Evening in Mo i Rana looking toward the Swedish border
From Spirit Walker, 1993, by Nancy Wood
My most treasured book at home is Hollering Sun by Nancy Wood. It was published as a children’s book, but it is fit for any age. Wood gives words to that I fumble to find visually to describe my emotional state and relationship to nature and society. I’m still processing last summer in Iceland…and this latest road trip through Norway up to Mo i Rana and across back to Sweden through Dajkanvik and was like a symphony on the magnitude of being in church when the choir sings ‘Messiah’ at Christmas–the movements, tempo, notes, and narrative was awesome at every turn of the road. I am so grateful to have seen it and had time to walk through the woods, cliffs, shores besides lakes and sea.
Why look for answers, my child,
Among the people you meet?
Why believe there is fulfillment
In your narrow life of work?
Why sacrifice the gift of loneliness
To fill up the time with diversion?
Look inside every living thing you find.
Feel the energy of rocks and leaves, hummingbirds
and cactus.
Dwell for a moment in a single blade of grass.
Discover the secret of snowflakes.
In these patterns lie harmony, my child.
In harmony, the universe.