass\u2019s self. Grass is grass. All I care about is the bird, and he is right there. He looks like a beautiful wave of sound, pleasantly chirping. Moves, and becomes softer. I cannot see the bird. Can he take care of himself? Can I take care of myself? I came here freely on my will. Surely that counts for something. Did I leave the light on? The bird is back, but he doesn\u2019t present himself. He\u2019s hiding behind the grass, which clothes the soil. Are these my shoes? I am soil. Clay, rather. Made up of the same things. Carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen. Phosphorus. Just a bunch of organic matter, that\u2019s all we are. What is soul? This grass clothes me; get off my lawn, bird. I am now breathing manually. A tally, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I am lost and lost count. The sun pierces a hole in a cloud and I gain energy. Fucking Kreb\u2019s cycle, if only you were closer to your cousin Calvin I could be nourished by the sun as well. I am nourished by the sun. I don\u2019t know where I am, and everything around me becomes nothing; nothing becomes everything. Fears and apprehensions melting. Grass can take care of grass\u2019s self. Are my eyes still closed? The wind flecks my skin, imbedding in my face with more microscopic me. Oh, hello there birdie, I had not seen you appear so suddenly! I am lost, but surround me are all those who are lost, and I am found. Here I am. Lest I get swept up aga-<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Spend some time with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TWcyIpul8OE\">this<\/a> song. It&#8217;s really pretty beautiful. We often spend so much of our time looking at individual issues that we miss the forest for the trees. Step back from a\u00a0self-centered\u00a0view, breath, and see for miles, miles, miles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here I am. Am I? No I\u2019m not. Cold, I should have worn more than a sweater before I came out here. Sun. Warm. This is nice, I could get used to this. The ground is damp and soft. Robust &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/2012\/01\/25\/994\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1643,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6246],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflection-point"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1643"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}